...the Presbyterian News Service is making another publicity push at promoting a pro-Palestine agenda under the umbrella of Peacemaking and and a call for prayer for Middle East Christians. Many of us feel that content and tone of the materials recommended by PCUSA sponsors of the "Week of Prayer and Witness with Christians in the Middle East" are not consistent with the spirit and intent of the commissioners to the 217th General Assembly who specifically removed the one-sided pro-Palestine, anti-Israel language of the PCUSA 216th General Assembly resolution in 2004 that had called for the initiation of a phased, selective divestment process that could result in the divestment in companies that do business in Israel and replaced that language with positive language of investing in peaceful efforts in the Middle East.

As we all know, prayer for Christian minorities throughout the world is appropriate every day of the year, especially for those Christians who are being persecuted or are forced to live as second class citizens in countries governed by Islamic law.

In this regard, however, some of us believe that the selected week for the PCUSA sponsored Week of Prayer and Witness with Christians in the Middle East may possibly reflect the desire on the part of pro-Palestine activists within the PCUSA to project an attitude of "solidarity" with all Palestinians since the PCUSA week of prayer was timed to precede shortly before the secular Palestinian plans for "Six Days of Action against the Occupation of Palestine" from June 6-12, 2007 to "mark forty years since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Six Day War". Some PCUSA pro-Palestine activists have even used the Arabic term " Nakba" meaning “catastrophe” to describe the results of the 1967 "Six Day War".

For those who want to access reference materials as a supplement to and/or as an alternative to the reference materials produced by the PCUSA for this week of prayer for Christians in the Middle East, please refer to the resource materials developed and produced by Rev. James Berkley, Director of Presbyterian Action for Faith and Freedom at the Institute on Religion and Democracy [here].