I sent this to the Methodists in response:

I find her comments in this 7/13/2009 column to be outrageous.

She is a bigot.

I am sorry but having portraits of Golda Meir and Theodore Herzl - in Israel - is not "unAmerican".

Her characterization of Israel's War of Independence - especially considering the absolutely desperate situation of world Jewry at the time, the boycott against the Middle Eastern Jews and the unnecessary and ruthless attacks against Israel by several Arab armies - is appalling. This of course was following many acts of terror and cruelty against the Jewish citizens of the Middle East as well as the Shoah which claimed millions of Jews in Europe.

Please read through this piece carefully and tell me why it isn't a seriously nasty, unChristian, biased piece of work.

Also - need I mention - that Israel's need for security is not a figment of anybody's imagination. Jews around the world remain threatened.

I am sorry that her daughter heard explosions in Israel. Sorrier than Ms. Lahr can possibly imagine.

And - romanticizing the violent intifada and genocidal terrorists as "freedom fighters" like those who established our American democracy - Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin - Adams - these were people of the Enlightenment - not extreme religious or ideological bigots who have vowed to destroy not only Israel but Jewish people everywhere.

Perhaps Ms. Lahr would be happier if the Palestinian Arabs had modern weapons so they could accomplish this clearly stated goal more rapidly?

I would be happier if people would start reading and trying to reconcile with "the other" rather than blindly characterizing them as evil or benighted, or threatening their nation with extinction.

This is especially ironic considering that the Jews are indogenes of Judea - not strangers like Americans in "American" - however enlightened - so her comments are ridiculous as well as vicious.

Of course if she'd read any history she'd be aware that the Israelis were boycotted by the world, blockaded, their weapons stripped from them after they'd loyally supported the Allies in WWII. Holocaust survivors were hastily thrown into the lines. The fight for survival in an unprovoked war was desperate and there was simply no place else to go.

Ms. Lahr is apparently so ignorant she doesn't realize that 1948 was only 3 years after 1945, when the enormity of the Shoah was revealed and also, pogroms broke out across the Middle East. The remaining Jews of the world were explicitly threatened with extinction.

I suggest reading Karsch, Satloff and other historians about the siege of Jerusalem. I suggest reading the speeches by Arab leaders at the time, vile, hateful words followed up by attack. We've heard the same words routinely since. Many wars and attacks of terror have erupted since.

We see cartoons of Jews that would shame Hitler. Religious incitement is nonstop. Jews are considered damned, abandoned by God. This is the "Christian" point of view is it not? Elements of extreme Islam are no less prejudiced and hateful.

Before the Soviets armed them, the Arab armies were provided with up to the date British weapons, even British leadership. Of course that is leaving aside the Mufti of Jerusalem, who'd been with Hitler in Berlin. He directed the Arab war efforts from Lebanon after having supporting the Nazi cause for several years.

Ms. Lahr's sentiments and her comments are appalling. If this is an example of Methodist philosophy I am stunned and saddened.

Sincerely,
***

Sophia, all you say is true. I was too lazy and said it to myself in many fewer words. "She is an asshole. She is an enemy." No one's every accused me on not being into "dialogue."

Why doesn't Janet Lahr Lewis try her Methodist missionising on the neturi karta, or in Gaza, Ramallah, or better anywhere in Saudi Arabia.

I think she'll be "warmly" received. :-)

Janet, you know what is unAmerican? Hugging socialist thugs like hugo chavez, islaofascist thugs like the late unlamented yassir arafat, as the one-term Worst President EVER jimmy carter likes to do.

Ludwig Muller is the archtype or at least the analogy that often comes to mind with these types. That's "analogy" only, not intended as any type of exact parallel, but she falls within a general, leftward, ideologically/politically coopted category nonetheless.

Forced marches? What forced marches? The only forced marches I ever heard of was of prisoners of Nazi concentration camps after the Second World War.

As for slaughter and destruction at the founding of Israel, she must be aware that it was five Arab states that attacked Israel, untroubled by the prospect of the slaughter and destruction that would be involved in driving the Jews into the sea.

I think she has also forgotten about the ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria by the British-led Arab Legion, and the subsequent destruction and damage to Jewish holy sites.

Of course if you're coming from the point of view that Jews are bad to begin with, who cares about Jewish holy sites, right?

During the 1948 war there were some cases where Arabs were forced out of their villages. This happened only in the context of an unprovoked war on Israel by several Arab states, following a brutal civil war which was equally tragic and unnecessary.

I would like this lady to look at a map and a timeline of history.

Maybe she can visualize the fact that the survivors of so much brutality, the Shoah only a few years before, pogroms all over the Middle East, simply had no place to go.

Even the US had refused to take a boatload of people fleeing the Holocaust and after the war the British sent ships like the Exodus 1948 back to the concentration camps in Europe. Other survivors were interned on Cyprus. Other survivors were murdered in Poland.

So I have to ask - this is a Christian?

Gevalt. What is sombody so ignorant and so biased doing in Israel? Why is she representing a major Protestant denomination in the first place?

By all the evidence allows in this case she has allowed herself to be coopted by political and ideological interests, not a religious interest as such. Those political and ideological interests are decidedly of the left, to the extent that simplified linear schema can be applied, and it does have some applicability here.

For example and for purposes of comparison, the following. Via a comment over at Z-word (in turn linking to this article) I find that Claude Lanzmann regarded the Soviet Union, for a protracted period of time at least and despite latter disaffections, as "comme un ciel sur ma tête." What period of time would that have been? When Lenin overthrew the democrat Kerensky? During the genocides of Lenin/Dzerzhinsky in the early 1920's? During the Stalinist/Kaganovich genocide of the early 1930's? Up until the time when the Soviets became overtly anti-Semitic in the early 1940's?

This (Lanzmann) is a Jew? I.e. is that the question to be asked? Is that the critical label to be applied, to help illuminate Lanzmann's seeming myopia? I don't think so.

The point being and put in general terms, labels, no matter how applicable on one level, can too easily result in directing the analysis away from something that is more probative and more illuminative of core issues, of more causitive issues. She's also a female and likely something of a feminist. Are those labels in any way applicable here?