Thursday, February 3, 2005
We're used to being on the defensive. At pro-Israel (or even overall neutral) events for years, we've always had to plan for the inevitable counter-protesters, or the hecklers and hostile questions inside the speaking events, and the attempts to silence anyone who has the temerity to defend Israel and the Jews.
But recently, the tables have been turning. Whether it be efforts to get college campuses to keep the International Solidarity Movement out, or efforts to defend students from being targeted in the classroom, as with The David Project's film, Columbia Unbecoming, or showing up at the haters' meetings, turning the tables, challenging them, making them feel uncomfortable...for once...or at least letting people know, people who may be very well intended but not know any better, that there is another side - an important side - for them to hear.
That's what happened last Sunday the 16th, when a mixed group got together to protest outside the "Clarendon Hill Presbyterian Church in Somerville, Mass. to protest a presentation there by “Boston to Palestine” (BTP) – an affiliate of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)." Somerville, you may recall, was the location of recent divestment efforts. It was time to shine a spotlight into the shadows.
A letter to this week's issue of Boston's The Jewish Advocate newspaper describes what happened. The Advocate has no electronic edition, but the author, Dexter Van Zile, was kind enough to forward me a copy for posting. Here it is:
The protesters, careful not to disrupt services, held signs and handed out flyers warning parishioners they should not host people who condone the murder of Jews. Anti-Zionists appeared with Palestinian flags and placards. I went inside to witness.
The church portrays itself as embracing a theology of tolerance and peace. Sadly, it does not extend this to all people, denying peace to Israel and, surprisingly, tolerance to gays and lesbians in the West Bank and Gaza.
During the service, Pastor Karl Gustafson spoke of Jews, Israel and God. He said a distinction must be made between ancient Israelites and modern Israelis. How can the pain felt by Palestinian Christians, (some of whom attend services at Clarendon Hill) be understood in the context of Old Testament passages describing the Israelites as God’s chosen people? How is modern-day Israel – a nation, he preached, whose soldiers bulldoze the homes of their friends and neighbors – be the inheritors of God’s covenant? Gustafson’s solution: there is no connection between ancient Israel and today’s Jewish state. Today, God invites everyone to adhere to a law higher than the ancient Jewish Law. (Christians call this “replacement theology.”) Gustafson said Israel should be judged like any other country.
If only it were. Israel gets no free pass for its imperfections, but is singled out because she is not absolutely perfect. (Later I learned that outside, a Palestinianista was asked what army is more moral than Israel’s. He cited armies that don’t fight wars – the Netherlands, the Swiss. When pressed, he refused the comparison. No army is moral, he said. Then why pick only on the Jewish army? No answer. Is this moral fury – invoked only when the Jewish state flunks the phony Utopia test – Christian?
Gustafson made no mention whatsoever of the violence against Israel by Palestinian terrorists, not even a stepping-stone reference on the way to condemning acts of Arab terror. Singling out Israel while failing to provide information that would soften this condemnation and failing to call terrorists to moral account, is indefensible: it offers the promise of peace to Palestinians, but not to the Israelis.
BTP’s presentation was equally unfair. Highlighting the undeniable suffering of the Palestinians, presenters soft-pedaled the impact of terror on Israel. Astonishingly, ISM activist Ben Scribner was unable answer simple, obvious questions: what is the status of gays and lesbians in Palestinian controlled areas? How many Palestinians were killed by other Palestinians during the second intifada? (hundreds -- three quarters of whom, by the way, were Christian). Scribner was unable to provide a cursory explanation the events leading to the wars in 1948, 1967 and 1973 – all of which were started by Israel’s Arab neighbors. I asked him about this in response to his description of Israel “conquering territory” in 1948 and 1967. Scribner didn’t know, but a Clarendon Hill church-goer, who described himself as an Arab Christian, rose up and said Israel was planning the 1967 two years before it happened. This “narrative” was left unchallenged. No one mentioned Egypt’s closure of the Gulf of Aqaba or the evacuation of UN Troops from the Sinai.
At Clarendon Hill, anti-Zionism trumps every other “social value.” Here is a church which embraces gay rights, yet supports the Palestinian cause without a nod to the plight of gays and lesbians in Gaza and the West Bank (or the freedom they enjoy in Israel). ISM training material warns that some delegates “have chosen not to speak about our sexuality with our Palestinian hosts, even though we felt it was important to come out to our international comrades.” There’ll be no coming out in Ramallah for these Somervillian Palestinistas: Gays and Lesbians are brutalized by Arab thugs – and ISM chooses to be complicit in its silence.
Such ignorance and dishonesty should be anathema to Protestantism, but sadly, they have taken root at Clarendon Hill. By standing with the Jews against terrorism, Christians can work to make sure they don’t take root in the larger society.
The David Project, in cooperation with its Christian allies in Boston, is working to bring Israel’s case to Christian congregations, the next target of anti-Zionist campaigns. Last Sunday, we addressed a church in Newton. So far, we’ve found many Christians are confused by radical positions taken by their own national leadership. Indeed, the Presbyterian Church just fired two officials who met with Hezbollah. Jews have many, many Christian friends. They just have to go out and reclaim them.
Dexter Van Zile is a member of the Judeo-Christian Alliance, a David Project initiative.
