by James M. Wall
Four professors–two from Vanderbilt, one from Auburn Theological Seminary, and one from Syracuse University–have burst on the national scene as strong opponents of a Middle East Study Commission resolution which will be presented to the Presbyterian Church, USA, General Assembly in Minneapolis, MN, July 3-10.
Between them, the four professors have produced two articles against the resolution, one in the Christian Century magazine, the other in Newsweek.
None of these academics are elected commissioners. Presumably they represent the highest tradition of scholarship that one expects to find in the Reformed denomination spawned by John Calvin, who, by the way, will reach the age of 501 on the closing day of this year’s General Assembly.
It is possible that one or more of the anti-resolution quartet members has devoted time to academic study of the history, politics and ethics involved in this issue, or conducted on-the-ground research investigation in the area.
There is, however, no evidence of practical nor scholarly wisdom regarding the current political situation in either article.
There is only the usual interfaith request for two of the three Abrahamic traditions to continue to love one another, and, in the Christian Century article, considerable attention to biblical history, which has no actual relevance to the current reality. Not unless we are prepared to reopen the Creek Indian nation’s claim on the state of Georgia.
Each article hides behind a smoke screen that protects the scholars from even remotely approaching the standard of pertinent scholarship one expects from four academics from such prestigious educational institutions.
Both articles ignore the harsh reality of Israel’s six decades of immoral and unethical treatment of the Palestinian people. There is nothing about the Nakba, the “security wall” or the prison-like conditions under which Palestinians are forced to live.
The article written for the Christian Century magazine is by Ted A. Smith and Amy-Jill Levine under the headline, “Habits of anti-Judaism”, Both authors teach at Vanderbilt University.
Smith and Levine describe the PCUSA resolution as the latest public manifestation of an anti-semitism that has long existed in American religious life.
The two Vanderbilt professors attack the PCUSA Middle East Study Commission with a string of innuendoes that shout “anti-semites in the room”. They do so, however, in the polite, and deliberately misleading, language of a dusty seminar room.
This is how Smith and Levine begin their argument, linking anti-semitism to any attempt to criticize Israeli actions:
Old habits die hard. Despite numerous attempts by mainline Protestant denominations to promote historically informed studies of Judaism, repudiate supersessionist theologies and engage in conversations with Jews, the old habit of bearing false witness against Jewish neighbors lives on.
In recent years this practice has thrived, especially in mainline Protestant statements on the Middle East.
The “old habit” of anti-semitism must be so ingrained in the majority of the Middle East Study Commissioners, that they actually dared to reject what their professors taught them in “historically informed studies of Judaism”.
Also presumably, those studies would have revealed to students that one of the greatest threats to the Christian religion is the belief in “supersessionist theologies”.
After their polite attacks on anti-semites, these two learned Vanderbilt scholars give the customary nod to the good intentions of “congregations, denominations and councils [who] have rightly advocated for Palestinians suffering because of Israeli policies.”
Nothing further about the Occupation nor house demolitions, nor targeted assassinations, nor “security walls” designed to steal land and make life miserable enough for the Palestinian to make them just go away. The only blame leveled is at Israeli “policies”.
It is also revealing that one central complaint from Smith and Levine is that the Presbyterians have not engaged in “conversations with Jews.” I happen to know that is patently false. These Presbyterian resolution writers depend heavily on Jewish voices to help them in their assignment. In fact, the evidence is pretty clear that Jewish voices in the US and in Israel are increasingly speaking out against the “policies” of the government of Israel.
The Newseek article offers the usual discussion caveat by acknowledging that the “injustice is real, the situation is urgent”. Yes, it is urgent, and it has been urgent since the slaughter of the innocents began with the Nakba in 1947.
Do Smith and Levine really want Presbyterians to believe that criticism of the Israeli army’s occupation tactics in Gaza and the West Bank–well documented brutality–is a “negative depiction of Jews”? It has nothing to do with Judaism. It has everything to do with the actions of an invading army.
If Smith and Levine had spent time reading well-researched literature about Palestinian suffering or talking with veterans of the Middle East search for peace, or visiting in refugee camps, could they have concluded that the “false and negative depiction of Jews” is really what should be the major concern of the General Assembly commissioners?
Anti-semitism has nothing to do with the suffering of the Palestinian people. Greed and a massive land grab by the modern state of Israel has everything to do with that suffering.
After traveling many times to the region since 1973, of one thing I am convinced: Judaism as a religious tradition is not important to the political leaders of the modern state of Israel, except where it can be used as a propaganda tool aimed at the Christian right or directed at gullible Hasbara-conditioned mainline American Christians.
Smith and Levine insult the intelligence of their readers by hiding behind a smoke screen of the false charge of anti-semitism against Presbyterian commissioners who ask nothing more than that their denomination go on record of standing against a moral injustice that harms both Palestinians and Israelis.
Smith and Levine are not alone in their effort to confuse Presbyterian commissioners. They have recently been joined by two other academics who adopted a different smoke screen, the Rodney King approach to conflict, “can’t we just get along” tactic.
These two authors are Katharine Henderson and Gustav Niebuhr. Henderson is president of Auburn Theological Seminary, and Niebuhr teaches media studies at Syracuse University. They wrote on a Newsweek blog, On Faith, a piece entitled “Peacemaking is more than pointing fingers”.
It certainly is, but that is hardly the real issue here. Their column ignores the suffering of Palestinians by narrowly focusing on “peacemaking”, one of those warm and c0zy religious terms that sound nice to everyone. Who doesn’t want peace?
Memo to Newsweek: Peace making between Goliath with a sword at David’s neck and a giant foot on David’s back can be discussed only after Goliath lays down his sword and lifts his giant-sized dust-covered foot.
And come to think of it, how is it that the two publications who have given space to our quartet of academics, the Christian Century and Newsweek, are presenting “one side” of the discussion the week before the Minneapolis meeting?
In doing so, of course, they are merely following the lead of other American media who, either wittingly or unwittingly, are following the guidance of the Hasbara propaganda army, Israel’s public information program designed to sell Israel as a peace-loving and misunderstood victim surrounded by hateful neighbors.
One of the mysteries of collective human sin that will plague scholars of this century for generations to come, will be to find some rational explanation of why Americans, who otherwise find the violations of human rights to be repugnant, have been, and continue to be, such easy targets for Hasbara propaganda.
This is a nation that finally rejected segregation and has finally admitted its part in the oppression of Native Americans. But unlike people of other nations, Americans still believe they are justified in defending Israel as the innocent victim.
Henderson and Neibuhr report in their Newsweek article that they have signed what they call “a letter circulating among Presbyterians nationwide, calling on the General Assembly to reject the Middle East Study Committee’s report.”
They write that what prompted them to sign this letter and then publish their article was that they “don’t like” the report. They were joined in signing the letter by a large number of Presbyterian pastors, lay persons and academics, all soldiers, whether they know it or not, in the Hasbara army.
Katharine Henderson and Gustav Niebuhr find the report to be “unbalanced, historically inaccurate, theologically flawed and politically damaging”.
How many days or weeks did they study the Resolution to enable them to make that sweeping judgment? How many years have the Presbyterian ommissioners struggled to find a balance between their churches’ right and left flanks?
Henderson and Niebuhr offer little data to back up their blanket condemnation of the work of the Middle East study group.
The authors of these two articles are teachers, for heavens’ sake, part of the John Calvin tradition. Surely, the four of them know Calvin well enough to recall that while “Calvin placed the highest value on education in the church, he also thought, “doubly fools” those “who do not deign to learn, because they think they are wise enough.”
In his Commentary on the Gospel According to John, 1:45, Calvin wrote that many poor ignorant people, “though ignorant and unskilled in the use of language, make known Christ more faithfully than all the theologians … with their lofty speculations.”
It is the “lofty speculations” that continue to dominate the dialogue we conduct on Israel-Palestine.
We believe academic scholars because they are supposed to know what others don’t know; we sign letters that urge patience and understanding instead of demanding an end to the suppression of Palestinian freedom; and we continue to read columnists like Tom Friedman, who have only one interest in the Middle East : “Is it good for Israel?”
In this week’s Sunday column, Friedman gave his usual overview of the Israeli military picture which he gleans from his friends in high places in the Israeli military command. He pretends his usual concern for those who die because of Israel’s need for its self-described “security”.
Friedman describes Israel’s wars, always from the perspective of the Israeli military high command, as wins or losses, depending on how much they did for or against for Israel.
His theme is that there are “timeouts” between wars. Only a military sycophant would describe a “timeout” between wars.
His final paragraph is classic Friedman, in which he asks, once again, is it good for Israel.
Note carefully who is guilty of causing wars, forcing the “good guys”, in Friedman’s world, to have to risk their very legitimacy by attacking “fighters who wear no uniforms.”
Israel needs to try to buy its next timeout with diplomacy, which means Netanyahu has to show some initiative. Because the risks to Israel’s legitimacy of another war in Gaza, Lebanon or the West Bank — in which Israel could be forced to kill even more civilians to squash rocket attacks launched from schoolyards by fighters who wear no uniforms — will be staggering.
Come to think of it, Friedman is the high priest of Hasbara.
The research on John Calvin’s writings is found on the PCUSA home page, in an essay by Joseph D. Small, Director, Theology, Worship and Education. The conclusions drawn from Calvin are from the author of this blog, not from Dr. Small.
Wallwritings 
Jim,
Great article. Best yet. Knowledgaeble, insightful, wise.
Part of the tragedy here is that the “inter-faith” quartet mentioned above, Tom Friedman, and other so-called “peacemakers” is that they pursue a consistently mediocre, fence-rider approach to occupation practices (and policies) in Israel even as the Israeli government slips more and more down the rabbit hole. As history shows, by the time they are willing to raise their voices in concert against the likes of Netanyahu and Lieberman, they will tragically no longer be able to ask “what is good for Israel(?),” because they will find themselves painfully aware of an institutionalized and religious-nationalist apartheid regime that has isolated itself from the entire world. At this point they will undoubtedly lament the fact that Israel did not heed their warnings about “sacrificing for peace”; they will do so to assuage their inner guilt and absolve themselves of having abandoned Israelis when they needed them the most. Great article Jim.
Thanks, Jim, for your helpful analysis. I miss your voice at the Century. My recent blog on the Chicago Theological Seminary website (www.ctschicago.edu) – “Off Balance” – which also discusses the reaction to the PCUSA report, makes a related point about the use of “balance” as a smokescreen to shut down conversation.
Without question an essential commentary. Resisters of Friedman-style, or academician-style, or Israel pr machine-style hasbara must get beyond a reticence to call pure evil “pure evil” and get to the heart of the matter, which is that Zionism has driven Israel into a miasma of psychotic criminality. Yes, Zionism is a collectively berserk beast, preying on the Palestinians in ways and via means no one can possibly enumerate.
Keep up the good reporting, Mr. Wall. I particularly liked “Not unless we are prepared to reopen the Creek Indian nation’s claim on the state of Georgia.”; it resonated with me because I live among the native, occupied people of Hawaii.
Having read the Presbyterian Report in detail, I found it to be one of the most compassionate, generous, and even-handed documents I have come across regarding the current reality in Israel and Palestine. (For those who would like to read it, here is the address: http://www.pcusa.org/middleeastpeace/
You will have to click on “download full report” near the top; the report is 9.4MB.)
Hoping your excellent critique can be posted in prominent places, such as the Huffington Post. It should be read by many and, with a wide readership, could help provide valuable support for those in the upcoming PCUSA assembly who want to vote for the resolution.
I’ve read the PCUSA report. Like this blog post, it’s anti-Semitism masquerading as flapdoodle.
The article mentions “a letter circulating among Presbyterians nation-wide calling on the GA to reject the M.E. Study Committee’s (sic) report”. Is there a letter or letters circulating to expected GA voters in order to counter this? Taking a cue from the commentary letter by Ms. Basile above, can this article by sent out to GA attendees? Are you (JW) in the position to obtain an appropriate mailing list as well as someone to do the mailing this week? I’d send along some $ to allay at least part of the cost. The hour is late but I thought it worth a mention nonetheless.
E.V. Fitzpatrick
Readers are free to send out copies of my postings. It would not be appropriate for me to do so.
But thanks for the suggestion,
Jim
Jim: Another excellent report. Thank you. Harris Fawell
Yes, I’ll certainly send it out, for all the good it does.
When will Israel admit its basic immoral and ev il behavior, and stop labelling any analysys of it’s inhumane behavior as “anti-semitic”. It could be said that Israel is “anti-humane.” This is my last reply, as I am off for three months, and although I can access e-mail, I do not have time to do more than delete it. Until October, best wishes PP
I have been following the Middle East for many years, as have many Presbyterians. I have read all the articles mentioned in this post and I am disappointed in Wall’s characterization of the academics. If a little critique of our “habits” requires such fire there must be something of truth in the critique.
Unfortunately, no study paper is going to be able to lay out a definitive history. There are as many perspectives on the history of the Middle East as there are identifiable interest groups there. When someone claims “historically inaccurate” I’m not sure what they are talking about but I’m sure that it means the history as interpreted in the paper does not fit their interpretation of the history. This is not a significant criticism.
But, I too find the paper “unbalanced.” I believe that we need to put pressure on Israel to stop populating the West Bank but where is the paper’s condemnation of terrorism? What are the recommendations we have for the Palastinians? Where are the boycotts and sanctions to force better behavior on their part. Further, your slander of Smith and Amy Jill Levine is unprofessional. They are scholars who have earned the right to stand on their professional accomplishments and write critiques based on their study. To suggest that either one of them did not or have not studied this issue before making critique is just wrong.
These are scholars of integrity, compassion, and seekers of truth. To label them as “dupes” for Hasbara is below your own integrity. If you support the study paper’s conclusions stick to telling us what your support and why. I would value your analysis but I’m not excited about your observations regarding others who have an opinion.
Netanyahu is the “Bull” Connor of Israel. I’m old enough to remember “Bull,” who was that Alabama city’s police commissioner during the Civil Rights era and who inexcusably returned brutality and violence and hatred for non-violent, peaceful protest on behalf of basic human rights by the blacks of his city and those of many races and religions, from elsewhere (including Jewish rabbis and congregants), who had come there to support them in their rightful quest. Had Netanyahu & company allowed the ships and their cargo peacefully to come through and to land in Gaza ports, the world would have little noticed. But he is as stupid as “Bull” and just as ignorant and devoid of any sense of history (inexcusable, for a Jew especially, as well as for Christians and Muslims!).
I myself, as a PCUSA pastor, have stood at Auschwitz-Birkenau, attempting to lead a group of U.S. southern Protestants in a service of remembrance for Jews who were gassed and incinerated there during the Holocaust, and I began our little liturgy with the Shema Yisrael in Hebrew, English, and German (I didn’t know the Polish)– but finally it dawned on us that the only appropriate stance at Birkenau is that of silence–silence in the sheer, demonic horror that still lingers in the eastern Polish air after nearly 70 years. But, tragically, the hounded and persecuted now have become the persecutors; Isaac (Yitzach) now casts out and tortures and starves and enslaves and impounds Ishmael!
Netanyahu and company utterly fail to comprehend that the peaceful non-violent protests of Gandhi toppled, eventually, the whole British Empire; and that the same approach by Martin Luther King eventually slew the demon of segregation. MLK could so easily have remained an “establishment,” black Baptist preacher, affluent, comfortable, and eventually dying in bed after a long career, instead of a bleeding corpse on the balcony of a motel in a seedy part of Memphis. But he bravely responded to God’s call “let my people go,” and changed all the world!
So take heart, my Palestinian brothers and sisters! The wheels of justice and freedom and peace and a homeland of your own grind on– and eventually will take you there!
Dwyn Mounger, Interim Pastor, Community PCUSA congregation, Deerfield Bch., FL (native Mississippian and Caucasian)
The basic issue in understanding historical cause and effect is that causes come before effects. Applying this simple matter of logic to the Arab-Israeli conflict leads directly to the conclusion that Muslim violence caused Israel’s responses, from checkpoints to the security barrier to air strikes on missile launch facilities, to, the list goes on and on.
As someone who spent considerable time in the region before the first intifadeh, I can report that NONE of the terrible things Wall suggests about Israeli activity in the territories dates to that period. Check any source of reliable statistics: Palestinians enjoyed one of the fastest economic growth rates in the world. Infant mortality and illiteracy plunged. Life expectancy increased substantially, to the point where it is now higher than in most Arab countries.
Arafat started the intifadeh specifically to prevent those Palestinians who had remained in the occupied territories from making peace with Israel, a peace that would have consigned him to the ashbin of history.
For Wall to dismiss those who point to these realities as soldiers in an army of Hasbara is intrinsicly anti-Semitic because he ignores completely the role of cause and effect, just as anti-Semites have throughout history.
I read Mr. Wall’s commentaries often. I visited Israel last January and was confused. I attended a Sabeel conference in Seattle in the spring – and was conflicted. I read The Lemon Tree by Tobin seeking a little clarification. And I feel I know enough now to know that neither side can really claim a moral high ground. And if the ‘Isrealites’ can claim right of return and the ‘Palestinians’ can claim a right to return then why can’t the Creek Native Peoples claim part of Georgia?
Yes, Eugene, fortunately there is more than one letter circulating that defends the Middle East Study Committee’s (MESC) report. The Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the PC(USA) is circulating a letter, signed by over 150 ordained Presbyterian clergy, to the General Assembly commissioners, that directly responds to the Henderson/Niebuhr letter. In addition, another letter defending the MESC report, signed by 16 of the 19 living former moderators of the PC(USA) has also been sent. You can find both letters at the website: http://israelpalestinemissionnetwork.org/main/
They accept donations for their work as well.
On another note, I just returned earlier this month from leading a two-week peacemaking trip to the region, my sixth time to the region including time spent working there. We heard from international, Israeli, and Palestinian peace groups. They all testify to the continuing deterioration of the situation and the institutionalization of an apartheid system.
Thanks for your truth-telling, James.
My mother worked for a cia backed organization which aimed to be friends with the middle East. It .was at before and then right after the time of the NAKBA. How often did I meet Palestinian refugees invited into my Mother’s home, who described the experience of being driven off their land, their houses reoccupied by settlers. There are TV films of Palestinins being lined up in their villages and killed., or so I was told by a man who was still in Europe at the time, he said they would not show these images in the U.S., but apparently they exist. We forget that the Israelis were able to find arms, when the Palestinians were unarmed. The evidence is there of the criminal founding of Israel by driving people off their land. After that, 3 billion year from U.S. taxpayers in both cash and weapons. Is there any question that the Palestinians have been wronged? And Israel has been rewarded for its criminality.? A shame they zionists did not wait till matters had been fully worked out. I consider their actual behavior sadistic and inhumane, they are only too human. The holocaust was one example of human behavior at its worst, and the Israeli behavior is another example , that’s all. They are only too human.
Nathan,
I suggest you read Neve Gordon’s Israel’s Occupation for a deeper understanding of cause and effect. With the highest standards of scholarship, he documents the effects of occupation, including those years that appeared to be better. The goal was the same. And that goal was never to accept two states.
Brenda
Since Christian Century does not have a response capability I will post my comments here.
You can sometimes understand something about an essay by tracking the words the authors use. Smith and Levine use the following words:
supercessionist 8 times
Displace/replace 3 times
False witness 5 times
False depiction 1 time
Distort 1 time
Anti-Semitism 2 times
Anti-Judaism 8 times
Hate 1 time
Stereotype 3 times
pernicious 1 time
partisan 1 time
right to exist 4 times
illegitimacy 1 time
Nazi 3 times
These are really strong words.
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Hakenkreuz and Davidstern
The Swastika and the Star of David
By Alvin Alexsi Currier, honorably retired Presbyterian Pastor
July 4th, 2010
Recently, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen posted a poignant meditation, weaving his personal joy in the ancient melodies of Judaic tradition, occasioned by the Bat Mitzvah of his daughter, with his personal pain over the staccato rhythms of international news and reaction occasioned by the Israeli interception of the Freedom Flotilla off Gaza.
It was a beautifully written piece. I felt for him.
Suddenly in this sorrowful contrapuntal flow, a cacophony exploded. The cause of this drum roll of rage was a comment by the Turkish Prime Minister who said that now the world perceived the Swastika and the Star of David together.
Ach, ja, I thought in German; Hakenkreuz und Davidstern. Instantly I knew his rage. I felt his pain.
You see, I was a Pastor in the German Church. I know the pain of seeing the Fatherland I loved go feral. I may have been young and distant when it all started but I have tasted the rage of watching the Swastika gather to itself all things German and then carry them to ignominy in Auschwitz.
Dear Roger, if I have to contradict you, please try to understand that I do not write because I hate Jews. I write because I am an old man who has seen much and wants to save others from the bloodshed I have tasted. Today you rage against what others see. Rage blinds. One cannot reason with it, but one day the warmth of common humanity will evaporate it and you will see four things that are now so clear to so many others.
First of all, Israel does not have a “right” to exist as an exclusively Jewish State, any more then our German Reich had a “right” to exist for Aryans only.
Secondly, Israel is not a democratic country. A democracy does not have two classes of citizens with two sets of laws. An apartheid state does.
Thirdly and most tragically, fed by fear, Israel has conjured up a military might and mentality that like the Golem of mediaeval Prague, has now taken on a life of its own, wildly smashing, trashing, and sowing destruction, in the name of defense and security. I have seen it before. I’m sorry.
Finally, Israel as an exclusive theocracy will crumble. The Palestinians will return. Liberty and justice will be established for all. Jews and Arabs will again live together in peace.
Yet even while watching with horror these last days of Zionism, I have a certain peace because I know that this hell is the beginning of the end. The era of arguing Hakenkreuz or Davidstern is over. The issue of my Holocaust verses your Nakba is passé. The Stars and Stripes, the Hammer and Sickle, the Swastika and even the Star of David no longer flies crisp in winds of zeal and allegiance. Again something beyond banners, nations, courts or creeds has been awakened. The human heart is on the move. As the blood of Jewish freedom riders marked the beginning of the end of the siege of segregation in the Southern United States, so the blood of Turkish martyrs marks the beginning of the end of the siege of Gaza, the occupation of the West Bank, and the apartheid state of Israel. See how the ranks are swelling from every people, nation, color and creed. See the flotillas forming in wave after wave. Hear the strains of “We shall overcome” in the air.
Dear Roger, don’t be afraid. After the end, hand in hand, we shall go together up to Jerusalem, not singing the Hatikva, but hymning the common prayer that: “every man ‘neath his vine and fig tree, shall live in peace and unafraid”.
As a Jew, I am glad to hear Biblical history “has no relevance to the current reality” from an author who proceeds to quote the Gospel of John. It has meaning to me and millions of other Jews in Israel and elsewhere. This article illustrates the supercessionist thinking Smith and Levine were discussing.
Excellent observation Ron and it illustrates the lack of any moral justification when one resorts to slander.
I’ve read countless arguments from both sides but when I put those aside and open my eyes the hatred and cruelty I see are indefensible.
I constantly spent my half an hour to read this web site’s articles or reviews
daily along with a mug of coffee.