It didn't take long for Chuck Currie to come to the defense of the UCC's national leadership after the ADL issued a stinging rebuke for Cleveland's insistence on maintaining its affiliation with Sabeel Ecumenical liberation theology center, a group that calls for the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. And yes, that is exactly what the group is after. In a 2004 document grandly titled The Jerusalem Sabeel Document - Principles for a Just Peace in Palestine Israel, the group lays out its "vision for the future" which is: "One state for two nations and three religions."

But Currie isn't having any of ADL's criticism, telling us that "ADL marginalizes themselves (sic) with such attacks on a Christian denomination that has done nothing more than prominent Jewish groups - support the peace process and those working for non-violent solutions to the crisis in the Middle East."

Actually, the UCC has not supported the peace process, but has allowed its prophetic voice to be used as a weapon of war against the Jews and their state. To wit: The UCC has asked Israel to take down the security fence without asking the Palestinians to stop the attacks that prompted the Israelis to build it in the first place. This is not peace making, but militating for one side against the other. Currie seems unable to recognize this. Those who want more detail should follow this link [PDF].

While James Hutchins, moderator of Ucctruths has, in recent months, wisely adopted a policy of ignoring Chuck Currie's blog, I feel compelled to respond to his posting which mentions me by name. One thing I have learned in the course of my work for the David Project in the past year is that people interpret silence in the face of unjust criticism as evidence that there is no response to be made.

Here are my points:

1. Currie writes that Sabeel has done nothing more than criticize Israel just as Human Rights Watch and Jewish Voices for Peace have. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty confident that neither Jewish Voices for Peace or Human Rights watch have used crucifixion imagery to describe Israeli policies in the disputed territories. To be sure, the Human Rights Watch has spoken about crucifixion in Vietnam and Sudan, but not in these istances, the group was speaking literally, not metaphorically.

Sabeel like many other components of the peace and justice brigade, holds Israel to a utopian standard of conduct while failing to compare any Palestinian behavior to any standard at all. Sabeel's failure to provide any context for Israeli behavior and singling it out for condemnation while offering little if any criticism of the corruption of the PA or the violence of terror groups in the disputed territories raises an important question:

Have Naim Ateek and his supporters ever stood in the public square, such as it is, in Palestinian society and protested terrorism against Israel in the same manner in which the human rights and peace movement in Israel has objected to and protested against home demolitions, the construction of the security fence or the misdeeds perpetrated by Israeli soldiers? Have Ateek's supporters done anything to interpose themselves between Israeli civilians and suicide bombers?

Has anyone from the Christian Peace Makers Team done the same thing? The CPT routinely works to protect Palestinians from Israeli soldiers, but has it ever embarked on a campaign to protect Israeli civilians from sniper attacks, mortar attacks, or rockets fired from Gaza at Israeli civilians? Have the CPTer's ever set up camp outside apartment buildings in Gilo to serve as human shields for the Israelis? Human shields went to defend Iraqi civilians? How about the same treatment for Israelis?

Serving as human shields for Israeli civilians would seem like a legitimate task for people who wear the mantle of peacemaking. But again, these people are not about peace, but are about militating for one side against the other.

Sabeel routinely criticizes Israeli behavior in an effort to end the occupation, but offers little if any criticism that makes Israeli presence in the disputed territories necessary. The withdrawal from Gaza has been followed by increased flow of arms into the territory from Egypt and increased bellicosity on the part of Palestinian leaders. Given Sabeel's logic -- end the occupation and the violence will end -- this wasn't supposed to happen. Life has and will continue to get worse in Gaza after the Israeli withdrawal and it will only be a matter of time before Sabeel and its cohorts figure out a way to blame Israel for the collapse of order in Gaza. Ariel Sharon's critics warned that a withdrawal from Gaza would result in chaos, and events are proving them right.

2. In an effort to portray Sabeel as a reasonable organization, Currie quotes James M. Wall, senior contributing editor of Christian Century who, in an article published in October, said that I got it wrong when I wrote after attending a Sabeel Conference in Chicago: "To these people the Jews are the new Nazis." Wall wrote that he "attended the Chicago conference; no such statement was intended or implied."

In fact, such a statement was made and implied by Marc Ellis during his presentation on the second day of the conference. During his presentation, Dr. Ellis displayed, in a Powerpoint presentation, a letter written by his son Aaaron, the full text of which can be found on pages 81-82 of the September/October 2003 Issue of Church and Society. The two relevant passages of the letter, sent to the Israeli consul in Houston, are:

"If you are too ignorant to step out of your postion for one second and see that the Israelis are using brute force to oppress the people, just as the Nazi regime once used against the Jewish people, then I don't think you can be helped."

A few paragraphs later, this letter states:

"If you say that Palestinians must move out because you are more military (sic) developed than they are, then you are creating a totalitarian government much like that which was created by Germany in the 1930s. You are saying in essence, that those with the most powerful thugs - Gestapo, army or secret police - should rule, no matter what their poltical views. This is exactly what led to the extermination of many thousands of fellow Jews and others. It is what is also happening to the Palestinians, even as you read this, only on a smaller scale."

Clearly, these passages demonstrate that indeed, James M. Wall was not paying very close attention to Marc Ellis' talk and that indeed, statements comparing the Jews to Nazis (a current anti-Semitic trope that is making the rounds in anti-Israel circles) were made at the conference in Sabeel.

I confronted David Heim, Wall's putative editor at the Christian Century with these facts and his response was that the letter did not compare Israelis to Nazis, but compared Israeli policies to Nazi policies.

Whatever.

In any event, Heim would not issue a correction. That's not much of surprise because the Christian Century also reported in July that the denomination rejected "Israel-linked divestment," when in fact, it encouraged divestment, which brings me to my next point:

3. Currie asserts that "only the Presbyterian Church USA has in reality adopted a divestment resolution and that statement only targeted companies profiting from the military occupation of Palestine)." In a backhanded way, Currie is taking the line offered by UCC President John Thomas who said in July that the UCC's resolution "does not call for divesting from companies doing business in Israel." Go read the resolution, and decide for yourself. It's on page 44 of the pdf, found here [PDF].

The relevant language starts on line 52 on page 44:

"THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Twenty-fifth General Synod calls upon the Covenanted Ministries, Pension Boards, United Church Foundation, Conferences, local churches and members to use economic leverage, including, but not limited to: advocating the reallocation of US foreign aid so that the militarization of the Middle East is constrained; making positive contributions to groups and partners committed to the non-violent resolution of the conflict; challenging the practices of corporations that gain from the continuation of the conflict; and divesting from those companies that refuse to change their practices of gain from the perpetuation of violence, including the Occupation; ..."

To be sure, divestment is part of a larger strategy. And yes, on some level there is a difference between divesting from companies "doing business in Israel" (Thomas' words) and divesting from "those companies that refuse to change their practices of gain from the perpetuation of violence, including the Occupation," but ultimately the resolution calls for divestment and it calls for divestment from companies that sell weapons or equipment bought by the Israelis, which is exactly what the PC(USA)'s General Assembly did when it passed its overture in 2004.

Ultimately, what Thomas, Christian Century and now, Chuck Currie have tried to do is portray the UCC's resolution as if it were a non-divestment resolution, when in fact, divestment was specifically encouraged.

I was at the general synod when the resolution was approved and when the substitutionary motion was offered, one question was asked: What's the difference between this resolution (offered by denominational leaders) and the resolution that came out of the committee? The answer: The divestment language.

4. Currie asserts that his colleagues of his have visited Sabeel and that they are impressed with its commitment to non-violence. Moreover, he quotes at length from Sabeel's mission statement to buttress his assertion that it is a peace making organization. Well, I've spoken with Naim Ateek myself -- during a face-to-face meeting with him in Denver in October and my opinion is that he is not interested in peace, but in promoting an inaccurate view of the Arab/Israeli conflict, one that white washes Arab culpability for its existence and blames Israel for violence.

Naim Ateek denied the existence of terror against Israel before the 1967 War (when in fact there hundreds of attacks against Israelis between the 1948 and 67 War). Moreover, he stated that the Arab desire to destroy the state of Israel in the 1948 War was a "Zionist myth."

Moreover, Ateek added, without my raising the issue, that reports of Arab leaders telling their followers to leave before the 1948 War were just another Zionist Myth.

If it’s all a myth, then somebody should have told Jamal Husseini, acting chairman of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee (AHC), who in 1948 told the UN Security Council: “The Arabs did not want to submit to a truce... They preferred to abandon their homes, belongings and everything they possessed.”

If it’s all a myth, then someone should have told Emil Ghori, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee who on September 6, 1948, told the Beirut Daily Telegraph “The fact that there are those refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously...”

If it’s all a myth, somebody should have gotten the message to the staff Jordanian daily Falastin which reported on February 19, 1949 that “The Arab states... encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies.”

If it’s all a myth, somebody should have told the Yunes Ahmed Assad, a refugee quoted in the Jordanian daily al-Urdun, on April 9, 1953, , as saying: “For the flight and fall of the other villages, it is our leaders who are responsible, because of the dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs... they instilled fear and terror into the hearts of the Arabs of Palestine until they fled, leaving their homes and property to the enemy.”

If it’s all a myth, somebody needs to tell another refugee who told the Jordanian daily a-Difaa on September 6, 1954: “The Arab governments told us, 'Get out so that we can get in.' So we got out, but they did not get in.”

If it’s all a myth, then somebody should have told former Prime Minister of Syria, Khaled al-Azem, who in his memoirs, published in 1973, listed what he thought were the reasons for the Arab failure in 1948: “The fifth factor was the call by the Arab governments to the inhabitants of Palestine to evacuate it and leave for the bordering Arab countries... We brought destruction upon a million Arab refugees by calling on them and pleading with them to leave their land.” He also wrote: “Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return.”

And if its all a myth, somebody should have told current chairman of the PA Abu Mazen, who in March 1976 wrote: “The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live.”

If it’s all a myth, then somebody should have told Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said, who declared before the war: "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down.”

Do I have to go on?

This is not to say that every Palestinian left their homes because Arab leaders told them to. Clearly, some were forced out by the Israelis. Others chose on their own to leave to avoid the coming conflict. And as much as Ateek and his supporters would like to discount their number, many left their homes because they were encouraged to do so by their own leaders to make way for the destruction of Israel.

If Sabeel truly is a peace-making organization, how does Chuck Currie respond to Michael Tarazi's statement at an October Sabeel Conference: “If I see Abu Mazen cracking down on Hamas, I’ll ask what you are doing that for?” Tarazi was responding to a question about terror groups in the disputed territories. Clearly, not a ringing condemnation of terrorism that one would expect a peace conference.

If Ateek truly were a peace maker as he is portrayed by the UCC's leaders in Cleveland, whey would he deny the terror attacks against Israel before the 1967 War.

If Ateek is truly the peace maker his friends in Cleveland say he is, then why would he deny that five Arab armies invaded Israel in an effort to destroy it in 1948?

If Ateek truly where a peace maker, then why would he compare Israeli officials to Herods, the occupation to the stone blocking Christ's tomb and write that the Israeli crucifixion machine is operating daily in the disputed territories.

If Ateek truly were a peace maker, he would apologize for the use of this imagery, acknowledge that it arouses legitimate fears on the part of Jews and promise not to use it again. Instead, Ateek and his handlers in the U.S. have exhibited a troubling defiance, asserting in effect that it is their privilege to use such words, their impact be damned. Such arrogance, which bespeaks of a troubling triumphalism, is inexcusable and raises troubling questions about motive.

At this point, it's no longer about Sabeel, Ateek or his handlers in the U.S.

It's about the UCC and its turning a blind eye to Sabeel's one-state agenda and Ateek's use of crucifixion imagery in reference to the Jewish state, both of which disqualify him as a partner for peace with the people who matter -- Jews. The leaders of the UCC had a choice to make and they blew it. Just as Ateek could have, a few months ago apologized for his extremist comments and then asked to get down to the business of reconciliation, the UCC's leaders could have said something like "Yes, this imagery is inappropriate and we've asked Naim Ateek to stop using it."

Instead they have jumped into the same hole of defiance and un-repentance that Ateek and his handlers in the U.S. have dug for themselves.

And so has, it seems, has Chuck Currie.