A movie, the Presbyterian Middle East Study Team and the Israel/Palestine Mission Network

As I stated in my last posting it is amazing what one can find on the internet.

Hunting around for internet information on Israel and Palestine I discovered this film titled “Occupation 101,” by Sufyan Omeish and Abdallah Omeish. It, like Steadfast Hope, the booklet published by Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), is full of misinformation and lies about the State of Israel and Jewish history.

For instant, Camera: the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America writes:

“A succession of film clips depict oppression in Northern Ireland, in Algeria, against black civil rights marchers in America and South Africa. Words of righteous indignation by Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela are juxtaposed with these scenes of violence. This culminates in footage of Israeli forces assaulting — without a hint of context — stone-throwing Palestinian protesters. The viewer is led to see the Palestinian cause as connected to a worldwide struggle for civil rights. But the viewer is being fed a lie, because the concept of equality and coexistence championed by civil rights leaders in South Africa and America is inconsistent with the Palestinian leaders' exhortations to violence.”

The film uses many interviews including several Jewish ones, which is an absurdity, since the list also includes one person, William Baker, who has ties to neo-Nazi groups.

As Camera puts it:

“Most disturbing was the segment featuring pro-Palestinian Christian activists which contained classic anti-Jewish undertones and crucifixion imagery. These activists blame Israel for the disappearing Christian presence in the Holy land, notwithstanding the ongoing attacks by Palestinian Muslims against Palestinian Christians. William Baker, head of Christians and Muslims for Peace, asserts the "first converts to the teachings of Jesus were Palestinians." The first converts to Christianity were, of course, Jews, just as Jesus himself was Jewish, along with most of his close associates and early followers.

Baker’s appearance in the film is noteworthy. He was expelled from the congregation of Dr. Robert Schuller, founder and head of Crystal Cathedral in Gardengrove, CA after his association with groups espousing anti-Semitic views was revealed. An exposée by Stan Brin in the Orange County Weekly (Feb. 13, 2002) details Baker’s connections with anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi organizations — for example, he chaired the neo-Nazi Populist Party in 1984 — and also alleges that Baker’s academic pedigree is fake.” (emphasis mine)

Another interesting part of Occupation, 101 is that Douglas Dicks, who is “the regional liaison for the PC(USA) in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, including the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem,” is also one of those interviewed.

Dicks is also an advisor to the Middle East Study Team who will present recommendations to the 2010 General Assembly. As pointed out on the web site of the Presbyterian Office of the General Assembly the “The team is assisted in its task, as needed, by drawing on the resources of staff most familiar with the historic relations with people in the region, issues and dynamics of the conflict and PC(USA)’s wide range of policies relative to the mandated study.”

Since the booklet, Steadfast Hope: The Palestinian Quest for Just Peace, in an anti-Semitic tirade, implies that most present day Jews are not connected to the ancient Israelites, that the Jewish people control the media in the United States and that the Israelis committed ethnic cleansing it is not a surprise that Dicks has purportedly praised the booklet, suggesting that although some in the church may not like it, he believes “it represents the most up-to-date resource that may be able to help educate Presbyterians and others about the current realities in Israel/Palestine.”

A friend of mine has suggested that we should all be out in the street protesting such anti-Christian anti-Semitism. I agree.

But my biggest concern is that we have a seemingly official Presbyterian organization, the Israel/Palestine Mission Network, apparently, accountable to no one, pushing such hateful rhetoric. (The unaccountability of Israel/Palestine Mission Network was confirmed to me by Linda Valentine, Executive Director of the General Assembly Council, in an e-mail.) And not only that, we have a Middle East Study Team whose report will come to the 2010 General Assembly after having been influenced by an advisor who believes and commends the anti-Semitism of the publication Steadfast Hope.