The Simon Wiesenthal Center Condemns the United Methodist Church’s Hostile and One-sided Depiction of Israel

 Even though the UN Security Council couldn’t bring itself to do so, most civilized people quickly condemned the methodical slaughter of teenage students in Jerusalem’s Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva on March 6^th. An op-ed in a Kuwaiti newspaper put it best. “This odious and inhuman terror attack exemplifies the extremist and inhuman path of the terror organizations Hamas and Hezbollah…there is no link between a murderous terrorist act and the inadvertent killing of civilians in response to the firing of rockets by Hamas.”

However, in Gaza they took to the streets in celebration. Ayatollah Mohamad Hussein Fadlallah, the most important religious authority for Shiites in Lebanon and the Gulf States, and seen by many as a moderate, praised the attack in “occupied Al-Quds”: “the heroic operation in Jerusalem proved that the mujahedeen in Palestine are able to hit the Zionists hard.”

Meanwhile, leaders of America’s mainline Protestant denominations condemned the massacre, but only after suggesting equivalence with Israeli military action in Gaza the week before, a defensive action taken to stem the more than 800 rockets fired by Palestinians at civilians in Sderot since January 1 of this year alone. A statement from the National Council of Churches noted that “The killing compounds our sadness over the recent violence in Gaza and Israel…. Acts of terror and reprisal are abhorrent, and a grim reminder of the continuing cycle of violence in which Israelis and Palestinians try to live.”

The descent of Palestinian society into barbarism and savagery, that targets Palestinian Christians as well as Israeli Jews, is understood by decent people around the globe. But why does the National Council of Churches not understand the difference between self-defense and unmitigated evil? At the core is a relentless educational campaign within the liberal churches by a small cadre of fierce haters of Israel which often over the objections of the ordinary good folks in the pews presents a distorted view of the facts on the ground in the Holy Land. Their educational material, their organized tours of Israel all work to present Israel as the 21^st-century Apartheid State, bent on inflicting harm on innocent Palestinians.

Unless members of these churches seek out other opinions, this is the only view they – and the next generation of pastors now attending church schools – will ever see.

The United Methodist Church (UMC), America’s largest mainline Protestant denomination, is also the worst offender. It goes well beyond criticism of Israel’s actions, to questioning Israel’s  very right to exist, thereby empowering terrorists bent on destroying fragile hopes for a two-state solution.

Please watch this Power Point. If you are a UMC member, please pass it along to friends, and ask the leadership of your Church why UMC’s has censored one half of the Holy Land narrative and denied their members the right to hear all perspectives on a complex issue. If you belong to a different community, please share your outrage with your Methodist friends.