PCUSA-affiliated Network Takes the Palestinian Side

on February 28, 2011

Alan Wisdom
February 28, 2011

 

 

The following article appeared on the Layman Online website and was reposted with permission.

In the Presbyterian Church (USA) and elsewhere, mission networks appear to be the wave of the future. These networks are filling the space left by the decline of old-fashioned denominational mission agencies, which built large bureaucracies to fund and direct the church’s mission programs.

By contrast, the new mission networks are decentralized and flexible. Much of their energy and money flows through local churches and volunteers that share a particular concern. The denomination’s role is not to fund or to regulate these grassroots people who are carrying out the church’s mission; it is simply to bring them together to exchange insights and coordinate initiatives.

The PCUSA lists 78 mission networks on its Web site.  International networks gather persons interested in mission to countries such as Ethiopia, Guatemala and China. Domestic networks address concerns such as addiction treatment, church camps and music ministry. The “tall steeple” pastors who recently wrote a “Letter to the PCUSA” seem to like this approach, listing as their first value “a minimalist structure, replacing bureaucracy and most rules with relational networks of common purpose.”

But there is a danger in these denominationally sponsored networks. They can become a vehicle for small groups of activists to appropriate the PCUSA’s name, image and facilities for controversial agendas that many Presbyterians would not support. For example, Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options (PARO) is a PCUSA-recognized network that exalts abortion as a constitutional right and a worthy moral option. Presbyterians Pro-Life, advocating the opposite position, enjoys no such denominational sponsorship. This situation creates the impression that the PCUSA, which says it respects both positions, actually favors one over the other.

‘Demonstrating solidarity’ with one party

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is almost as sensitive a topic as abortion. Yet here too the denomination has a recognized network pushing one perspective but not the other. The Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (IPMN) was established by action of the 2004 General Assemblyto encourage “currents of wider and deeper Presbyterian involvement with Palestinian partners.” The purpose is “demonstrating solidarity [with the Palestinian partners] and changing the conditions that erode the humanity of Palestinians living in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.”

The network’s communications are replete with condemnations of Israel’s injustices against the Palestinians. They contain virtually no criticism of the Palestinian leadership of Hamas in Gaza, Fatah on the West Bank, or other Arab movements or states that have sought to destroy Israel. The network includes “Israel” in its name on the grounds that “our efforts are in the interest of both Israelis and Palestinians.” But Presbyterians who wish to demonstrate solidarity with Israel have to operate through groups not recognized by the PCUSA.

The IPMN affirms in its bylaws that “we support denominational policies and partners.” Nevertheless, it reserves the right to take positions at variance with PCUSA policies. “Therefore, we are called to speak in a stronger and more prophetic way than the denomination might,” the bylaws say. “We affirm the importance for the IPMN to maintain an independent voice within the denomination speaking to the church but not for the church.”

Yet this organization that does not speak “for the church” is able to use the church’s name. The IPMN bylaws report that “[d]enominational staff have played a major role assisting IPMN in its establishment, through advising and guiding our work.” The network raises funds from private individuals and congregations; however, it processes these donations through the PCUSA financial system, benefitting from the PCUSA’s tax-exempt status. IPMN publications are sold through the official Presbyterian Distribution Service.

Promoting a radical manifesto

The network’s latest project is a study guide promoting a manifesto entitled “Kairos Palestine: A Moment of Truth.”

The IPMN study guide hails “Kairos Palestine” as an expression of “faith, hope and love – a confession of faith and call to action from Palestinian Christians.” The manifesto “seeks to be prophetic in addressing things as they are, without equivocation,” according to the IPMN. “Its tone and its theology echo similar Christian manifestos written in times of crisis, e.g., at the rise of Nazism (Barmen Declaration, 1934), during the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.A. ([Martin Luther King’s] Letter from the Birmingham Jail, 1963), and amidst the struggle to end Apartheid in South Africa (Kairos Document, 1985).” The clear implication is that today’s Israel can be equated with Nazi Germany, the segregated U.S. South, and apartheid South Africa.

Kairos Palestine,” issued in December 2009 by a group of anti-Israel Palestinian Christians, rejects the identity of Israel as a Jewish state. “Trying to make the state a religious state, Jewish or Islamic, suffocates the state, confines it within narrow limits, and transforms it into a state that practices discrimination, preferring one citizen over another,” it warns.

The manifesto seems to prefer a single state encompassing both Jews and Palestinians, arguing: “This is indeed possible. God has put us here as two people, and God gives us the capacity, if we have the will, to live together and establish in it [the land] justice and peace.” Israelis fear that, given current demographic trends, a single state would soon have an Arab majority that would overwhelm the Jewish minority. “Kairos Palestine” does not address such fears.

“The injustice against the Palestinian people which is the Israeli occupation [of the West Bank] is an evil that must be resisted,” the manifesto thunders. “It is an evil and a sin that must be resisted and removed.” It rages against how “Israeli settlements ravage our land in the name of God” and the Israeli separation barrier “has turned our towns and villages into prisons.” Israel is charged with “contempt” and “disregard of international law and international resolutions.” The manifesto contains no criticism of the Palestinian Authority or any other Arab state or movement.

The means of anti-Israel “resistance” favored by “Kairos Palestine” are nonviolent. It calls for an international “system of economic sanctions and boycott to be applied against Israel.” No sanctions are proposed against any other party in the Middle East.

But the manifesto also seems to justify violent “resistance” by blaming it on Israel: “Yes, there is Palestinian resistance to the occupation. However, if there were no occupation, there would be no resistance, no fear and no insecurity.” It promises that if Israelis would end the occupation, “they will see a new world in which there is no fear, no threat but rather security, justice and peace.” Israelis would note that terrorist attacks against their country, and military attempts to destroy it, long predated the 1967 War in which Israeli troops took over the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

“Kairos Palestine” encloses the word “terrorism” in sneer quotes, as if to doubt the existence of the phenomenon. “The roots of ‘terrorism’ are in the human injustice committed and in the evil of the occupation,” it claims. “These must be removed if there be a since intention to remove ‘terrorism.’” Regarding violent Islamist movements like Hamas and Hezbollah, the manifesto maintains that “Muslims are neither to be stereotyped as the enemy nor caricatured as terrorists but rather to be lived with in peace and engaged with in dialogue.”

PCUSA-sponsored network seeks to change PCUSA policies

Thus at several points the Palestinian manifesto being promoted by the PCUSA-sponsored network contradicts the stated policies of the PCUSA General Assembly. “Kairos Palestine” favors a single-state solution whereas the PCUSA supports a two-state solution. “Kairos Palestine” rejects the identity of Israel as a Jewish state whereas the PCUSA affirms Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish homeland. “Kairos Palestine” advocates sanctions and boycott against Israel – a tactic that the PCUSA has not so far blessed. “Kairos Palestine” justifies violent Palestinian “resistance” against Israel whereas the PCUSA affirms nonviolence.

This is perhaps an instance in which the IPMN is speaking, as it vowed, “in a stronger and more prophetic way than the denomination might.” The PCUSA-sponsored network had lobbied commissioners to the 2010 General Assembly in favor of a Middle East Study Committee (MESC) report that would have “endorse[d]” the “Kairos Palestine” manifesto. (The original MESC report also compared Israel to “a spoiled child,” “a Nazi state,” and apartheid South Africa.) But many commissioners were concerned about a lack of balance in the report and made major amendments to correct that problem. One of the amendments was to “commend [‘Kairos Palestine’] for study” rather than endorse it. Yet the IPMN continues to laud the radical pro-Palestinian manifesto without any reservations.

The network has already announced that it will again be lobbying at the 2012 General Assembly on behalf of a more extreme anti-Israel stance. The IPMN voted at its October 2010 meeting to join the international “BDS movement” (boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel). A press release from the network quoted IPMN moderator Carol Hylkema as promising, “In addition to calling for boycott, as a mission network of the PCUSA, the IPMN will sponsor an initiative that will seek to make its position that of the entire denomination when their General Assembly meets in 2012.”

Preemptively denouncing an anti-terrorism investigation

The PCUSA-sponsored network stirred up another controversy in January when, together with two other groups (the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship and the National Middle East Presbyterian Caucus), it demanded that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) cease an investigation of possible material support for Palestinian terrorist groups. The three groups issued a joint press release “denouncing the DOJ’s bold attempts to suppress peaceful dissent on the part of those working for an end to the illegal Israeli occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” They condemned Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald for conducting “a ‘fishing expedition’ in which the DOJ looks for ways to prosecute activists without legal grounds.”

The press release quoted Jeff Story, whom it identified as “a Chicago attorney and member of the IPMN.” Story regretted that churches did not “raise the alarm when the DOJ politically prosecuted Muslim charities and mosques in the recent past.”

In fact, those recent DOJ prosecutions have produced a number of convictions of groups and individuals funding Palestinian terrorism. The most prominent case involved the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), once the largest Muslim charity in the United States. On November 24, 2008, a federal jury found the HLF and five of its officers guilty on 108 counts related to lending “material support to a foreign terrorist organization.” The Justice Department presented evidence proving that between 1995 and 2001 the HLF funneled more than $12 million to groups connected to Hamas, the militant Islamist movement that now rules Gaza.

Cases like the HLF suggest that concerns about possible material support for Palestinian terrorism might be legitimate. Moreover, it is difficult to see how the IPMN and its two partner caucuses could preemptively dismiss Fitzgerald’s investigation as baseless when all testimony so far has been given to a grand jury behind closed doors. Their eagerness to shut down the investigation raises questions about their own motives.

A question of accountability

The larger question is how a mission network like the IPMN can be held accountable within the church. If the IPMN can use the PCUSA’s name and tax-exempt status, and if it can draw on PCUSA staff for assistance, doesn’t the network have some responsibility to the PCUSA? Should it be taking positions that do not merely go beyond, but actually run contrary to, official PCUSA policy? Is it appropriate that a network established by the General Assembly then turns around and lobbies the General Assembly for a particular agenda? Is it fair that one side of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute has an officially recognized network championing its cause while the other side does not?


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