Giovanni Gasparro, a popular artist in Italy, has posted images of a painting of a Jewish ritual murder on his Facebook page. The title of the painting, which appears to have been produced by Gasparro during the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, is “The Martyrdom of Saint Simon of Trent, For Jewish Ritual Murder.” Images of this painting can be found on Gasparro’s Facebook page. The painting is apparently in a private collection. Gasparro has been commissioned by Catholic officials in Italy to adorn their basilicas and churches with his work.

The painting (which CAMERA will not show) depicts numerous hook-nosed Jews of varying ages looking on in glee as one of their fellows prepares to plunge a dagger into the baby’s chest. Another hook-nosed Jew holds a silver chalice in place, ready to catch the blood from the ritual murder. It is a truly horrific painting clearly intended to reawaken age-old hostilities toward the Jewish people.

CAMERA has contacted the artist himself via email asking why he would post such a horrific image during a time of plague. CAMERA has also contacted the Papal Nuncio in Washington, D.C. asking that he alert the proper officials in the Vatican about this outrage.

The video is a bit fuzzy and grainy.

But the footage of birthday party for Shadi Farar, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who spent three years in an Israeli jail on charges of intent to murder, indicates that at least one member of a so-called peacemaking organization was present. The birthday party took place in Hebron late last year.

At about four and a half minutes into the video, there’s a few frames’ worth of someone wearing a vest seems to be one of the vests worn by activists associated with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine Israel or EAPPI. This organization, which is part of the World Council of Churches, has a long-history of promoting anti-Israel propaganda and affiliating with anti-normalization extremists in the West Bank.

Instead of working to promote peace between Jews and Arabs living in the West Bank, EAPPI works to undermine the prospects of peace between the two communities.

If it weren’t for EAPPI’s history of demonizing Israel and violating Israeli law (more about that here and here), we would be obligated to give the organization the benefit of doubt. There would simply no way that a responsible Christian peacemaker would visit a birthday party promoted on Facebook by Younes Arar, who leads an organization called, “Palestinian Human Rights Defenders.”

To get a sense of the organization’s agenda, take a look at its logo, which can be seen on its Facebook page:

There’s a lot of blood in that logo, which seems to indicate that the organization’s underlying agenda is not a peaceful one. And then there’s the slogan: “Dismantle the Ghetto, Get the Settlers Out of Hebron.”

The last time someone worked to get Jews out of Hebron was in 1929, when Palestinian terrorists incited by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, murdered 69 Jews. The Grand Mufti would probably love the logo!
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Rev. Carrie Ballenger Smith is a pastor at the Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem. She ministers to the English-speaking congregation that meets at the Lutheran church, which is located in the Old City of Jerusalem. She is also listed as “special assistant to the Bishop” of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land. Her husband is Rev. Dr. Robert O. Smith who used to work for the University of Notre Dame’s Jerusalem Global Gateway before he stepped down from this position in June. (More about him below.)

In a recent discussion on Facebook, one of Ballenger Smith’s friends referred to Israeli soldiers standing guard near Damascus gate in the Old City of Jerusalem as “stormtroopers.” Ballenger Smith’s friend declared, “nothing about Zionist stormtroopers is ‘normal’.”

In response, Ballenger Smith declared “exactly!”

Upon being challenged by an Israeli expert in Christian-Jewish relations, Ballenger Smith backtracked a bit, declaring, “I didn’t use that word but am affirming that nothing about the situation is normal. Should have clarified.”

Here is a screenshot of the Facebook conversation:

It is laudable that Rev. Smith “clarified” her apparent affirmation of a description of Israeli soldiers as “stormtroopers.” It is regrettable that it took a challenge from an expert on Christian-Jewish relations to make it happen. Israeli police officers should be able to protect Jews in their homeland without being called Nazis. But that’s what happened.
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This is a screenshot of a video of a June 18, 2018 meeting in an office of the America’s Center Convention Complex in St. Louis, Missouri. The meeting took place after the person recording the video, Bassem Masri, posted video of himself harassing Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid in the convention center. The man on the far right is Fahed Abu Akel, past moderator of the PCUSA. (Screenshot from www.pscp.tv.)

By now Snapshots readers are familiar with Bassem Masri’s ugly harassment of Palestinian reformer Bassem Eid at the General Assembly (GA) of the Presbyterian Church (USA) currently taking place at the America’s Center Convention Complex in St. Louis, Missouri. (The GA, which will ratify a number of overtures condemning Israel while remaining silent about the misdeeds of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, ends tomorrow.)*

What they don’t know is how a prominent Presbyterian leader, former moderator Fahed Abu Akel, defended Masri’s “right” to stay in the convention center even after abusing Eid, who was an invited guest of Presbyterians for Middle East Peace. Nor do they know that Akel said that the victim of Masri’s abuse, had “lied” to the General Assembly’s Middle East Committee.

Here’s the rundown:
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Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid walks away from an aggressive and hostile “intersectionality” activist Bassem Masri outside the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s General Assembly taking place in St. Louis. (Screenshot from Twitter.)

Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid was harassed and accused of being a “traitor,” a “spy” and a collaborator after criticizing Palestinian elites at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, USA currently being held in St. Louis, Missouri.

These accusations, which, in Palestinian society, could be used to justify violence against Eid, were leveled by Palestinian American activist Bassem Masri, who was attending the proceedings at the invitation of the Israel-Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church, a PCUSA institution with a long history of promoting hostility toward Israel and its Jewish supporters in the United States.

Curiously enough, Masri himself videotaped himself harassing Eid and then posted the videos on Twitter. In the videos, which were posted on Twitter on Monday June 18, 2018, Masri can be heard accusing Eid of betraying the Palestinian people. In one video, Masri calls Eid, “a f—–g collaborator,” a “piece of s—t” and a “sympathizer with the Zionists.” In another video, Masri calls Eid gasus — Arabic for spy. “He speaks on behalf of the Jewish lobby,” Masri said.

These accusations could very well incite people to harm Eid, a regular speaker in the United States, upon his return home. (Eid divides his time between East Jerusalem and Jericho.) “People will watch the video where I am called a traitor. This is a clear call to kill me,” Eid said.

Despite the hostility directed at him by Masri, the videos indicate Eid kept his composure during the confrontations. At one point, Eid asks Masri to stop talking to him. Masri refused.

“I can talk to whomever I want,” Masri says in the video. “Call the police. This is America. I have freedom of speech.” At this point, Eid says, “You are threatening me. You said you are going to kill me.”

In response, Masri calls Eid a liar. “You’re a collaborator with the Israelis. You’re an Arab Zionist.” Moments later, Masri declares “You’re turning your back on your people.”

Eid says that prior to taking the videos, Masri twice threatened to kill him.
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The central problem with Palestinian Christian witness about life in the Holy Land is that its criticism is almost invariably directed at Israel and its supporters in the West. Very little is said about the misdeeds of Palestinian elites even though the decisions they have made have contributed greatly to the continued existence of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The people who are most responsible for Palestinian suffering – Palestinian leaders – are not subjected to the type of prophetic criticism that Christians are called to provide.

This problem is clearly on display at the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference taking place this week in Beit Jala. At this conference, organized by Bethlehem Bible College, there has been very little criticism of the misdeeds of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip at the ongoing Christ at the Checkpoint Conference organized by the Bethlehem Bible College.

There is, however, a huge amount of criticism of Evangelicals in the U.S. for helping President Donald Trump get elected to the White House in the 2016 election. Trump’s election and his decision to move of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is clearly a shock to CATC conference organizers and attendees. One conference organizer, Alex Awad (a Palestinian Christian who now lives in the United States) described Trump’s election as a dark cloud brought about by White Evangelicals who put him into office.

“They helped elect a president who dashed our hopes as Palestinians,” Awad said the first night of the CATC conference which began on Monday. “He brought us a nightmare.” Awad went onto encourage Evangelicals in the audience to increase their efforts to put pressure on Israel to end the occupation and to change American foreign policy in the Middle East.

The irony is palpable. Christians who are not free to speak their mind in Palestinian society and haven’t been able to vote in a presidential election since 2005 are effectively telling Christians in the U.S. how they should have voted in the 2016 election.

To a certain extent, the failure of Christians to speak truth to the powers that be in Palestinian society is understandable because neither the PA nor Hamas tolerate public criticism from anyone, Christian or Muslim, in the areas they control. To confirm just how dictatorial political life is in Palestinian society, in 2017 the PA just imposed laws regarding social media. These laws make criticizing the Palestinian Authority a criminal act.

One report indicates that these new laws “gives the public prosecutor’s office unlimited powers to surveil Palestinian citizens, intercept their online communications, and arrest them for airing their opinions and political views online.” People who are convicted of using the internet to undermine “social harmony” can be sentenced to 15 years hard labor.

Such tyranny in Palestinian society is a huge obstacle to peace in the Holy Land because it allows both the PA and Hamas to put Palestinian young people into harm’s way without being held accountable by their parents or by the young people themselves. Palestinian elites can effectively send young men into violent confrontations with the IDF without any real public debate over whether or not it’s a good idea to do so – all because the people who hold power in Palestinian society will not tolerate the humiliation of being criticized in public.

Polling data indicates that many Palestinians support a two-state solution, but because democratic institutions are non-existent in the West Bank and Gaza, rank-and-file Palestinians have no mechanism to make it happen. All they can do is worry about who will replace the ailing Mahmoud Abbas and hope that the process to find his successor does not descend into civil war. These are not subjects being discussed at the current Christ at the Checkpoint conference even though they are the most crucial issues facing the Palestinian people.

Ironically enough, one institution in Palestinian society where leaders are willing to subject themselves to public criticism is its Evangelical community.
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Michael Brown speaks at the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference on May 29, 2018. (Photo: Dexter Van Zile)

Every two years, the ritual is repeated. The organizers of the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference, a so-called peacemaking conference held every even-numbered year at the Orient Palace Hotel in Beit Jala, invite a Messianic Jew to defend Israel before an audience of Evangelical Christians, some of whom have come to the West Bank to hear and relate stories of Jews behaving badly and then use these stories to feed an unwholesome bitterness toward Israel.

The invitation is given by conference organizers from the Bethlehem Bible College, an Evangelical college in Beit Jala, to demonstrate that they are willing to listen to people who disagree with them. It’s not as if the organizers really want to hear or acknowledge what he has to say, but instead hope to deploy the Messianic Jew as a prop to lend credibility to their anti-Zionist narrative.

It’s an obvious set-up, but the the Messianic Jew, who desperately wants to be taken seriously as a believer in Jesus and as a Jew who loves Israel, says yes. He knows full well other speakers at the conference will do everything they can to counteract his defense of Israel, but the invitee concludes that if he says agree to speak, no one will speak on Israel’s behalf at the conference.

During his talk, the Jewish believer in Jesus acknowledges that the Palestinians are suffering, laments this suffering and then offers an apologia of Israel’s efforts to defend itself, most notably the security barrier and the checkpoint. Everyone applauds his sincerity and for a few moments, expresses sympathy for the Israelis.

But by the time the conference is over, the Messianic Jew’s presence at the Christ at the Checkpoint has been forgotten, or worse, used to remind Evangelicals in attendance that Israel is the sovereign state of the people who have rejected Jesus. The message implicit in the talk is that if only more Jews in Israel accepted Jesus as their messiah, like that guy on stage, the conflict between the Israel and the Palestinians would have ended years ago.

But that’s not how it happened during this year’s Christ at the Checkpoint. Not by a long shot.
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May 28, 2018 marks the first day of the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference, a so-called peacemaking event organized by the Bethlehem Bible College, a non-denominational Evangelical institute of higher learning located in Beit Jala in the West Bank. Speakers from around the world purport to inform attendees about the Israel-Palestinian conflict and how Evangelicals, particularly those in the United States and Europe, can help bring the conflict to an end.

On the afternoon prior to the first night of the conference, which is held every two years, organizers host an orientation session where first-time attendees are instructed in the history of the conflict. This year’s session was offered by Jack Munayer, an Israeli citizen who like his father Salim, has been particularly harsh in his description of Israel and its supporters.

Munayer, who was introduced as an “expert” by Gary Burge, a former professor at Wheaton College in Illinois, offered a particularly one-sided depiction of the Arab-Israeli conflict. For example, he described the expulsion of Arabs from Lydda during the 1948 War as premeditated act of ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Israel without informing his audience of more than 100 listeners, most of them first-time attendees, that Arabs were expelled from the city after a previously agreed upon truce was violated by the inhabitants of the city. It was this violation that precipitated the expulsion that Munayer describes.

During the question and answer period, Munayer was asked how the Palestinians have come to grips with with the legacy of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who assisted the Nazis in the Holocaust and also broadcast virulent Jew-hatred into Muslim countries in the Middle East during World War II, once telling his listeners in a radio address to “kill the Jews wherever you find them.”

Munayer’s response was telling.
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Here’s a good rule of thumb. If someone from the Presbyterian Church (USA) tries to tell you their peacemaking agenda is not about the Jews, you can be sure it’s about the Jews.

The Presbyterian Church USA, a dying mainline church with a long history of attacking Israel, will convene its General Assembly in St. Louis Missouri in June 16-23, 2018.

As of this writing, there are nine resolutions before the committee charged with issues related to the Middle East.

Eight of those nine resolutions are related to Israel.

Only one is related to the ongoing civil war in Syria, which has cost half a million people their lives.

In the course of this war, the Assad regime has used chemical weapons to drive thousands of people from their homes. The regime has been accused of running extermination camps where its opponents are murdered and their bodies placed in mass graves.

The Assad regime has gassed its opponents, dropped barrel bombs on people lined up at bakeries to get bread. It has strafed, shot and starved half a million people, driven millions of Syrians into exile and displaced millions of its citizens internally.

Despite these manifest crimes against humanity, the denomination’s peace activists have gotten one — only one — overture on the agenda of the PCUSA’s upcoming General Assembly.

And this overture does not even mention Syrian President Bashar Al Assad or the Assad regime by name!
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Jack Sara, president of Bethlehem Bible College, either can’t recognize antisemitism when he sees it or is OK with it.

In a Facebook discussion underneath one of his articles at The Christian Post, a website that caters to English-speaking Evangelical Christians in England and the U.S., Sara express warm words of thanks to an anti-Israel commentator who called Christian supporters of Israel “shabbos goys” and hurled the epithet “Zio-supremacists” at supporters of Israel who take issue with the narrative put forth by Bethlehem Bible College. These phrases are decidedly antisemitic and most responsible Christian leaders would condemn their use.

Not Jack Sara.

In response to the ugly comments, which were issued in defense of one of his articles at The Christian Post, Sara wrote, “Mic P J Fletch Thank you so much for your affirming words, this is just a sample of what we have to keep up with such people!” (Warning: Do not click on Mic P J Fletch’s Facebook page unless you are willing to go down a deep rabbit hole of antisemitic conspiracy theories.)

Here is a screenshot of the discussion in question, with the relevant portions highlighted:
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