Having declared themselves "anguished by the events unfolding in Israel and Gaza" and "recognizing the needs of all peoples...for dignity, peace, safety, and security," sixty local religious leaders, professors of theology, peace activists, and assorted luminaries banded together last week to call for "an immediate end to the Israel's military campaign in Gaza." The group of prominent Muslims, Christians, and Jews issued the joint statement to anyone listening, and chided the United States "to intercede to help reestablish a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel." For some balance, they urged Hamas "to end all rocket attacks on Israel."

This ecumenical group, apparently not significantly "anguished" by the preceding six years in which Hamas indiscriminately fired thousands of rockets into Israel, chose this particular time -- at the height of the successful Israeli counterattack on Hamas -- to vent on "the painful history of the Palestinian conflict" and declare that "violence only begets more violence, hatred, and retaliation," thus putting Israel and Hamas in the same category.

Moral equivalency at its worst.

Among the signatories to this declaration of anguish are the leaders of the Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church and the Unitarian Universalists. In other words, the leftist anti-Israel wing of American Christianity.

Reverend Rodney Peterson, executive director of the Boston Theological Institute signed the document. A few years ago Rev. Petersen took to the airwaves to promote his Presbyterian General Assembly's divestment campaign against Israel. At the time both the reverend and his church were very upset that Israel had erected that long security wall to prevent terrorist infiltration.

Reverend Peter Weaver of the United Methodist Church likewise lent his name to the petition. The UMC was also heavily involved in the divestment campaign against Israel. Last year the church published a long list of companies- mostly defense and construction companies -- to boycott because they worked with the Israel Defense Forces. Bishop Thomas Shaw, head of the Episcopal Archdiocese of Massachusetts, is featured prominently in the petition. A few years back the Bishop put on his "loudest, most colorful robes" to stand in protest in front of the Israeli Consulate in Park Square against "Israel's oppression of the Palestinians."

The United Church of Christ is also a signatory. It was just over a year ago that the UCC's Old South Church hosted Archbishop Desmond Tutu's anti-Israel forum, parade, and outdoor rally in Copley Square. Pax Christi, the "activist wing" of the Catholic Church, is prominently featured as well.

The Islamic clergy is well represented. There were about a half dozen directors or trustees of the Islamic Society of Boston Culture Center (ISBCC). Especially Salwa Abd-Allah of the Muslim American Society of Boston and the ISBCC. The ISBCC, otherwise known as the Roxbury Mosque, is the Islamic center that sued The David Project, Boston Herald, FOX News and anyone else that brought attention to its ties to Saudi Arabia, Wahabism or the fact that an ISBCC trustee, Walid Fitahi, called Jews the "murderers of prophets," or that the ISB's founder is in federal prison for operating as a money runner for Al-Qaeda.

Nine rabbis are featured prominently in this declaration of ecumenical declaration of Muslims, Christians, and Jews, especially Rabbi David Gordis. Yes, that Rabbi Gordis, former president of Hebrew College, Prozdor Academy, etc. So was Rabbi Arthur Green, the Rector of Hebrew College's Rabbinical School.

As an aside, on the many days that I dropped my kids off at Prozdor, I never fathomed that the presiding rabbi was so concerned with "a lasting peace that addresses and promotes the national aspirations of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples." (Emphasis added -- for good reason). Anymore than I could envision a rabbi, whose job it is to train rabbinical students, joining the aforementioned Christian and Muslim personalities to urge "Israel immediately to end its military campaign in Gaza" as well as "a lifting of the blockade on Gaza as to all non-military goods."

As if to rub it in, Alan Solomont, chief Democratic fundraiser for President Barack Hussein Obama, signed the petition. So did Rabbi Barbara Penzer, past president of the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis.

We shouldn't be surprised by Muslim clergy and leftist Christian ministers for initiating such an egregious misguided petition. But there is something monumentally inappropriate when sixteen self-proclaimed "Members and leaders of the ...Jewish communities of Greater Boston" lend their names, titles, and the prestige of their pulpits to a public declaration equating Hamas terror rocket attacks against Jewish civilians with the Israeli counterattack designed to stop them.