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| Op-Ed: World
Council of Churches preaches divestment |
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By David Frankfurter
The World Council of
Churches has long adopted thinly disguised extremist Palestinian positions.
Monday was no exception. The WCC issued a press release calling for the
application of economic sanctions against Israel, on a personal, parish and
international level.
The timing could not be more peculiar. Just when
there seems to be a broad consensus that we stand on the threshold of a narrow
window of opportunity for peace which must be very carefully nurtured. The
leaders of Israel and the Palestinians have met, created a respite in a long
and bloody war, and pledged a path to peace. One might have expected the WCC to
encourage this process. Each positive step is to be applauded, the other side
encouraged to recognise it and take their own step to keep up the momentum. And
yet, the WCC complains of "occupation". Just when Israel's parliament approved
the next stage of plans for withdrawal Gaza. A major gesture was made to the
emerging Palestinian democracy, with hundreds of convicted terrorists freed
from Israeli jails. The WCC complains of housing demolitions just a few days
after the IDF announced that this practice will no longer be employed. The WCC
uses the emotive language of a "dividing wall", when 95% is a chain-link fence,
without mentioning the horrible terror that forced Israel to build it. The WCC
sets the borders of Israel as those of the 1949 armistice - knowing full well
that even the Palestinian Authority accepts the borders of Israel as the 1967
cease-fire line. And then they have the temerity to pay lip service to Israel's
"serious and legitimate security concerns". And speaking of lip service, the
WCC claims to be "supportive of both Palestinians and Israelis who suffer under
current circumstances". Two of my closest friends have lost children in the
horrible violence unleashed by Arafat. I have not heard through them of a
single family of a Jewish terror victim having had any even minimal contact by
the WCC, let alone the offer of comfort or support.
I was brought up in
a nominally Christian country. While my generation of Jews took the pledge
"Never Again" very seriously and would not countenance any indignity, our
Christian friends would try to salve the wounds of anti-Semitism and counsel us
to "turn the other cheek". These friends explained that the Christian religion
of peace and rapprochement was far superior to the strict law and justice of
Judaism. And yet the WCC, while frequently using the word peace, rejects
rapprochement and commends "initiatives within churches to become better
stewards of justice".
You may wonder about this seemingly old-Testament
call for divestment from Israel. The WCC explains that its call for action is,
in fact, based on a verse on the New Testament - Luke 19:42. I went to look it
up, and noticed that the New King James Version Bible seemed very different
from the quote by the WCC. Not being a theologian, I will have to accept that
the words: Saying, "If you had known, even you, especially in this your day,
the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes."
call [for WCC] members to do the "things that make for peace". If I had not had
the WCC guidance, I would have interpreted the verse differently. Especially in
the overall context of the verses where Jesus comes to a hill and is
overwhelmed as he catches site of Jerusalem, with the above words addressed to
Jerusalem itself. Jesus weeps as he foresees the day when the holy city will be
encircled, besieged and leveled by her enemies. He then goes to banish the
traders from the Temple. I would have seen this verse as a prediction of the
destruction of the Temple by the Romans. Certainly, though, if I were to
believe that the verses should be interpreted in a modern day context, I would
not wish to be on the side of those who encircle and besiege Jerusalem -
economically or physically.
I am left to wonder if the WCC is not
simply concerned that the current peace moves may succeed, and that a Jewish
Israel might become a permanent and hard to explain fixture on their
theological map.
© David Frankfurter 2005. All rights reserved
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