Christian Aid and Israel: Some hard facts for liberal Jews (and concerned Christians)
This is a guest post from Cyrus of the Christian Aid Watch blog
Who said that?
[T]he pro-Israeli lobby has got its grips on the western world, its financial grips. I think they’ve probably got a grip on our party.’
Who said that? Answer: a former Trustee 0f Christian Aid, and current Patron of a Christian Aid partner charity.
‘International law accepts that people living under illegal military occupation are entitled to fight against the occupiers with whatever means they have at their disposal. If the world does not like, for example, “terrorist suicide bombing” in Palestine (a weapon neither unique to the Palestinians nor invented by them), then, as one Palestinian exile said at a conference in December 2003, “Give us F-16s, Apache helicopters, missiles tanks and heavy weapons, and we’ll have a fair fight”.’
Who used these words to justify the deliberate killing of civilians? Answer: another Patron of the same Christian Aid partner charity.
Also on the roll of Patrons are a bishop who is currently a Trustee of Christian Aid; another bishop who was Chair of Christian Aid from 1998 to 2008; and his predecessor in that post. The organization claims that it ‘works for a just peace for the people of Palestine and Israel’ and ‘promotes non-violence and reconciliation’.
Introduction
I’m a Christian and a one-time Christian Aid donor who believes there’s a problem here. I started this blog to make the point (in 2005, having first raised the subject in a letter to Christian Aid in 2002 – the problem is not a new one). This is an update on these concerns which I’ve been encouraged to write having received an e-mail from a reader who belongs to a Liberal synagogue. He and others in the Liberal Judaism movement are unhappy that the movement is linking up with Christian Aid to campaign on climate change. They’re not against the link in principle, but they do think Christian Aid should clean up its Middle East campaigning act first.
Blows have been exchanged in the LJ movement’s magazine (here on page 4) but so far the debate seems just a little short on facts. Naturally it’s not for me to tell Jews what to think, but I do think they ought to know what they’re getting into. So I offer this post as a contribution to informed debate.
The Big, Big Issue
I started off my blog with a series of posts analyzing coverage of Israel and Palestine in Christian Aid News, the charity’s magazine. This is how I summed up what I found:
‘Over the last seven issues [Summer 2003 to Summer 2005] of Christian Aid News more than 17 pages were devoted to Israel and Palestine. Most of this coverage involved political criticism of Israel. The most coverage any other conflict zone got was 4.5 pages for Angola – barely a quarter as much. Sudan, scene of more than two million deaths in the civil wars of the past two decades and, in the UN’s words, “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world”, got 2.5 pages. These include a full page feature about a woman who makes perfume. It tells you her recipe.’
Has anything changed over the four years since then? You can easily see for yourself. Go to the Christian Aid website. Click on the tab marked policy. Here you’ll find policy papers filed under ten headings. Nine are for general and global issues – climate change, trade, and so on. One is for a specific area of the world: the Middle East. Click on this one: there are eight papers filed here, written between 2003 and 2008. One is a 2003 expose of alleged American theft of Iraqi wealth (did CA ever publish a ‘hard-hitting report’ on Saddam Hussein’s regime?). The other seven all deal with Israel and Palestine.
You will search in vain for even one position paper on those conflicts in Sudan (and even if there was one, you could be pretty sure it would pull its punches when it came to apportioning blame; Omar Bashir’s regime is touchy about what aid agencies say about it).
Sometimes slightly more subtle ways are found of justifying a preoccupation with a region slightly smaller than Belgium. During Lent this year Christian Aid led a ‘virtual pilgrimage‘ around the Holy Land. Now the pilgrimage is of course a venerable Christian tradition, but pious tradition is not something that usually concerns Christian Aid overmuch. In this instance the pilgrimage furnished the perfect pretext for bringing sustained political criticism of Israel to a wider audience. Given a little imagination, a virtual pilgrimage could very well range across the entire world, but Christian Aid chose to do it differently, and that choice, it can scarcely be doubted, was very much a political one.
It’s hard to see how this fixation with Israel and Palestine can be understood as (in the words of Liberal Judaism CEO Rabbi Danny Rich) ’seek[ing] to fulfil a humanitarian mandate’. On the contrary, its perverse consequence is that other areas of the world suffering human rights abuses on a vastly greater scale simply get ignored. You might expect that an international development agency like CA would be concerned to redress the neglect of many such places by mainstream media and political discourse in Britain. Instead it concentrates on the tiny scrap of land that’s already a focus for relentless media overkill.
The sheer volume of coverage would tend to create a false impression – of Israel as a rogue state without peer – even if it were all scrupulously even-handed (it isn’t). Whenever that perception is created it gives rise to undestandable anger. Not everyone is sophisticated enough to maintain a strict distinction between anger against Israel and anger against Jews (nor indeed do the sophisticated necessarily maintain it). For some the natural outlet for anger is violence and abuse. For many more it leads to a gradual desensitization to the proposition that the Jews are a people afflicted with a fundamental moral flaw.
The Tonge Connection
I’ve already hinted that my objections to Christian Aid’s coverage of the conflict have to do with more than its sheer volume. At this point I take up the thread begun with the two quotations at the start of this post.
The name of the Liberal Democrat politician Jenny Tonge, now Baroness Tonge, will be all too familiar to many Jews. In 2004 a comment suggesting that Palestinian terrorism was an understandable reaction to the conditions of occupation led to her being sacked by party leader Charles Kennedy from the Lib Dem front bench. Two years later her statement at the party conference that “the pro-Israeli lobby has got its grips on the western world, its financial grips. I think they’ve probably got a grip on our party.” was denounced by Kennedy’s successor Menzies Campbell as having “clear anti-Semitic connotations.” She is someone who has plainly moved way beyond legitimate criticism of Israel.
Earlier in 2006 Baroness Tonge had been appointed a Trustee of Christian Aid. After her conference speech the charity sought to portray it as irrelevant to her work with them. However, her position had evidently become untenable and she resigned her Trusteeship soon afterwards. I have little doubt that this was a result of pressure put on CA by responsible church leaders, but Tonge was no less certain that the pressure had come from a different quarter. As she wrote in an e-mail to a student:
‘After criticizing the lobby in a fringe meeting at conference (just after the publication of the book I mentioned [i.e. Mearsheimer and Walt, The Israel Lobby]) I had to stand down from the board of Christian Aid because they had been warned by the BOD [Board of Deputies of British Jews], that my membership would endanger projects going ahead in the West Bank and Gaza.’
So was this the end of Christian Aid’s association with this deplorable conspiracy theorist? By no means. The connection is now a little less direct, but it is nevertheless alive and well. Baroness Tonge is currently a Patron of Friends of Sabeel UK, a group which promotes the nationalist liberation theology of the Palestinian Anglican Canon Naim Ateek. Its declared aim is to work for a just peace, which it may or may not be doing; what is evident from its website is that it promotes a one-sided propagandist narrative of the conflict and its origins, and that it campaigns against the Israeli security barrier without acknowledging that the barrier is a response to the deliberate killing of hundreds of civilians.
Friends of Sabeel UK declares prominently on its website that it is a partner of Christian Aid. It can be assumed that the partnership is to FoSUK’s advantage financially; Charity Commission records shows it raising barely half as much as it spends. The honour of being a Patron is one that Baroness Tonge shares with, among others, Professor Michael Taylor, former director of Christian Aid, Michael Langrish, Bishop of Exeter and a Trustee of Christian Aid, and John Gladwin, Bishop of Chelmsford and Chair of Christian Aid from 1998 to 2008.
The point of establishing this connection is that by now it would take pretty high levels of anti-Israel obsessionalism – and a pretty insouciant attitude towards anti-Semitism – to make anyone want to make common cause against Israel with Baroness Tonge. Two Liberal Democrat leaders have distanced themselves from her; the top brass of Christian Aid are doing quite the reverse.
A Connection Too Far
The Friends of Sabeel website reveals another connection that is, if anything, even more disturbing than that with Baroness Tonge. For also on the list of Patrons is Ibrahim Hewitt, “coordinator of the Palestine relief organisation Interpal”.
The Harry’s Place blog has made something of a speciality of researching Interpal and its relationship to Hamas. Rather than duplicate HP’s efforts, I invite readers to inform themselves here and here, and specifically on Ibrahim Hewitt here. Follow the link to Mr Hewitt’s pamphlet “What does Islam Say?” and note, for example, his opinions on the proper punishments for apostates (death) and homosexuals (one hundred lashes, or death). That he is comfortable with the proposition that those converting from Islam to Christianity deserve to forfeit their lives is not only ironic given that he is himself a convert with an at least nominally Christian background, but also makes him, one would think, a remarkable bedfellow for a brace of bishops.
Agreed, that is not directly relevant to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not so the second of the quotes at the beginning of this post, also from Mr Hewitt’s pamphlet and quoted in a recent Harry’s Place post. Here it is again:
‘International law accepts that people living under illegal military occupation are entitled to fight against the occupiers with whatever means they have at their disposal. If the world does not like, for example, “terrorist suicide bombing” in Palestine (a weapon neither unique to the Palestinians nor invented by them), then, as one Palestinian exile said at a conference in December 2003, “Give us F-16s, Apache helicopters, missiles tanks and heavy weapons, and we’ll have a fair fight”.’
Hewitt further underlines this position by quoting approvingly from “contemporary Islâmic scholar, Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi”, who has consistently upheld the right of Palestinians to resort to terrorism.
This is not, repeat not, about Mr Hewitt being a Muslim, nor is it about the fact that he sympathizes with the Palestinians. The issue is this: his argument that Palestinians are entitled to kill Israeli civilians is one which Christians must reject as morally intolerable. The claim that “international law” vindicates terrorism is of course preposterous; far less can it be vindicated by any credibly Christian ethic. I cannot justify deliberately murdering the unarmed and defenceless by appealing to a group identity which they share with others whose military might exceeds my own. To assert otherwise is, apart from any other consideration, inherently racist where the group identity in question is a racial one, as it plainly is in the case of Palestinian terrorism.
The principle I have just stated may or may not have been infringed by members of the Israeli forces in Gaza. If and to the extent it has been, that is deplorable. Where Palestinian terrorism is concerned no ‘ifs’ arise. That the infringement has occurred and that it has indeed been premeditated and deliberate is beyond question, and this infringement is precisely what Mr Hewitt seeks to vindicate in the quote above. And this presents Christian Aid and Friends of Sabeel UK with a choice. Either they can claim the moral high ground for their efforts on behalf of the Palestinians, or they can argue from political expediency that their tent should be large enough to accommodate Ibrahim Hewitt. But they cannot do both.
Christian Aid and Hamas
What, then, is Ibrahim Hewitt, a Muslim with extreme religious and political views, doing as a Patron of a Christian charity? It’s just possible that the Christian Aiders are not aware quite how extreme his views actually are. On the other hand, it’s not necessary to assume that they are ignorant of his and Interpal’s stance towards Hamas. For Christian Aid itself seems to be by no means hostile towards Hamas.
It consistently offers no criticism of Hamas to balance its repeated criticisms of Israel. It consistently avoids use of the word “terrorism”; whilst its official statements condemn “violence” in general terms, there is never any suggestion that the deliberate killing of non-combattants deserves special condemnation. Nor is there any acknowledgement that Hamas has been one of the foremost sponsors of violence of this type, nor that it is intransigently hostile to the existence of Israel, which Christian Aid is officially committed to upholding.
There is more on this theme in my response to a Christian Aid parliamentary briefing produced in 2006 and typical of an approach which has been entirely consistent before and since.
Further evidence of Christian Aid’s approach can be found on Friends of Sabeel UK’s website. The FAQ page starts with the question “Is Sabeel anti-semitic?” – revealing a certain defensiveness, perhaps. The answer begins with “No” and ends with criticism of Israel. It contains no mention of the explicit anti-Semitism of Hamas.
The events page lists FoSUK as one of the supporters of the “Free Palestine!” demonstration in London on 16 May 2009. Also in the list of supporters are the Muslim Association of Britain (”the British franchise of Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood”, in the words of Harry’s Place) and Viva Palestina, under whose auspices George Galloway made his way to Gaza to hand over a wad of cash to Hamas. Viva Palestina is under investigation by the Charity Commission following this escapade (it is, after all, illegal to fund Hamas even if you don’t have charitable status) – see this Harry’s Place post which also notes the organization’s close links with Ibrahim Hewitt’s Interpal.
The Charity Commission seems happy to grant charities a good deal of leeway for political campaigning, and only under fairly extreme provocation does it bestir itself even to launch an investigation. Personally, I believe that this degree of politicization makes nonsense of the very concept of charity; even if the Commissioners disagree, it really is not acceptable for the churches which sponsor Christian Aid to share their indulgence.
The security barrier
‘Christian Aid has expressed unequivocal support for the security of Israel and the rights of all Israeli people to live safely and securely’ writes Rabbi Rich. Indeed it has. The problem is that there is a large gap between what the organization says in bland official statements (largely to keep the Charity Commission and/or the Archbishop of Canterbury off its back, I suspect) and what it actually practises. For in practice its support for the security of Israel is hedged about by the equivocations that surface whenever Israel takes action to safeguard its citizens.
The homepage of Friends of Sabeel UK features a photo of what is described elsewhere as an “armed Israeli lookout tower on the ‘Apartheid’ Wall”. Another photo features “A Friends of Sabeel demonstration against the continued construction of the wall”.
What has the security barrier meant for Israelis? Bearing in mind that construction began in 2003, the graph here tells its own story (I would not usually rely on an Israeli – or any other – government source, but the figures are not in dispute). To bring the picture up to date, one Israeli woman was killed by a suicide bombing in February 2008 (the bomber had come across the barrier-free border with Jordan). As I write that is the most recent suicide attack to have occurred in Israel. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have both acknowledged that their attacks have been frustrated by the presence of the barrier.
When Pope Benedict visited the Holy Land he described the security barrier as one of the saddest sights of his trip, and looked forward to a future in which it would have disappeared. But he also stated clearly that this was contingent on a renunciation of violence and aggression by all sides. That was an expression of ‘unequivocal support for the security of Israel’ and a model for Christians. It is sadly not the view of the Christian Aiders gathered together as Friends of Sabeel.
It might sound outrageous to suggest that the Friends of Sabeel want it made easier for Palestinians to kill Jews. But in June 2006 Baroness Tonge wrote complainingly in a letter to the Independent ‘It should come as no surprise to anyone that suicide bombers in Iraq are Palestinians. Israel’s security wall is forcing them to export themselves to another arena [...]‘ (my emphasis). Lest we forget, Baroness Tonge is a Patron of Friends of Sabeel UK and a very special friend of Christian Aid.
To be continued
This long post has been too long in the writing. For this I offer my apologies to the reader who asked me to write it, whilst leaving further thoughts for a follow-up post.
Update: the follow-up is here.
Comments
| 28 October 2009, 9:27 pm |
So-called “Christian” Aid’s answer is very simple
“No Jews, No Problems”
Europe 1930’s – “Jews to Palestine”
Europe 2000’s – “Jews out of Palestine”
“Don’t be here … Don’t be there … Just Don’t Be!”
| 28 October 2009, 9:28 pm |
Good post and well worth your effort. Thanks.
The simple equation is that they focus on Israel because they hate Jews. There is no other explanation as to why they ignore real human tragedies in favour of a self-inflicted one.
I have NO doubt in stating that Palestinian Victimhood is a Fiction History. Its full of lies with the single objective of demonising Israel unfairly. I often stats that Palestinians have no cards to play and as losers they have nothing to lose by killing and lying.
They have had The Roadmap To Peace for many years and they broke it within 24 hours. Why would they kill when they get what they desire, a Palestinian State, without killing?
Even if you point-out that Gaza isn’t occupied and Israel moved out with the hope that Gaza would develop as an economic region demonstrating the advantages of peace they will reframe it so that they can say that Gaza IS occupied. Hamas fought Fatah and the investors went away.
Once again, thanks for your efforts
| 28 October 2009, 9:36 pm |
Oh bravo. Thank you.
PS, the term “Holy Land” really says a mouthful doesn’t it.
I think many Christians still deplore Jews on religious grounds and the idea that Jews are back in Israel and self-determining is just too much to bear.
If I am off base here I apologize.
In any case as the author points out there is no moral justification for the deliberate murder of civilians. I hadn’t read the comment by Jenny Tonge about the Palestinians exporting themselves to Iraq and blowing people up there because they were prevented from blowing up Israelis by the security barrier.
That is just flat out disgusting and it amazes me that anybody considers this woman remotely civilized.
| 28 October 2009, 9:43 pm |
[. . .] what the organization says in bland official statements (largely to keep the Charity Commission and/or the Archbishop of Canterbury off its back, I suspect)
Would the Archbishop of Canterbury object to unbland, in fact quite blunt, attacks on Israel and expressions of sympathy and support for Arab terrorism? A year or so ago, I think, I don’t remember the date, Rowan Williams went to Israel with the Bishop of Durham, N.T. Wright, and both of them spouted the conventional poisonous garbage.
| 28 October 2009, 9:55 pm |
Howdoes Christian Aid explain the war started by Hezbollah against Israel and them still firing rockets as Israel.
The Lebanese aren’t Palestinians and Israel doesn’t occupy The Lebanon.
| 28 October 2009, 10:05 pm |
Thanks for posting this…although it wearies and saddens me it has to be exposed and weeded out of the Christian world.
| 28 October 2009, 10:08 pm |
Melanie Phillips on Britain’s complicity in Palestinians torturing Palestians and yet not a murmur from Human Rights (except Israel) groups. Not a murmur about recent Katuyshas from The Lebanon. Why? Because they hate Jews! http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5482686/tortured-reasoning.thtml
| 28 October 2009, 11:38 pm |
And here’s some hard facts for those HP luminaries who can always be relied on to turn on the full-flame hatred when the topic is the evil Jewish religious fundamentalist settlers of the West Bank, with their supposed homophobia:
T is a gay Palestinian who for the past 10 years has been living in Israel with his partner, an Israeli Jew named Doron. A few days ago, he heard that his father was ill, and he ventured across the border into the West Bank to visit him. When he tried to return, however, the IDF told him his permit had been lost, maybe revoked. T was stuck: he couldn’t go back home to Israel, and he couldn’t return to his village, for fear of being murdered because he is openly gay.T was offered shelter by an Orthodox Jewish family, living in one of the settlements in the West Bank. Thanks to a generous, humanitarian gesture by one of those evil, nasty, gun-toting, messiah-heralding, baby-producing, Bible-thumping settlers, T has hope and room to breathe.
What do we learn from this? On the one hand, there’s the plight of Palestinians desperately trying to make their way out of their homeland to something better, and the trouble they face by the authorities of democratic states like Israel, and especially a security bureaucracy as lethal as its weaponry, even when they think they have permission to stay. On the other hand, there’s the touching personal story of the anonymous family of religious settlers willing to take T into their home — certainly not for the publicity (they remain unknown), and also not because they necessarily support equality for gays in society — but just because it is a mitzva to save the guy’s life.
But the biggest story, I think, is that he needed shelter in the first place. For all our hopes pinned on Abbas and the rest of the Fatah-led PA crew, it’s still a fact that an openly gay person risks his life by entering a Palestinian village. And the same is true in many places across the Arab world, and in Iran as well. The fact is that for all our desire to understand the “other,” to sympathize with the plight of civilizations different from our own and, to embrace their struggle against oppression while denouncing our own “colonialism,” the fact remains that at least part of what makes them different from us is not merely quaint or alien but reprehensible. That we are in effect extending a hand of tolerance to those who expressly renounce tolerance, and who make little effort to hide their murderous side.
Here there are no excuses to be made for Abbas: the problem with the Palestinian Authority is not that it lacks proper mechanisms for the enforcement of gay rights, that it just can’t get its anti-gay groups under its rein. The problem, indeed, is not with the regime, so much as with an entire society that doesn’t believe in gay rights and has no intention of protecting them. And that for them, the rejection of gays extends far beyond denying them civil rights into denying them human ones. Until this changes, if it ever does, why would any self-respecting Westerner take such people’s side?
| 29 October 2009, 12:07 am |
Thanks to all the supportive commenters. Joe Camel, although I’ve been very critical of Rowan Williams I truly believe he has a somewhat better moral compass than the Christian Aiders – he intervened earlier this year to tone down a grossly one-sided resolution from the Anglican Consultative Committee.
| 29 October 2009, 12:08 am |
A very good post. Sabeel are also affiliates of the PSC of course.
Not wishing to generalise regarding all Christians, but one does sometimes wonder if they learned any lessons at all from the Holocaust.
| 29 October 2009, 12:23 am |
Great article, thank you. I was not aware of the Jenny Tonge connection, although I have not been dealing with Christian Aid since their 2004 Bethlehem’s Child campaign, which can only be described as hideous. I really hope that Liberal Judaism groups don’t ally themselves with people who clearly do not have their best interests at heart.
| 29 October 2009, 12:33 am |
Excellent article, Harry.
Keep on exposing these hypocritical nasties.
Live long…
| 29 October 2009, 1:00 am |
Hey Cyprus,
I have been reading your blog for several years now and as I do with this post appreciate both the clarity of your writing and your research. I was wondering whether you have come across anything that would indicate to you, whether or not Archbishop Desmond Tutu and/or Bishop Naim Ateek might have soft spots in their hearts for supercessionist theology.
Thanks.
Now I’m off to read your update.
| 29 October 2009, 1:54 am |
Cyrus, thanks for the information. It’s reassuring to know that Rowan Williams isn’t such a hopeless case as I thought he was.
I notice, however, that you don’t spring to the other one’s defence. From your silence I am tempted to infer that you concede that in Wright’s case, at least, my criticism is justified.
| 29 October 2009, 3:14 am |
Apologies for the unintentional addition of an erroneous ‘p’ in your name Cyrus.
| 29 October 2009, 3:50 am |
Meanwhile Obama seeks to improve his 6-10% rating with the Israeli public with video broadcasts. Wishes to dispel the impression he doesn’t support Israel http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1124448.html
I’ve got an idea for you. Just re-state that when you said that Jerusalem was the undivided capital of Israel you mean it. Maybe Obama is learning that he can’t throw Israel under the bus. I just wonder.
| 29 October 2009, 4:51 am |
The term “just peace” as used by Canon Naim Ateek and his Sabeel Center and its supporters means peace through the elimination of Israel and its replacement by a majority Palestinian state.
All the anti-Israel movements within the churches seem to partner with Sabeel. In 2006 when the Anglican Church in the U.S. voted to divest from Israel, the people promoting that divestment brought in Ateek to argue for the motion.
At the time, I wrote a short description of Sabeel. which I think remains valid:
Briefly, Sabeel is an ecumenical centre for antisemitism, devoted to
reviving the teaching of contempt in aid of the Palestinian war against Israel.
The centre welcomes speakers such as Rosemary Reuther, who says Jews have become idolatrous
http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2002b/051002/051002l.htm;
And Marc Ellis, whom Reuther regards as a prophet and who says that Torah scrolls should be replaced by helicopter gunships as a symbol of what Jews worship (Israel and Palestine Out of the Ashes, p. 1)
Naim Ateek, Sabeel’s founder, has likened Israelis to modern day Herods, murdering innocents, and has preached that “in this season of Lent, it seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians around Him..The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily.”
(http://www.juf.org/news_public_affairs/article.asp?keyc98)
Ateek is also the author of an extremely sympathetic “explanation” of
suicide bombing (http://www.sabeel.org/old/news/cstone25/suicidebombers.htm#_edn1).
He does condemn suicide bombing, but blames it entirely on Israel, while eulogizing the bombers themselves. He writes:
“the phenomenon of suicide bombings . tragically arises from the deep misery and torment of many Palestinians. For how else can one explain it?
When healthy, beautiful, and intelligent young men and women set out to kill and be killed, something is basically wrong in a world that has not heard their anguished cry for justice. These young people deserve to live along with all those whom they have caused to die.”
Like the American Anglican Peace and Justice Committee, Ateek compares Israel to South Africa, but claims its form of Apartheid is actually far worse.
NGO monitor has a report on Sabeel here:
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/editions/v3n11/SabeelsEcumenicalFacade.htm
| 29 October 2009, 7:53 am |
“I think many Christians still deplore Jews on religious grounds and the idea that Jews are back in Israel and self-determining is just too much to bear.” – Sophia.
There is no evidence at all for this ‘thinking’. It is a prejudice. This site contains a moving obituary for Irena Sendler, a Roman Catholic. Please find time to read it.
“Not wishing to generalise regarding all Christians, but one does sometimes wonder if they learned any lessons at all from the Holocaust.” – Israelinurse.
This is not a generalisation. It is a smear.
“Thanks for posting this…although it wearies and saddens me it has to be exposed and weeded out of the Christian world.” – Stuart.
“Exposed”? “Weeded out”? Alter this appalling statement by substituting “Christian” with “Jewish” or “gay” and one sees it at once for the disgusting tripe it is.
Christian Aid is damned by this critique – two point five pages on Sudan? Even Abp Carey had a go at the mass murders who run that benighted state! Baroness Tonge is unwell and I have no wish to dwell on her misfortune but she is misusing her elevation to the second chamber.
One can identify with the innocent victims of conflict; German children were bought over to England in 1945 by people who certainly were not grieving for the mega murderer but conscious of the need to improve life for those who were also among his victims. I know of Israeli’s are also active in seeking to reach out to Palestinian civilians and subject their own government to scrutiny daily. Such actions as these are not those of dupes but expressions of common humanity.
The evidence is here for Christian Aid having become dupes (at best) of anti-Semitic and anti-democratic forces – the Hewitt connection for example, is quite extraordinary. An explanation and some probity in the conduct of Christian Aid are urgently called for.
| 29 October 2009, 11:15 am |
I support just one foreign charity.
Dr Jack Praeger’s Calcutta Relief Fund.
It’s small & I know where the cash goes.
Most of the rest are crooked, in that either
they harm local economies and/or overpay
their senior staff.
Christian aid, like the religion it purports to represent,
is easily hijacked. Indeed while the current incumbent
of the See of Canterbury is in place, Anglicanism is steadily
becoming the threshold to islam.
Re the Lib Dems. Why was Tonge given a peerage if not
fit for the front bench ?
And let’s not forget Sara Tether. She said it was the happiest
day of her life when a Guantanamo holiday maker returned
to her constituency. Since he’s an “asylum seeker” not
entitled to vote, she must have been sucking up to a certain
constituency best not mentioned.
| 29 October 2009, 11:45 am |
Larkers – (pleasant as ever this morning I see..)
World Council of Churches – 1956 – statement on the existence of the State of Israel:
‘We cannot say a plain ‘yes’ to the forces of nationalism, for that would be to endorse forces of corporate selfishness and antagonism with all the suffering they cause. On the other hand we cannot say a plain ‘no’, because the Church does not stand for a vague cosmopolitanism. The answer lies between the ‘yes’ and the ‘no’….To the State of Israel we cannot say an absolute ‘no’, for we must all sympathise with the sufferings of the Jewish people and rejoice whenever by God’s grace they are delivered from them. Yet we cannot say an absolute ‘yes’, for the setting up of the State of Israel while it has relieved the sufferings of many Jews, has involved great suffering to many Arabs who have lost their land and homes.
Moreover, while we understand the desire of many Jews to have a country of their own, we believe it is their calling to live as the people of God, and not to become merely a nation like others.’
Note that last sentence….
‘The role of Israel and Jerusalem in Jewish self-definition is crucial and the recognition of this fact is what Jews are asking from Christians today. Moments of truth came in 1967 and 1973 when Israel appeared to be in mortal danger. Jews throughout the world were shaken to the depths of their souls and sought some sort of expression of recognition of the need for the continuing existence of the State from Christians, especially from those with whom they were engaged in dialogue. With very few exceptions, the Christians remained silent and evasive. The main Churches refused to speak out, presumably out of political considerations of their commitments in the Muslim world.’
‘Jewish -Christian relations since the Second World War’, Geoffrey Wigoder.
In short, Larkers, not only can one not ignore the role of Christian anti-Semitism in the growth of Nazi ideology or the Church’s relative silence during the Holocaust; when the Jews’ safe haven was twice under existential threat the Church was once again largely silent. And today, with the threat of Iranian nuclear missiles on Tel Aviv becoming a growing probability and Iranian proxies on most of Israel’s borders, the Church seems yet again, for the most part, to be incapable of taking the correct moral stance.
| 29 October 2009, 12:37 pm |
Larkers – the Canadian church narrowly rejected an Institutional and Academic boycott of Israel recently, which still remains on the table for future debate.
The Lutheran church advocate “supporting” peace in The Holy Lands by:
A) support a shared Jerusalem
B) oppose Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories
C) support aid and policies that build the Palestinian economy
Not a single mention of Palestinian and Islamic aggression as usual. Totally and utterly biased!
Every bloomin liberal ‘Christian’ website harps on about the ‘evils’ of Israel.
From personal experience I can say with some authority that anti-semitism is rife in some factions of the Christian community in the UK. What do we do sit back and let it go unchallenged?
| 29 October 2009, 12:48 pm |
Want a job working for Christian Aid in Israel?
Hebrew is not necessary – only Arabic is desirable.
Apply now!!!
| 29 October 2009, 2:32 pm |
Just cancelling my standing order…
| 29 October 2009, 3:11 pm |
Israelinurse (’Good afternoon’) and Stuart.
“All Jews are the same.”
Discuss.
| 29 October 2009, 4:00 pm |
Stuart,
It was specifically the United Church of Canada that voted on the boycott motion (which, as you mentioned, it rejected). My understanding is that the United Church is about as representative of Christianity as the SHJ is representative of Judaism.
Also, I too think that some of the comments on this thread regarding Christians and Christianity are quite offensive.
| 29 October 2009, 4:05 pm |
Larkers – “All Jews are the same”
Fair point.
Red Sea Pedestrian
Fair point also. But I still maintain that there is a worrying trend in some pockets of the Christian world, which is either growing or am simply noticing it more (and it always existed) and I hope that it is the latter.
| 29 October 2009, 5:23 pm |
In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the term “just peace” typcially signals a partisan organization that’s not working toward peace at all.
It’s not just Sabeel that defines “just peace” as the elimination of Israel, but also the World Council of Churches.
Similarily practically all organizations that describe themselves as part of the “peace and justice” movement are actually partisan aniti-Israel propaganda organizations.
And while “justice” signifies the elimination of Israel, “peace” means that Israel is not to defend itself.
| 29 October 2009, 5:49 pm |
Larkers – of course all Christians are not the same, but here we are discussing a charity calling itself ‘Christian Aid’ – not Baptist Aid, Catholic Aid or Lutherean Aid. I personally do not know exactly to which section of Christianity Christian Aid belongs and I doubt very much if the average donor in the street knows either.
What I do know is that just in this small English town (popl. 7,000 or so) we have a Catholic church which is very active in promoting anti-Israeli boycotts and has affiliated itself to the PSC and Sabeel, we have a Baptist church which recently screened an anti-Israeli film at the request of the PSC and we have a Methodist church which has displayed anti-Israeli posters on its outside notice board as well as a pastor who last Christmas wrote an article in the local rag comparing Palestinians at roadblocks to Mary and Joseph and Israeli soldiers to Roman occupying forces.
So forgive me if I’m having a little trouble telling different groups apart; maybe the non-anti-Israel Christians should start reclaiming their faith’s name from those who are using it for overt political purposes.
| 29 October 2009, 6:08 pm |
Re smearing Christians: May I point up the distinction between a Church as an institution and the membership of a Church?
The United Church of Canada has had an unhealthy obsession with Israel since 1967. As an institution, it’s anti-Israeli if not outright antisemitic.
But within the church, only a tiny minority – literally, a few dozen people – are anti-Israel activists. However, they receive passive support from the Church hierarchy; they’re given space to demonize Israel at church meetings and in the UCC magazine The Observer.
Also, the Church has adopted an official stance that sees Israel as at fault in the conflict and the Palestinians as oppressed victims.
On the other hand, within the UCC, there is a diversity of opinions, including a minority who are genuinely committed to peace, as opposed to blaming Israel, and some who believe that the major obstacles to peace are on the Palestinian side, etc.
However, the large majority of UCC church-goers have little interest in the Middle East, and in so far as they have any opinion at all, it’s likely the vague impression held by most Canadians that Israelis and Palestinians are indiscriminately responsible for the mess.
They’d be happy if the conflict would stop, but they’re not spending their time thinking about it – and of course, why should they?
Antisemitism and anti-Israelism are primarily ideological sins and as such they’re adopted and spread by elites – by university professors, by the leaders of the United Church of Canada, by the editors of the Guardian, etc.
When it comes to Israel, many churches – especially liberal churches – have a shameful record, but in Canada at least, few ordinary Christians have picked up the disease. (Though, from what I read, it sounds like things are much worse in Britain.)
| 29 October 2009, 10:07 pm |
Larkers, please note that I said “some Christians” and accompanied even that with an apology.
It was not and is not my intention to smear anybody. If you’re honest with yourself you will apologize for smearing ME.
Regardless Christian antisemitism has been a problem for Jews since Roman times, indeed it’s been deadly to us.
And, I don’t think that this tendency is completely behind us.
To be honest do you?
Do you really that theology, history and custom have no role in the West’s equivocation about Israel and recognition of Jerusalem as her capitol? How can it when Jerusalem is the site where Jesus was murdered supposedly at our hands?
Let me put it this way: do you think Mel Gibson isn’t Christian?
The fact is Sabeel and other organizations continue to preach the replacement covenant and it really seems as though there’s reluctance to accept the essential equality and worthiness of the Jewish people to this day.
How can there be if we’re damned for our beliefs?
As Israelinurse points out the lack of unequivocating support for Israel’s continuing existence is damning to us and makes our continuing existence precarious. As others mention liberal denominations in the West use their very idealism to equivocate about Israel’s existence.
Between that and far left characterizations of Israel as “colonialist/imperialist” we don’t have any room to breathe. Gradually we are being made to see that Israel is evil, that we shouldn’t be there, that we have no right to a country, that we’re racists, that we should be destroyed.
Of course we should be destroyed! We’re evil, we’re damned, we’re thiefs and poisoners of water, we’re usupers – our religion is inferior, our ties to the land are meaningless, we can take no joy in our accomplishments, in the miracle of Israel’s rebirth.
Instead we’re condemned for it. We’re told that the trees we’ve planted were only a cover for the destruction of Arab villages. We’re told that Tel Aviv was built on the destruction of Arab villages.
This is coming from THE WEST as much as it is from the East. Much of the violence in Mandate Palestine was stirred by English and other Western antisemites and their lies.
So this hatred of Israel and of Jews isn’t all coming from the East. A lot of it is coming from the West. It’s imported, classical Western antisemitism. It’s been studied and written about eloquently by many scholars.
It is however fueling the rage in the East and it is generating endless conflict.
The fixation on Israel is making solutions to the problems confronting Israel and Arabs impossible. Look at the pictures posted in the update to this article.
The picture of Africa shows a contented man in front of a green field. The picture relating to Israel shows Palestinians behind bars.
This expresses an implicit bigotry, it also belies the relative condition of the two regions.
It was really only recently, relatively speaking, that the Pope addressed these issues and the role of Pius during WWII is still a hot-button issue.
So tragically the heroic Poles and others who risked their lives to save Jewish people remain the exceptions.
Had their been more of them there would have been no Shoah but people turned their backs and even participated actively.
Or do you think the Germans weren’t Christians?
Or the English centuries before and even in the Mandate, even after WWII, who tormented us?
What about the Spanish?
To this day that’s one of the most antisemitic countries in the world and they have practically no Jews anymore, they threw us all out and tortured people who’d already converted.
That was centuries ago but the hatred remains. Where did it come from? Where does Chavez’ imagery come from when he talks about bloodsuckers who’ve taken all the gold?
What about the Poles who actually murdered survivors of the camps? Were they not Christians?
By heaven they were. They are. They attend church regularly and pride themselves on their beliefs.
So let me ask again: doesn’t this have ANYTHING to do with the bias against Israel that Cyrus so eloquently exposes?
Look. Whether we’re talking about Israel, Africa, Pakistan or Iran, or human rights in China: we can’t make things better around the world, in far away lands, if we don’t confront the fault lines within our own civilization.
| 29 October 2009, 10:42 pm |
Joe Camel – Tom Wright of Durham is certainly one of Christian Aid’s favourite bishops; he provided them with an Easter homily for their ‘virtual pilgrimage’.
Brian from Toronto, your description of the UCC very much ties up with my experience in the Church of England. Here too the hard core of anti-Zionists is quite small, and it’s certainly not the case that I go to church on Sunday expecting to be treated to anti-Israel harangues. But the anti-Zionists’ grip on Christian Aid (and bear in mind that you don’t have to be Christian to work for CA) gives them significant influence over ordinary churchgoers who are not very well informed but feel that something nasty is going on in the Middle East and Christians ought to be doing something about it. Of course that influence has to be seen in conjunction with the far greater influence of the media and especially the BBC.
What I suspect is really widespread, though not very often articulated, is the belief that Judaism is a cruel and vindictive religion and that Israel’s actions reflect this. My wife heard this expressed at a Bible study meeting the other day; she was able to counter it by retelling a story from the Talmud, but of course that doesn’t always happen. And it’s precisely this perception which Christian Aid’s propaganda hooks into.
We need to steer between hysteria and complacency. Kristallnacht II isn’t round the corner, but the seeds of prejudice are there and they’re not going to go away if we ignore them.
Facinating post. Tonge is an anti-Semite and the fact that any organisation has anything to do with her is a disgrace.