Thursday, June 19, 2008
Jerry Van Marter, coordinator of the Presbyterian News Service, just doesn't get it:
..."The Jewish groups go nuts every time we make any statement they interpret as favorable to Palestine or the Palestinians," Van Marter told NJJN.
Van Marter said church leaders amended their first statement "to make it more balanced, and apparently it still doesn’t satisfy our Jewish friends. It is tough for Presbyterians because there is a Christian population in the occupied territories. The Christians are a very small minority, and they are shrinking because they are caught in the crossfires. The Presbyterian Church understands precisely why Jewish groups are upset, because we refuse to be one-sided. We’ve been on record for a two-state solution for 60 years now."...
He's talking about that recent statement issued by the PC(USA) regarding anti-Semitism in the church that was issues, then quickly and quietly revised. See previous: A Backsliding Presbyterian Church (Update).
Funny thing that, Jerry old chap, when you put the Jews and their state on one side of the scales, and the people who'd like to destroy them on the other, then figure the balance at a neat 50:50 split (or at least what you perceive as splitting the difference), the Jews get a bit crotchety.
Will Spotts at A Recovering Presbyterian, from whom the link, remarks: "In all honesty, I have nothing to say in response to this except that I find it truly unbelievable."
Update: New Presbyterian statement angers Jewish groups, sparks divestment fears
..."A paper that supposedly is dealing with removing anti-Jewish bias in fact becomes a paper on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If you read it through, that's really the major theme," said Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism. "And it presents that conflict in a terribly one-sided way. Ultimately, the anti-Semitism part seems in many cases like an afterthought."...
