'Zionism Unsettled' Presbyterian Study Guide Equates Zionism With Racism, Jewish Critics Say

[King_David]

(RNS) Major Jewish civil rights groups are denouncing a new publication distributed by the Presbyterian Church (USA) that rejects the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.

“Zionism Unsettled,” a study guide published last month by the Israel/Palestine Mission Network, a group chartered by the church, writes of the “pathology” of Zionism, the movement undergirding the founding of Israel as a Jewish homeland.

The booklet describes Zionism as inherently discriminatory toward non-Jews. It calls on Christians to see the conflict through the lens of Palestinian Christians who have declared Zionism “heretical” and “a doctrine that promotes death rather than life.”

“The fundamental assumption of this study is that no exceptionalist claims can be justified in our interconnected, pluralistic world,” the booklet states.

But Jewish groups say that in its accusations of Israeli “exceptionalism,” the booklet seeks to mask its authors’ bigotry.

“This publication is not an attack on particular Israeli policies but on the very idea of a Jewish return to Zion,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The church, he added “has deployed the nuclear option against the vast majority of Jews, calling us inherently racist and abusive. We call on our Christian associates — including those critical of some of Israel’s policies — to denounce this disgusting attack aimed at delegitimizing and demonizing the world’s largest Jewish community and all lovers of Zion. “

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/14/zionism-unsetttled_n_4789002.html

[King_David]

1. .

In an open letter to the church, he wrote that “to suggest that the Jewish yearning for their own homeland — a yearning that we Presbyterians have supported for numerous other nations — is somehow theologically and morally abhorrent is to deny Jews their own identity as a people.”


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/14/zionism-unsetttled_n_4789002.html

[King_David]

2. The Unsettling Anti-Semitism of Zionism Unsettled

http://www.jewishjournal.com/jews_and_mormons/item/the_unsettling_anti_semitism_of_zionism_unsettled

[Scootaloo]

3. Well... first, Zionism IS racism

second, ethnic cleansing WAS performed - you don't completely invert a territory's ethnic demographics in under a year by asking nicely.

Third, apartheid is really the only applicable word to how Israel is currently operating itself.

Fourth, Sinai was never Israel's to "give back" and claiming Gaza has been returned is farcical at best, as it is an open-air prison maintained on three sides by Israeli firepower and on the fourth by an Israel-friendly military junta that massacres its own civilians and treats journalism as terrorism.

Fifth, as nasty as antisemitic rhetoric is, it really doesn't compare to physical mass reprisals, murder, and daily random abuses and humiliations delivered to Palestinians.

Sixth, there really isn't a place for racist nationalism in the modern world. especially in the context of a state that is already multiethnic in makeup (despite some rather vigorous efforts, perhaps)

And yes, Zionism DOES promote death over life - the current state of affairs, with Jews as well as Palestinians in the crosshairs, is preferable to Zionism than an alternative that involves living in integration on any level. Much as our ardent Zionist here would rather see Israeli pilots shot out of the sky and invite fire from assorted and sundry factions, than potentially not blow up a bunch of Iranians. Just as a poster here would rather throw a grenade into a crowd of Arab children than risk not killing a bad guy. it celebrates the ethnic cleansing of another people that it caused, and many of its proponents - such as the venerable Abe Foxman and Elie Weisal - actively belittle and deny death and suffering on a mass scale inflicted upon other people, for fear it will somehow "dilute" Jewish suffering to recognize these horrors - and thus perhaps lessen the Zionist ability to exploit that horror for political ends.

It's frankly a perverse and psychopathic racist ideology that exploits and harms Jews as much as it does those people it actively targets.

So, there's all that.

On the down side, trying to make these points from a religious point of view is asinine - I suppose a study commissioned by a church will inevitably have that sort of slant to it, but really, it's a political issue - the religious garbage slathered on top is just cover, exploiting those dunderheads who regard faith as some sort of inviolate forcefield. And what's this, see it through Palestinian Christians' eyes? Do not Palestinian Muslims count? How about African Christians, Muslims, and whoever putting up with race riots led by Israeli MK's? How about those handful of Israelis who are trying to wrestle their nation back on the road to civilization?

Narrowing it down to just "Bad Zionists vs. Good Christians" changes the political context of the Zionism being spoken of into a religious context, which is certainly a different subject altogether... and unfortunately this brings some legitimate criticisms with it, most pointedly the fact that in religious context, "Zionist" becomes "Jew" with unnerving swiftness. I believe the Presbyterian church when they say that wasn't at all their intent.. .but that's invariably how it's going to read when you take a political ideology and shoehorn it into a faith lens, when there's already an aspect of faith with the same name as the ideology.

[King_David]

4. Yes your views on "Zionism"

Are well known here.


As The Great Abba Ebban said :

There is no difference whatever between anti-Semitism and the denial of Israel's statehood. Classical anti-Semitism denies the equal right of Jews as citizens within society. Anti-Zionism denies the equal rights of the Jewish people its lawful sovereignty within the community of nations. The common principle in the two cases is discrimination.

New York Times, November 3, 1975

[King_David]

5. David Duke Endorses PC(USA) Document

For the past several weeks, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has been selling a 74-page booklet about the Arab-Israeli conflict. It has sold this booklet through its website.

The booklet, titled Zionism Unsettled, was prepared by the Israel Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA), an organization that was created by a vote at the denomination’s 2004 General Assembly.

When it was created, the organization was charged with educating members of the PC(USA) about the Arab-Israeli conflict, but the IPMN has fulfilled this mandate by demonizing Israel and Jews. See this article for background.

Over the years, as the IPMN’s hostility toward Israel and Jews has become increasingly manifest, PC(USA) officials have tried to assert that the organization is not really part of the denomination they lead, but it is.

It’s part of the denomination’s network of missions. At one point, after receiving a complaint from CAMERA about the organization's anti-Semitic messaging, a PC(USA) official in Louisville said the denomination was going to issue a set of rules that the denomination's mission groups would have to follow if they want to stay a part of the PC(USA), but apparently, nothing ever came of these rules.

The report just issued by the PC(USA)'s Israel Palestine Mission Network has been described, accurately, as an assault on Zionism and the Jewish people.

http://blog.camera.org/archives/2014/02/david_duke_endorses_presbyteri.html

[King_David]

8. You Are Judged By The Company You Keep nt

[King_David]

6. ADL Voices Anger Over Presbyterian ‘Zionism Unsettled’ Study Guide

New York, NY, February 11, 2014 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today voiced “outrage and anger” over the publication of “Zionism Unsettled” by the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The document, intended as a “study guide” for congregations, may be the most anti-Semitic document to come out of a mainline American church in recent memory.

Among the stridently anti-Israel perspectives in “Zionism Unsettled:”

It is only Israel that is responsible for the plight of the Palestinians;
The Jewish people’s desire for a homeland is abhorrent;
Zionism is the source of evil; it leads to ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide;
American Jewish organizations, in their support of Israel, share in the responsibility for the evil deeds of Zionism.


http://www.adl.org/press-center/press-releases/israel-middle-east/adl-voices-anger-over-presbyterian-zionism-unsettled-study-guide.html#.UwDYoPldWRU

[King_David]

7. Outrageous resource guide

Rabbi Steve Gutow, president of JCPA: Jewish Council for Public Affairs, released a statement railing against the publication, saying it is “worthy of a hate group, not a prominent American church.”


Read more: The Jewish Chronicle - Outrageous resource guide


http://thejewishchronicle.net/view/full_story/24580099/article-Outrageous-resource-guide?instance=lead_story_left_column

[shira]

9. Presb. Minister calling for Jews to GTFO of Israel now posting articles celebrating......

...the kidnapping of Israeli teens:

https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/status/478899962344775681/photo/1

[shira]

10. The True Agenda: the End of the Jewish State of Israel

http://www.pfmep.org/addressing-the-issues/139-the-true-agenda-the-end-of-the-jewish-state-of-israel

Add all of these strategies together and it is 100% clear that the true agenda of IPMN, PPF, and the secular BDS movement is to undo what the world did in 1947 when the international community came together to recognize the newly created Israel as a Jewish homeland.

Can it possibly be true that the lay people and clergy of the PCUSA believe that Israel should stop being a Jewish state, that it is an apartheid state, that we should penalize companies who do business on both sides of the West Bank border, that we should drop traditional understandings of hymns to advance a radical political agenda, that we want our mission dollars being spent to distribute a “study guide” that is being condemned by anybody with a more inclusive approach to the issues? We think not. We don’t think the General Assembly will agree either.