Festering sore indeed
Posted on January 19 2007 by Cecilie Surasky under Faith-based.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the hyperbolic, Chicken Little approach to anti-Semitism is bad for Jews, and can fuel bitterness and resentment than can morph into actual anti-Semitism. Here’s a remarkably vivid description of that resentment from the December, 2006 edition of the very respectable Middle East Policy Journal. In his lengthy article, Presbyterians, Jews and Divestment: The Church Steps Back, University of Michigan political science professor Ronald Stockton details the airing of grievances at the Presbyterian General Assembly:
A third issue was the strong sense of pain and grievance among those who had supported the engagement process in 2004. They felt they had been ill-treated by their Jewish critics. Their motives had been questioned and their character impugned in a most egregious way. They had been called antisemites, supporters of terrorism, supporters of murder, enemies of Israel, and even supporters of potential genocide through the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel. They had heard no words of regret from the Jewish side for these excesses, which at times seemed to them to border on hate speech. They felt they had acted on behalf of their faith and out of positive motives. Now they wanted their concerns about how they were treated to be put on record. They were willing to use wording that would reach out to the Jewish community but wanted also to affirm their own integrity. They were willing to support modifications in the 2004 wording in the interests of comity but did not want it to appear that “we had been bullied into completely backing down from our previous stand.” In the end, the wording left some feeling slighted, assaulted and betrayed. This is a festering wound that has not been treated.
Get Muzzlewatch delivered fresh daily
Print This Post
January 19th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
These folks are the purist of the pure. They protest out of empathy for the oppressed. I am not quite so pure. I protest out of fear for my life. I feel that the settlements and the roads (see Carter) and the military that supports them is leading to the very possible destruction of the nation I love via nuclear explosions in New York, Washington, and who knows where else.
All from the religious fanaticism calling for settlements in the conquered territories. The territories are illegal; and Prof. Robert Pape has shown that occupation by an army of a religion different from that of the occupied leads, worldwide, to suicide terrorism. That’s the terrorism we are worried about. Christians must rise up and insist that the Israeli-Palestinian problem be settled … and that is for our own survival.
January 20th, 2007 at 3:52 am
If I needed to make an analogy to the boycott and divestment campaign against Israel, it would be the brown-shirt marking of Jewish-owned businesses in Germany before the Holocaust.
It gives credence to those who suspect that self-proclaimed “Jews of conscience” will support Israel’s destruction, merely to demonstrate their opposition to Israel’s presence in the West Bank, when Muzzlewatch gives the implication of supporting this mainline church’s naive buy-in of the decades-old boycott–a boycott conceived by Arab states targeting Israel’s destruction.
Imagine a self-proclaimed “black man of conscience” going to a klan rally in order merely to support increased black self-reliance.
A true “person of conscience” does not precisely mirror the behavior and tactics of bad actors in order to demonstrate their concern about an issue.
Tough love is no excuse for doing so.
Good intent is proven by acting constructively, not destructively.
There are patterns of behavior that fairly motivate accusations against seeming Uncle Toms. Those accused need to act differently than whitey (or in this case, differently than the Arab League) if they are truly of good will.
The New Israel Fund is a great example of acting constructively, not destructively.
January 20th, 2007 at 5:19 am
Mike, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall a Jewish army occupying Germany at the time of the Nazi boycotts. I don’t believe we had imposed laws on the Germans that restricted their freedom of movement, or that we were building a giant wall across their cities and towns to separate ourselves from them.
The Nazi boycott was part of a systematic effort to strip Jewish citizens of Germany of their rights, to marginalize and impoverish them.
The Israel divestment campaign is geared toward pressuring a state to end actions that are illegal under international law, and that many - Jews and non-Jews alike - consider immoral.
There is really no valid analogy between the two campaigns.
January 20th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Thanks for setting up this blog. I think it’s important when people get fed up with any kind of political intimidation and muzzling (good choice of words) to document it. It’s also important to call public attention to it, so that a cultural environment of blocking speech can be exposed for what it is.
January 20th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
One of the motifs that critics of Israel use is that of a new “Original Sin.” The nature of an original sin is that no exculpating evidence is admissible.
Yet, the exculpating evidence in Israel’s favor is voluminous. To wit:
1) The Arabs and the Palestinians act together in the effort toward Israel’s destruction: it is not mighty Israel vs. the poor Palestinians, but the mighty and unconstrained Arab nation vs. the tiny and highly-constrained State of Israel.
2) The first Palestinian leader, Haj Amin al-Husseini, lobbied in Berlin in support of the Final Solution and for bringing the Holocaust to Jews of the Middle East. Likewise, the wars the Arabs have waged against the Jews, from 1948 to 1967 to today have total genocide as the stated and believable intent. The intent of Israel is merely to survive; had Israel wished to commit genocide, it could have done so.
3) Israel and its preceding leading party offered in 1936, 1947, 1967, 2000 and 2001 to accept 1949 borders or smaller in exchange for peace and the Arabs launched wars in response to this demonstration of perceived weakness.
4) Evidence: Israel pulled out of Sinai and saw Egypt continue its vociferous state-sponsored anti-Semitism (production of Protocols of the Elders of Zion on state TV; cartoons in state newspapers, etc.), and an unprecedented arms build-up that targets Israel. Israel pulled out of Lebanon to receive the second Intifada (in 2000) and 4,000 rockets (in 2006) in return. Israel pulled out of Gaza to see rockets trained on Sderot and, soon, on Ashkelon.
5) Israel’s stifling security measures in the West Bank have successful suicide terrorism against Israeli civilians by about 90%. Israel introduced these security measures in response to Palestinian actions.
6) Prior to the first Intifada, Palestinians worked without practical limitation in Israel, Israel built five universities for them in the West Bank, and West Bank Arabs saw their living standards exceed those of all Israel’s neighbors (except for those of Lebanese Christians).
7) Palestinians can have a state tomorrow if they can coordinate among themselves (something they have never been able to do because they are not a nation in any traditional sense, but are clans from Egypt, Saudi, Syria, Bosnia–due to an 1840 Turkish-imposed relocation, the desert, indigenous and Christian non-Arabs), stop all terrorism, cease hate-education and offer a sincere peace. The occupation stops the moment these reasonable steps occur. Conversely, if Israel makes uncompensated security and lifestyle concessions, suicide bombings will resume.
The motif of Original Sin was originally imposed upon Jews by the Christian faith in an attempt to explain why those not accepting the Christian faith must, unavoidably and unfortunately, spend eternity burning in Hell. And, to drive the point home, the Jews would be made to suffer right here on earth for all doubting Thomases to see. Mighty “Christian” of them.
A new type of Original Sin is now charged against the State of the Jews. The Sin has expanded from the charge of Occupation–for which no punishment is sufficient and for which no responsibility may be shared–to the charge of simply being born, with the recently in-vogue expansion of the Naqba concept to the international community that the birth of Israel was simply a mistake that can only be corrected by being reversed. Welcome to 1984.
January 20th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Dear Andrew,
I would like to address your post more directly. Just as there are certain items you do not recall, likewise, I do not recall Jewish Germans working for 80 years toward the destruction of Germany and German autonomy and toward German genocide, as the Arabs and the Palestinians have jointly done against the Jews for the past 80 years.
However, I do recall two millennia of anti-Semitism by the Christian world and 1,400 years of anti-Semitism by the Muslim world. And, just in case you think you know the meaning of discrimination or persecution, you need to study what this anti-Semitism consisted of and you will find a parallel against no other people lasting one-tenth that time.
A natural suspicion, therefore, does exist against those who rally and rail against Jewish autonomy and self-defense, while remaining silent when Jews are threatened or attacked. Given the scope of history’s greatest hatred, anti-Semitism is the most natural explanation for critics of Israel; the burden of proof is on the Israel critic and it is a simple matter for them to address. They merely need to condemn terrorism without apologizing for it, define attacks purposely targeted at civilians as terrorism, and condemn genocidal Arab and Islamist rhetoric and hate-education.
However, the critics, themselves, have adopted a persecution complex that they are victims of Jewish power; to the paranoid, this presumption proves to them that they are uniquely and boldly on the right track. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy as their descent into one-sidedness invites increased criticism.
It surprised no Zionist to have seen the indisputable anti-Semitism unabashedly manifest at the U.N.’s Durban conference several years ago; it was almost as if the enemies of Israel had become so emboldened as to then feel liberated of all pretension.
Arabs do not approach this conflict with clean hands. Neither do Leftists, who have cavorted with the world’s terrorists and rogue states for sixty years.
Sincerely,
Mike P.
January 20th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
“The Arabs and the Palestinians act together in the effort toward Israel’s destruction”
You have zero evidence to substantiate this. The fact that Arab countries treat Palestinian refugees like dirt, refusing to give them amnesty is quite telling. Not to mention Sabra and Shatila.
“Neither do Leftists, who have cavorted with the world’s terrorists and rogue states for sixty years.”
As opposed to the left-wing terrorist regimes of Pinochet, the Shah, and Saddam Hussein? Please review your history instead of spouting bullet points - you might learn something that may surprise you.
January 20th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Also, your comments have only proven the point of the article.
January 20th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Dear Baruch,
The fact that the Arabs treat the Palestinians badly does not reveal that they do not cooperate on Israel’s destruction. Sadly, they quite clearly do.
This shared objective is the reason Arab states fund the arms purchases of Palestinian militias, the reason Egypt permits arms smuggling into Gaza despite pledges to halt it, and it is the reason that Iran is training Palestinian terror groups in Hizbollah’s effective tactics–despite the old Shiite/Sunni hostilities, the war on Israel takes priority.
And, yes, the U.S. has made some stupid decisions in supporting some evil dictators, as well.
Thanks for pointing this out. Hopefully, someone in the Department of State will listen and learn from these mistakes.
However, there is no popular international movement to support the evil men you mention, merely stupid decisions by self-imagined policy wonks at the Department of State.
I fervently oppose historical U.S. support of all of the dictators you mention, as well as historical support by Leftists for Castro, Arafat, Qadaffi, Kim, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot.
I also oppose Arab and Palestinian efforts to destroy Israel, both when they work together, as well as when they work separately.
Do you?
Sincerely,
Mike P.
January 20th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Sadly, we observe the family squabble proceed ad infinitum…to the end that the family dysfunction will once again lead to the destruction of the family and those close to it. Perhaps you should seek outside help for your intractable and myopic world views..instead of attacking those who care enough to try to intervene to prevent your self-destruction, to wit: by labeling and and minimizing the concerned thoughts and suggestions of NON-JEWS!
January 22nd, 2007 at 2:52 pm
It was interesting to read write ups on this site of two political events in which I was somewhat involved: the Presbyterian Church (or PCUSA) divestment debate and the appearance of the group Wheels of Justice in the public High School in Andover Massachusetts.
To anyone unfamiliar with the full story behind the Presbyterian’s recently reversed divestment policy, the church’s 2004 decision to begin a process of “phased, selective divestment” in the state of Israel certainly did generate anger (and disappointment) on the part of individual Jews and Jewish organizations, many of whom had close relationships with the church going back to the Civil Rights era. For a web site presumably dedicated to free “unmuzzled” debate, I’m not exactly sure why criticism of church policy on the part of Israel’s supporters seems to be characterized as something other than the exercise of the free-speech rights of church critics.
More to the point, as real as this interfaith debate was, the real deliberation on church policy took place among and between Presbyterians, and much of that debate was extremely thoughtful, reflective and high minded. You can read about it yourself at http://www.bearing-witness.org (a site I worked on with a leading Presbyterian activist) as well as http://www.enddivestmentnow.org and the PCUSA’s own 2006 General Assembly coverage.
It was only after church members saw the results of the 2004 General Assembly decision (during which anti-Israel activists used the Presbyterian’s decision to anchor a worldwide divestment movement in other churches as well as universities, cities, unions and other civic institutions), that they reflected on what had been done in their names and reversed the church’s divestment policies by an overwhelming margin of 95-5.
The notion that Jewish pressure “muzzled” or otherwise stifled debate though irresponsible accusations of anti-Semitism is particularly strange, given that any such pressure (if it existed as described on your site) was directed towards church leaders, not the millions in the pews who had been left out of the 2004 decision and, when finally given the chance to vote on the matter, turned down divestment by a margin of 20 to 1. Yet it was these same church leaders who pushed the church into its ‘04 divestment decisions in the first place, fought against a reversal of the policy until the last minute at the ‘06 General Assembly, and to this day are still trying to sneak divestment in through a backdoor. So even if some sort of ill-defined “muzzling” Jewish pressure did play a role in that campaign, it appears to have been very limited (compared to the input of Presbyterians themselves) as well as largely unsuccessful.
It’s been my experience that “Jewish power” is frequently invoked when common people take a stand against a policy or program (like divestment or this or that condemnation of the Jewish state foisted on an unsuspecting civic institution by single-issue, anti-Israel campaigners). No doubt blaming such reversals on alleged Jewish pressure helps explain why “the masses” have generally refused to go along with what their self-appointed moral superiors continue to claim to be their only option.
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:01 pm
The Prebysterian Church is not alone. Just ask former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, former President Jimmy Carter and many others what it’s like to speak out about Irael’s brutal treatment of Palestinians. One wonders why the Israeli lobby and its hysterical friends in the American Jewish community are so intent on silencing anyone critical of Israeli policies. What are they so afraid of? How did a people known for its humanitarian conscience, love of truth and open inquiry become the mother of all muzzlers?
In view of the worldwide condemnation of Israel’s occupation of Palestine and subjugation of its people, the Presbyterians call for boycotts and disinvestment seems rather mild. My fear is that Israel’s continued recalcitrance is likely to bring on much more violent responses. Is it too late? David
January 29th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Hi,
I found your blog via google by accident and have to admit that youve a really interesting blog
Just saved your feed in my reader, have a nice day