Friday, April 8, 2005
In an entry below, I posted about a new effort, the Judeo-Christian Alliance, "Fighting for Israel and Human Rights in the Middle East" and currently examining and opposing the divestment efforts of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
I have just finished reading Dexter Van Zile's 37-page report (available at the site) on the PC(USA)'s efforts and I must say I am very impressed. I strongly recommend taking the time to read this report if you have even the slightest interest. Don't let the length put you off. It's an easy, double-spaced read. Van Zile has done a superb job of exposing the many flaws in the PC(USA)'s position, and the points he makes are highly useful and highly informative not just for those interested in the actions of the Presbyterian Church, but for anyone trying to understand issues of Middle East peace, fair criticism of Israeli actions and Dhimmitude generally - all from a Christian perspective. Why do some Christians, in spite of their own obvious persecution by Islamist forces, choose to blame Israel instead? What is Palestinian Christianity and what is wrong with that? What is the hierarchy of the PC(USA) missing, and what are they not informing their denomination about?
Download Van Zile's thoughtful, heavily footnoted report and see.
Did the report hit all the 'facts' in the resource sheet and expose them for the bullshit they are?
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/005649.shtml
Also did this search for some other good prior posts.
http://www.solomonia.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=Presbyterian+church
Larry
No, it does not go into a detailed refutation of those resource sheets, but sticks to the more general issue of responding to the reasons and problems behind the decision itself.
I understand, however, that there are efforts underway to do a detailed response to those sheets elsewhere and I will keep my eyes open for it and post about it when I see it.
In the course of researching and writing Blind Prophecy I have come to the conclusion that the PC(USA) is, like other mainline Protestant denominations, gripped by jihad denial. In the context of the Arab/Israeli conflict, this means that the church has ignored the following characteristics of the war against Israel.
The war against Israel is a Regional war.
The war against Israel is a Religious war.
The war against Israel is a Racist war.
These are the "Three Rs" mainline Protestants have ignored in their condemnations of Israel. If the denominations are truly serious about defending Israel's right to exist, as they say they are, they have to take these issues into account. Their is a mountain of evidence to demonstrate mainliners have ignored these issues.
Explaining the Three Rs to people who have never heard the word dhimmi and the history behind it will be exceedingly difficult.
The mainliners have a role to play in modulating the response to militant Islam. They will not be able to play this role and lend their voices to the creation of more tolerant societies in the Arab world and the emergence of a moderate Islam until they acknowledge the reality of militant Islam.
By dealing with people like Hezbollah, the PC(USA) has made things worse by giving the extremists within the Arab world credibility they do not deserve, therefore making life more dangerous for the moderates the mainliners keep telling us about. They are indeed out there, but mainliners have undermined their efforts to reform Islam by apologizing for its fundamentalists.
Just my thoughts.
Dexter Van Zile
Dexter,
They don't get it because they have bought all of the propaganda coming out of the far left academia and Saudi funded PLO type Arabist organizations on television which stick to this ONLY being about a fight for "freedom from occupation" and Israel's 'greediness' in "stealing" their land etc... its almost like 48,67, 73 are un-important.
They have never read a MEMRI, PMW, or Khaled Abu-Toameh article.
So they don't have a clue that there really are moderates and that most of the messages they get are the hardline propagandized message of what is really going on over there....
Also, many of these people hate Israel at this point. You and Solomon, in my opinion discount this altogether, but I don't. For this minority/majority (whatever) it won't matter if you stand on your head.... The mind is closed and you ain't opening the door.
ITS FIN SAD.
Mike
Regarding Mike's post.
In some cases his observation is true -- there is a hatred of Israel at work here. He is correct that for people infected with that diseased perspective, there is no remedy -- no argument or presentation of facts will change them from their pre-determined course.
If there is any hope to change this, they must be bypassed and ordinary members targeted. Presbyterian members do have the power to force this to change, but only if they can be shown that they're being lied to and convinced that it is important.
As unfair as this is, the only thing I can see that would help is personal contacts on the local level with PC(USA) churches. This would counteract the propaganda.
I agree Will. But the PSM ISM strategy is to slash and burn.... keep getting extraordinary images and statements into the lexicon. Divestment programs at Universities and Churches, call Israel a Nazi and/or Apartheid State, brand Israelis with a malevloent brush.
You can only put out so many fires or lies, while you're at 1 spot 20 others have popped up already. And before you know it you're always playing defense and counteracting and never able to show Israel in a positive light.
The only way to do that is through movies and to show the Israelis as a diverse group of people, show the miraculous country that it is, get Arabs in Israel to speak out and find Palestinians that will as well.
But the latter two can not and will not happen due to the closed clan/family nature of the Arab world towards the West - you never talk outside 'the family' not to mention the absolute danger from the PLO/Hamas/Fatah/Islamic Jihad or just independent roaming gangs that look to take you or your family out with intimidation etc..
What's the solution?
I don't know.
Larry
Also the benefit of non contextual grandiose 'big lies' is that even if you counteract them somewhat the effective imagery of them is that it moves the overall impression way over...
so someone says, ok maybe they're not nazis etc... but they're probably pretty brutal... and they won't admit this but its the ending impression they have.... by the way the teachers who taught the PLO how to effectively use/utilize the Western media were the Nazis, Soviets and Vietcong.
The tactic Larry describes is correct, but it seems like a losing situation. To not oppose extreme (to the point of being ridiculous) lies is to let them stand. If they are repeated often enough, people begin to believe them. To oppose them causes "reasonable" people to try to take the middle position -- moving them in the direction of the original extreme statement.
I don't see a good way around this. Any ideas?
It would be nice to see a credentialed historian of name take the time to prepare counter (more accurate and contextualized) resource sheets and make them available on the web. That would be a nice companion to the efforts of all those fighting these divestment efforts.
As to the general issue of justly defending Israel goes, I think it's like advocating for the USA (but tougher sometimes, of course) - it's going to be a long-term project. Enemies are many, friends are apathetic. It can feel like sticking fingers in the dike and you're running out of fingers.
But there's no choice - you just gotta do it and try not to be overwhelmed. If someone starts, others may join in. It's just a matter of trying not to lose heart and finding and recognizing friends regardless of whether you agree on every last issue or not.
It's the right thing to do, and doing the right thing isn't always easy.
You know every time I see the hysteria over the conflict it reminds me of what Shoebat said how Americans, especially Jewish Americans are so naiive, trusting and want to see 'all sides'....
He said that Arabs say that Jews are in a big conspiracy to support Israel and 'biased' coverage for it and that's why "Americans don't understand what's really going on" etc... or get "different less accurate" coverage than in France or Europe...
So Shoebat then says, "If you were to go to a get together at a mainly Jewish event or person's house... they might talk about 100 different things, and maybe 1 of them might be Israel.. but if you guy to an Arab or Muslim person's house made up of mainly Arab/Muslims, the main topic of conversation will the Israelis and Palestinians and how bad the Israelis are"......
He said the Arab Groups are so slick at turning everything upsdie down from reality....
How Israel is a "racist" state yet the Israeli Arabs even in Uh Fahm, the most militant pro Hezbollah, the mayor was interviewed in Haaretz by a far left reporter looking/hoping for some anti-Israeli tripe to print... was shocked when the guy said "oh I would never leave Israel we've been doing business and getting along with Jews for years... I've been to Egypt I wouldn't want to live there or in any Arab country for all the oil in the Sinai"
And it never speaks about Arab Muslim racism against Christians, against other sects of Arabs and blindly assumes that every regular Arab in the Arab world cares only about the conflict more than their own life and situation.
READ SYRIA EXPOSED BLOG.
Its all a big lie... partially true, but nothing in context...
The only way to explain it crudely at that.... is the Dershowitz story where the Professor says "those Jewish students cheat I don't want any in my class anymore" so the guy says to him, "but sir all your students cheated last semester" and the professor says, "yeah but the Jewish one cheated!"
Meanwhile the left and Arabists have insulated themselves by "claiming" that anti-semitism is thrown out all the time? If you look in Solomon's piece above its typical.... (student union in Britain piece) its carefully and cautiously approached... because of the sense that you can't accuse anyone of being biased or anti-semitic in part because then you're just being "Jewish"... whereas then Muslim and Arab groups then toss the most hateful invectives at Israelis/Zionists dare we say "jews" like the kid in the article about the Black Jewish MP - from Bangladesh..... but its not PC to say anything about it.
Larry
Another words the silencing is reversed from what is claimed... and if a real debate goes on or any criticism or critique of the Arab side then it must be a "Zionist" show....
Labeling and silencing debate....
If you're an Arab and you might say something than you're a "Zionist tool", or if you're murdered in the Territories by the PLO its barely a big deal with the Mainstream Press or Human Rights groups.... Why? because its assumed their "collaborators" or "sold out their own people"?
The possibility that it was a regular moderate guy who is sick of the hate, corruption and destruction of the mafia groups and gangs running the country and local towns.... well that couldn't be because the MSM would hear more about this 'dissent' than they do from their PLO translators...
And of course these people would risk their lives and give a fuller picture to a stranger not from the Arab world writing for a Western paper.
You are right about this.
By the way, Van Zile's article is great. He covers the bases of bias in decision making. I wish he would not have tipped his hat to the "prophetic voice" language, however. This implies that the speaker believes he is speaking directly for God. This is a fiction rather than a true thing gone wrong. And it is a favorite tactic of the leadership to silence disagreement -- i.e. "We have God on our side." But I can't help but wonder why this prophetic voice is always a politically correct one, and never one that comes up with anything new. (Attempts at divestment, for example, were in full swing before the PC(USA) climbed on board. It seems to me that if God were speaking (as this label suggests) then he would have alerted them ahead of time so they could be the first to propose the idea.)