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Palestinian Christian Abuse of Christian Organizations in the West

Palestinian Christian Abuse of Christian Organizations in the West

Dexter Van Zile

Arab Christians, especially those living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, have had a corrosive and narcotic effect on church and para-church organizations in Europe and the United States.

These Christians successfully portray Israel as the worst human rights abuser and singular threat to peace in the Middle East. Often they falsely depict Christian-Muslim relations in the region as good. In those instances when they are willing to acknowledge that there is a problem between Christians and Muslims, they blame these difficulties on Israel.

Contrary to the message offered by Arab Christians, Palestinian Christians especially, Israel treats its enemies, dissidents, and own citizens better than any other country in the Middle East. Christians are fleeing the region in droves and their flight has nothing to do with Israel but is the result of an upsurge of Muslim-on-Christian attacks in Egypt, Iraq, and Syria.

These Christians do more than convey a distorted view of life in the Middle East. They encourage Christian institutions to return to a supersessionist expression of the Christian faith. In sum, they encourage Christians in the West, whose churches had, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, started to acknowledge the continued legitimacy of God’s covenant with the Jewish people, to abandon this understanding in favor of a more retrograde belief that the Jews are a cast-off people who have been replaced by the Christian church.

 

Photo posted on “Friends of Sabeel – North America” Facebook page on Nov. 30, 2013.
Photo posted on “Friends of Sabeel – North  America” Facebook page on Nov. 30, 2013. 

Whether they mean to be or not, this community of Christians has become an effective group of apologists for Islamist imperialism in the Middle East. They help focus the attention of civil institutions in the West and international bodies on the alleged sins of the Jewish state and render the impact of Islam and Islamism on Christians in the region a taboo subject for discussion. Those who wish to raise this issue are “Islamophobes.”

Institutions that embrace and rebroadcast the narrative offered by these activists impart a demonstrably false picture of life in the Middle East. They direct the energy of their members away from legitimate human rights activism into an agenda of demonization of Israel and appeasement of totalitarian Islamism.

One example of how these Christians have been able to influence the behavior of institutions in the West is the positive reception given to the Kairos Palestine Document in December 2009. This text, ironically named “A Moment of Truth,” was issued by a small group of Palestinian Christians from the West Bank and East Jerusalem who framed the Arab-Israeli conflict as if it could end once Israel withdrew from the West Bank and allowed the creation of a Palestinian state. They wrote that “if there were no occupation, there would be no resistance, no fear and no insecurity.” The document also referred to Palestinian violence – which has included suicide attacks against civilians – as “legal resistance” to the Israeli occupation.1

Another problem with the Kairos Palestine Document is the way in which it used the lens of the Holy Land to examine or judge Israeli behavior while failing to use this same lens to assess the misdeeds and acts of violence by Israel’s adversaries,most notably Hamas and Hizbullah. The document was so patently hostile that the Central Conference of American Rabbis, a group of liberal Reform rabbis in the United States, described it as supersessionist and anti-Semitic and condemned it for “opposing and negating the applicability of scriptural texts, historical presence, and theological discourse to justify the existence of a Jewish state,” while doing exactly the same thing “in making its case for a Palestinian State.”2

These complaints did not stop Christians in the United States and Europe from hailing the document as a roadmap to peace. The World Council of Churches promoted the text,3 as did a number of liberal Protestant churches in the United States, most notably the United Church of Christ and Disciples of Christ.4

The document was also lionized by Sojourners, a magazine that caters to liberal Evangelicals in the United States.5 And to make matters worse, a segment of the popular CBS news program 60 Minutes also extolled the document and declared it “unprecedented,” when in fact Palestinian and Arab Christians have issued a number of similar documents over the years.6

In addition to attracting publicity to itself and its authors, the Kairos Palestine Document also served as a model for Christians in the West when addressing the Arab-Israeli conflict. More than three years after the document was published, the Church of Scotland issued a document of its own that trafficked in the same types of messages. Titled “The Inheritance of Abraham? A Report on the ‘Promised Land,’” it subjected Israel to intense scrutiny while giving its adversaries a pass. It also predicated the Jewish claim to the land on how well Israel treated its adversaries who seek its destruction, asking: “Would the Jewish people today have a fairer claim to the land if they dealt justly with the Palestinians?”

The document offered not one word of criticism of Hamas and Hizbullah, which assail Israel in the name of Islamic jurisprudence and theology.7

The willingness of churches and para-church institutions in the West to broadcast the distorted and hostile message inherent in the Kairos Palestine Document is the result of a decades-long process in which Middle Eastern Christians have insinuated themselves into Western churches and para-church organizations supported by them. In short, Christians from the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Egypt have, over several decades, achieved significant influence in mainline Protestant churches. This, in turn, has affected how these churches and church institutions have spoken about the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Some have been able to achieve this influence by virtue of their presence in the Holy Land. Leaders who fall into this category include Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek, founder of Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center; Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, a Lutheran pastor based in Bethlehem and founder of the Diyar Institute; and Rev. Dr. Munib Younan, former bishop of the Lutheran Church of Palestine and Jordan and current president of the Lutheran World Federation. These and other leaders have leveraged their location in the Holy Land to gain access to Western clergy and lay Christians and encourage them to embrace a distorted view of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Such leaders have also spoken at national gatherings of churches to affirm resolutions that target Israel for divestment.

Emblematic of this approach are the tours offered by Naim Ateek’s Sabeel, which highlight the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli occupation. Using the Stations of the Cross as a template, visitors are encouraged to view the Israelis as if they are crucifying the Palestinians just as Jews killed Jesus in Jerusalem two thousand years ago.8

Other Arab Christians have been able to achieve influence over Western churches and para-church organizations by moving to the United States and establishing themselves as members, clergy, and high-ranking officials in mainline Protestant churches. This phenomenon is particularly evident in the Presbyterian Church (USA). This denomination, whose General Assembly voted to single Israel out for divestment in 2004,9 has a caucus of Christians from the Middle East that is intensely focused on anti-Israeli activism within the denomination. This caucus and its allies, most notably the Israel Palestine Mission Network of the PC (USA), have promoted antipathy toward Jews living in the United States who work to counter their activism.10 The irony is that these Christians, who have fled a region rife with anti-Christian hostility and human rights abuses, attack the nation with the best human rights record in the Middle East after their arrival in the United States.

One interesting aspect of this phenomenon is the way in which families of Arab Christians reach out to different religious communities in the United States in a manner that multiplies their influence. For example, Rev. Dr. Victor Makari, who hails from Egypt, served as coordinator for the Office of the Middle East and Europe for the PC (USA), while his son, Rev. Dr. Peter Makari, served in a similar position for the Global Ministries of two other churches – the Disciples of Christ and the United Church of Christ. As a result of this fanning out, so to speak, this father-son duo greatly influenced the narrative told by three liberal Protestant churches in the United States.

Both father and son promoted the cause of divestment in the churches they worked for. The elder Makari has now retired from the PC (USA), and the son, Peter, played a significant role in the passage of a now notorious “Tear Down the Wall” resolution that was adopted by the general synods of the United Church of Christ and the Disciples of Christ in 2005.11 This resolution called on Israel to take down the security barrier but did not call on the Palestinians to stop the terror attacks that prompted its construction.12

Peter Makari has also used his position at Global Ministries to promote the Kairos Palestine Document and downplay the impact of Islamist hostility toward Jews and Christians in the Middle East, with a particular emphasis on his father’s homeland, Egypt. For example, in his book about Coptic-Muslim relations,13 Makari describes Sayyd Tantawi, the Grand Mufti of Al-Ahzar University in Cairo, who died of a heart attack in 2010, as one of several “Egyptian Muslim religious officials who have, since the 1990s, expressed fraternal feelings with Egypt’s non-Muslims.” Makari also describes Tantawi as a “moderate Islamic voice” who has spoken of “equality in rights and responsibilities” for Muslims and non-Muslims in Egypt.14

Makari’s narcotic message was belied by reality. In fact, Tantawi was an inveterate Jew-hater who mined the Koran for passages to depict Jews as enemies of God. Before his death, he called for the imposition of the jizya (poll tax) on Coptic Christians in Egypt.15 The Grand Mufti was nothing like the way Makari described him.

The elder Makari has also been a source of misinformation about the Middle East. After retiring from his post at the PC (USA), Victor Makari began work at the Diyar Institute in Bethlehem and authored a newsletter sent to mainline Protestants in the United States in which he complained about a twenty-five-foot concrete wall that has “enclosed Bethlehem for 10 years now.” In fact, Bethlehem is not surrounded by a wall.16

The Awads are another family that has turned anti-Israeli activism into a family business. Members of this prominent Palestinian Christian family who reside in the West Bank and the United States broadcast their message to a number of secular and religious institutions, mostly in the United States. Alex Awad, a Baptist with ties to the United Methodist Church, has worked to disseminate a distorted narrative to US mainline churches,17 while his brother Bishara Awad targeted Evangelicals in North America and Europe with misinformation about the Arab-Israeli conflict from his perch as president of Bethlehem Bible College before retiring in 2012.18

Like the Makaris, both Alex and Bishara have falsely reported that the security barrier completely surrounds Bethlehem. And Alex’s son Sami, who founded an interfaith organization called Holy Land Trust, made the same factual misstatement to a group of Evangelicals from the Vineyard Church at a meeting in Texas in 2009.19

Then there is Alex and Bishara’s brother, Mubarak Awad, founder of Nonviolence International, a US-based organization. Having been born in East Jerusalem, Awad was eligible for Israeli citizenship after the Six-Day War. Awad instead kept his Jordanian citizenship, moved to the United States, eventually becoming an American citizen, and subsequently losing his right to reside in Jerusalem under Israeli law, making him a cause célèbre.20

While Mubarak is known for his support of nonviolent strategies against the Israeli government, he is no pacifist. This was made clear in an article published in the Journal of Palestine Studies in the summer of 1984. Mubarak Awad described nonviolence “as the most effective method” for Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He continued: “This does not determine the methods open to Palestinians on the outside; nor does it constitute a rejection of the concept of armed struggle. It does not rule out the possibility that the struggle on the inside may turn into an armed struggle at a later stage.”21

The last paragraph of this article states that nonviolent methods “can be successfully utilized, at least in part, by individuals who are not necessarily committed to non-violence and who may choose, at a different stage, to engage in armed struggle.”

Awad made a very similar statement to a reporter in 1991: “I’m willing to go to the soldiers and talk to the fellow with the gun about non-violence. And if it works, I tell him, you won’t have to use the gun. And if it doesn’t, you can always go back to using the gun. My brother [Alex] says, ‘No, no, no. You can’t tell them you can use a gun.’”22 Clearly, Mubarak Awad’s commitment to nonviolence is instrumental, not principled.

In addition to condoning violence while portraying himself as a nonviolent activist, Mubarak has also denied the right of the Jewish people to a sovereign state of their own. In 2002 he spoke at Princeton University and declared: “I am telling you loud and clear there cannot be a Jewish state in the Middle East. It is impossible.”23

Along with promoting a distorted view of the Arab-Israeli conflict on historical and political levels, Arab Christians have also encouraged Christians to abandon the theological reforms regarding the Jewish people that took place after the Holocaust. Naim Ateek, for example, encouraged his supporters in the West to view the Jewish people through a hostile theology that depicts them as singular obstacles to God’s purposes in the Middle East and unable to manage a sovereign state in the modern world.24

Ateek’s overtly hostile theology eventually generated some pushback, but this has not stopped the next generation of scholars from pressing the issue, albeit in a much softer manner. Writing in Current Dialogue, a theological journal published by the World Council of Churches, Salim Munayer, an Evangelical Protestant, chides Western Christians for allowing “post-Shoah guilt” and fear of supersessionism to drive them “beyond the boundaries of strict Christian orthodoxy.” Munayer also invokes the notion that anti-Semitism cannot be used to critique Arab peoples “for in the Palestinian context, both groups of people are Semites.”25

Munayer carries this denial of Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism further by portraying the Arab-Israeli conflict as if it began solely as a conflict between competing nationalisms. To render discussion of Muslim attitudes and doctrine regarding non-Muslims taboo, Munayer chides Westerners for “propagating the logic and language of Islamophobia.” And instead of acknowledging the indigenous roots of Muslim hostility toward Jews and their state, Munayer attempts to portray it largely as a consequence of Western anti-Semitic literature having been translated into Arabic, the result of which is that “new religious language is injected into a national conflict.” In actuality, Islamic doctrine about the Jewish people has been a central force behind the Arab-Israeli conflict since its beginning. The anti-Jewish riots of the 1920s and 1930s were incited by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a religious leader.26

Despite the counterfactual nature of the narrative propounded by Palestinian Christians, they have helped make anti-Zionist activism the ideological successor to the human rights campaign that brought an end to South African apartheid in the 1980s. Archbishop Desmond Tutu has cooperated with this process. Tutu, who has served as a patron or sponsor of Sabeel, has been a vocal proponent of the notion that Palestinian suffering is, like the suffering of blacks in South Africa, the great wound on humanity that all right-minded people must confront.

Appearing at a Sabeel conference in Boston in 2007, Tutu gave a speech27 in which he attempted to legitimize the double standard applied to the Arab-Israeli conflict by adducing the concept of the Jews as a chosen people with a special mission to change the world and promote a universal morality. After invoking a number of stories from Hebrew scriptures to highlight Israeli wrongdoing, Tutu then spoke about the Jewish people in positive terms:

The world needs the Jews, Jews who are faithful to the vocation that has meant so much for the world’s morality, of its sense of what is right and wrong, what is good and bad, what is just and unjust, what is oppressive and what sets people free. Jews are indispensable for a good, compassionate, just and caring world.

Tutu’s insistence that Jews struggle with their conscience over Israeli policies was coupled with a failure to make the same demands of their adversaries. For example, Tutu did not condemn by name those who would murder Jews because they are Jews. At no point in his speech did he mention groups like Hamas and Hizbullah, or other groups in the Middle East that deny Israel’s right to exist and espouse vicious attitudes toward Jews. Hamas, for example, has posted a video of a suicide bomber expressing a desire to drink Jewish blood. Archbishop Tutu remained silent about this hate but instead focused exclusively on Israeli checkpoints and the security barrier. The story Tutu tells of the Arab-Israeli conflict, like the narrative offered by Palestinian Christians, is Judeo-centric in that it portrays Israel as singularly responsible for the violence, and racist – against Jews and Arabs – in that it makes no demands of Israel’s Arab adversaries.

While these Christians have not had much success in convincing churches in the West to divest from Israel, the arguments they deploy have been used to promote church boycotts against goods produced by Israeli companies in the West Bank. The most notable and deplorable of these boycotts was approved by the governing body of the United Church of Canada in 2012, which endorsed the Kairos Document and called on church members to “avoid any and all products produced in the settlements.”The resolution, passed by the church’s General Council, also described the “occupation as a major contributor to the injustice that underlies the violence of the region,” and apologized for previously asking Palestinians to “acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state.”28

The PC (USA) passed a similar boycott resolution at its 2012 General Assembly.29 While the United Methodist Church did not pass a boycott resolution at its national gathering in 2012, the church’s national assembly did pass a resolution calling on “all nations to prohibit the import of products made by companies in Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.”30

Another impact of the narrative presented by Palestinian Christians and their allies is to render Christian organizations in the West unable to respond effectively to the Islamist violence directed at Christians in the Middle East. Probably the best example is the May 2013 statement by Christian leaders meeting under the auspices of the World Council of Churches in Lebanon.31

The statement issued by this group of approximately 150 leaders declared that “Palestine” remained the central issue in the Middle East. According to this calculus, the Arab-Israeli conflict, which has cost approximately eight thousand people their lives since the 1980s, is in more need of peacemaking than the Syrian civil war, which has cost approximately one hundred thousand people their lives since it began in 2011. What is most astounding about this statement is that while it made a reference to the kidnapping of two Christian clergy by Islamists in Syria, it provided no description of ongoing attacks against Christians in Iraq, where more than a million Christians have been ethnically cleansed over the past decade, nor did it offer any mention of Islamist violence against Copts in Egypt, where attacks have driven more than a hundred thousand Christians from their homes.

Instead of condemning this violence head-on, the conference, organized with the help of the Middle East Council of Churches, promoted the Kairos Document as if it outlined a path to Christian safety in the region.

Sadly, this is not new behavior. It was evident, for example, in the waning days of the Byzantine Empire. Rivkah Duker Fishman noted that, as adherents of the newly founded religion, Islam, threatened the Byzantine Empire with destruction, the empire’s elites focused their attention not “toward the enemy at the doorstep, but at the Jews of the realm.”32

Fishman recounts that a number of scholars have tried to explain this phenomenon. According to one expert, Averil Cameron, “anti-Jewish bellicosity” resulted from a number of factors including the writings of the early Church Fathers, anti-Jewish legislation imposed by Emperor Justinian in the sixth century, and the involvement of Jews in court politics. It did not help that Jews were viewed as supporters of the empire’s longtime foe, the Persians.

Fishman also reports: “Other scholars believe that Jews mainly served as a surrogate or a literary and artistic construct in place of the Muslims whose power Christianity could not break.”

Sadly, a similar scenario is playing itself out in the modern era as Islamist influence spreads to Europe. Christian leaders, who are unable to respond to Islamist violence, particularly in Europe, are nevertheless obsessed with the Jews and their state. Such an obsession, Fishman warns, could “harm Christianity by deflecting it from the real challenge it faces, as it did in the past”; and “the Christian legacy of Patristic anti-Semitism represents a flaw of such proportions that it could paralyze the healthy tendency to self-defense in the face of existential danger.”

This is the impact of Arab Christian activism.

* * *

Notes

1 Michel Sabbah et al., “A Moment of Truth: A Word of Faith, Hope, and Love from the Heart of Palestinian Suffering,” 11 December 2009. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://www.kairospalestine.ps/sites/default/Documents/English.pdf.

2 “CCAR Resolution on the 2009 Kairos Document,” adopted by the Board of Trustees, 15 April 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://ccarnet.org/rabbis-speak/resolutions/2010/ccar-resolution-2009-kairos­document.

3 Ranjan Solomon, “Kairos initiative: a message of hope for a just peace in Palestine,” World Council of Churches, 16 December 2009. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://www.oikoumene.org/en/press-centre/news/kairos-initiative-a-message-of-hope-for-a-just-peace-in-palestine.

4 Dexter Van Zile, “UCC and Disciples Leaders Step on a Landmine,” Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting, 14 May 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=79&x_article=1845.

5 Ryan Roderick Beiler, “A Prophetic Milestone toward Peace,” Sojourners, July 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://sojo.net/magazine/2010/07/prophetic-milestone-toward-peace.

6 “Christians of the Holy Land,” 60 Minutes, CBS News, Harry A. Radliffe, producer, and Bob Simon, reporter, 22 April 2012. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57417408/holy-land.

7 Dexter Van Zile, “The Church of Scotland and its Fatal Obsession,” Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, 23 May 2013. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://spme.net/articles/9129/3/12/The-Church-of­Scotland-and-its-Fatal-Obsession.html.

8 See “Contemporary Way of the Cross: A Liturgical Journey along the Palestinian Via Dolorosa,” Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Jerusalem 2005. For more detail see Dexter Van Zile, “Sabeel’s Demonizing Liturgy,” Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, 7 December 2007. Retrieved 11 June 2013,  www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1409.

9 See Dexter Van Zile, “Mainline American Christian ‘Peacemakers’ against Israel,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 5 November 2009. Retrieved 11 June 2013, https://jcpa.org/article/mainline-american­christian-peacemakers-against-israel. See also Dexter Van Zile, “The U.S. Presbyterian Church’s Renewed Attack on Israel,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 1 June 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2013, https://jcpa.org/article/the-u-s-presbyterian-churchs-renewed-attack-on-israel.

10 Dexter Van Zile, “Oslo Syndrome Redux?” New English Review, September 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FdCtYseGTQoJwww.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/53753/sec_id/69967+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us.

11 Peter E. Makari, “Resolution 0522 – Tear down the wall? Yes,” Disciples World Magazine, July/August 2005, Disciples of Christ. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://www.disciplesworldmagazine.com/node/6974.

12 “Tear Down the Wall,” 25th General Synod, United Church of Christ. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://uccfiles.com/synod/resolutions/gsrev25-16.pdf. See also “Breaking Down the Dividing Wall.” Retrieved 11 June 2013, www.disciples.org/Portals/0/PDF/ga/pastassemblies/2005/resolutions/0522.pdf.

13 Peter A. Makari, Conflict & Cooperation: Christian-Muslim Relations in Contemporary Egypt (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2007).

14 Dexter Van Zile, “Peter Makari’s Ministry of Misinformation,” New English Review, 22 May 2012. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache: http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_email.cfm/blog_id/42128.

15 Andrew G. Bostom, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History (New York: Prometheus, 2008), 391-401.

16 Dexter Van Zile, “Diyar Consortium Mischaracterizes Security Barrier,” Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, 27 June 2012. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=2262.

17 Dexter Van Zile, “Alex Awad Agrees to Remove Fake Ben Gurion Quote from DVD,” Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, 14 June 2012. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=2256. See also Dexter Van Zile, “Alex Awad Offers Distorted View of First Intifada,” Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, 15 June 2012. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=45&x_article=2257.

18 Dexter Van Zile, “Bethlehem Bible College President Tells Falsehood About Security Barrier,” Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, 13 June 2012. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=2255. Under Bishara Awad’s leadership, the Bethlehem Bible College was one of the primary organizers of the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference that took place in Bethlehem in March 2012. This conference portrayed Israel as an obstacle to peace and Christian evangelization in the Middle East, and as the home of Christ-denying Jews. See Dexter Van Zile, “Israeli Jews: The Impossible People at Christ at the Checkpoint,” Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America,” 11 April 2012. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=2221.

19 Dexter Van Zile, “Awad Family Offers Contradictory Stories About Death of Family Patriarch,” Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, 19 June 201. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=2258.

20 Anonymous, “Mubarak Awad: Was Israel justified in expelling him?” Facts & Logic About the Middle East, n.d. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_17.html.

21 Mubarak E. Awad, “Non-Violent Resistance: A Strategy for the Occupied Territories,” Journal of Palestine Studies 13, 4 (1984): 22-36.

22 Bob Sanders, “Brothers Travel Separate Paths Toward Peace; Israeli Exiles Battle Occupation of Palestine,” Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York), 5 February 1991, B1.

23 Kathleen Liu,“Non-violence advocate stirs attendees with comments on Israel,”The Daily Princetonian,27 September 2002. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2002/09/27/5489.

24 Dexter Van Zile, “Updating the Ancient Infrastructure of Christian Contempt: Sabeel,” Jewish Political Studies Review 23:1-2 (Spring 2011). Retrieved 11 June 2013, https://jcpa.org/article/updating-the­ancient-infrastructure-of-christian-contempt-sabeel.

25 Salim Munayer, “A Palestinian Christian understanding of the Christian relationship to Judaism and the Jewish People,” Current Dialogue 53, (Special Issue), December 2012. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://www.oikoumene.org/en/what-we-do/current-dialogue-magazine/dialogue-53.

26 Robert S. Wistrich, A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad (New York:Random House, 2010), 694.

27 Desmond Tutu, “Palestine and Apartheid,” Friends of Sabeel Conference, Boston, 27 October 2007. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://www.boston.com/news/daily/29/102907speechtext.pdf.

28 United Church of Canada, 41st General Council, “The Working Group on Israel/Palestine Policy (2012).” Retrieved 25 June 2013, http://www.united-church.ca/beliefs/policies/2012/w536.

29 Natasha Mozgovaya, “Presbyterian Church in U.S. votes to boycott Israeli settlement goods,” Haaretz,6 July 2012. Retrieved 25 June 2013, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/presbyterian­church-in-u-s-votes-to-boycott-israeli-settlement-goods-1.449329.

30 Laurie Goodstein, “Methodist Vote Against Ending Investments Tied to Israel,” New York Times, 2 May 2012. Retrieved 25 June 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/us/methodists-vote-against­ending-investments-tied-to-israel.html.

31 World Council of Churches – The Middle East Council of Churches International and Ecumenical Conference, “Christian Presence and Witness in the Middle East,” 21-25 May 2013, Notre-Dame du Mont Monastery, Lebanon. Retrieved 11 June 2013, http://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/wcc-programmes/public-witness-addressing-power-affirming-peace/middle-east-peace/statement-on-christian-presence-and-witness-in-the-middle-east.

32 Rivkah Duker Fishman, “The Seventh-Century Christian Obsession with the Jews: A Historical Parallel for the Present?” Jewish Political Studies Review 17:3-4 (Fall 2005). Retrieved 11 June 2013, https://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-duker-fishman-f05.htm.