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Monday, February 22, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wiesenthal Center: Presbyterian Recommendations Delegitimize Israel; Sure to Damage Interfaith Ties
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is urging the leadership of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (PCUSA) to prevent the adoption of new policies that will put the important Protestant denomination on a collision course with Israel's survival.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Center, explained the background. "We are deeply troubled that current moves underway in the Church radically depart from its 2008 commitment that its review of Middle East policies would be balanced and fair. Instead, PCUSA leadership appointed a committee of nine, seven of whom were on record as holding anti-Israel positions. The sole member sympathetic to Israel soon quit in protest over the extremist ant-Israel political agenda reflected in its recommendations, which include a:
- a call for the US to withhold financial and military aid to Israel
- an apology to Palestinians for even conceding that Israel has a right to exist.
- embracing a document prepared by Palestinians that declares that Israel, if defined as a Jewish State, must be inherently racist. This document also denies any connection between biblical covenants and the Jewish people, and begins Israel's history only with the Holocaust, describing Israel as a nation mistakenly created by Western powers at the expense of the Palestinian people to solve the 'Jewish problem.'
- It calls for a boycott against Israel, and full right of Palestinian return, which would destroy the Jewish State. These recommendations effectively open up a theological front against Israel, to add to the diplomatic and academic ones pursued by other haters of Israel."
"If such a one-sided draconian approach is adopted by the PCUSA, there will be permanent damage to the positive Interfaith relations," Cooper added.
In an e-blast to 300,000 online activists (at http://tinyurl.com/PCUSAe-petition), the leading Jewish human rights NGO is urged them to join its protest to PCUSA leaders and to also speak with their Presbyterian friends. "PCUSA has some of the staunchest supporters of Israel in its ranks," added Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, the Center's Director of Interfaith Affairs. "They are as frustrated as we are that their church leadership team spends so much energy on the Arab/Israeli conflict where there are relatively few Presbyterians who live in either Israel or the disputed territories, and spend too little energy on major human rights issues impacting Christians and Presbyterians who live in Muslim countries, China, and North Korea. We hope that our appeal to them will help them prevent a hostile takeover of an important American church group by an agendized minority."
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).
For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations Department, 310-553-036, join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter page or mobile device.
