Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Will Spotts and his friend Jon Haber's blog: good reading Update


I apologize, the blog Divest This, and it is a very good blog, belongs to Jon Haber and the articles I linked to, PCUSA and BDS: The Israel Palestine Mission Network (IPMN) and PCUSA – Zionism Unsettled are his. So I will rewrite some of this:

Will Spotts, a friend and a member of the original ‘Consistory’ bloggers, who are now quite scattered, (and you can take that any way you want to) has a new blog. The new blog is A Time for Every Purpose. Among some very contemplative posts Spotts includes some of his very good poetry.
Spotts’ friend, Jon Haber's blog on the PCUSA and Israel is Divest This. His posting of March 10th is on the Israel/Palestine Mission Network with some thoughts on their latest misdeed, the publication of Zionism Unsettled. Haber begins “PCUSA and BDS: The Israel Palestine Mission Network (IPMN)” with this:

Whenever some story emerges having to do with PCUSA’s obsession with Israel, with the relentless drive to get divestment back on organization’s agenda (no matter how many times it’s rejected), with attempts to denigrate and even demonize the Jewish state, its inhabitants and supporters, all roads seem to lead to the Israel-Palestine Mission Network (IPMN).

We saw this most recently when the organization decided the most important way to promote their (real) agenda was to drop all pretenses of peace-making and instead invest their time and resources into creating “Zionism Unsettled,” a “study document” designed to educate the flock regarding Zionism as the font of all evil (making it clear that the sooner an entity built on such a hateful ideology ceases to be, the better).
There is much more in other postings. For example, PCUSA BDS: What to do?, contains this:

A commenter asked when I started this series the obvious question of what he and others can do.  And short of converting to Presbyterianism and moving up the ranks of the organization, there are few ways to directly impact denominational politics, other than throwing support behind groups like Presbyterians for Middle East Peace or local church leaders who have made it a point to take a stand against BDS when they attend the upcoming General Assembly.

The organized Jewish community has relied on dialog for most of the last decade in the hope that honest discussion might tamp down the endless Israel bashing that has become liturgy at Presbyterian GAs.  And while I’m all in favor of dialog (especially in the form of honest and frank conversations with those with whom we disagree), there comes a point where the number of broken promises turns such dialog sessions into the equivalent of Lucy’s annual pulling away of the football with the Jewish community continually asked to return to the role of Charlie Brown.
And there are more words about Zionism Unsettled, in PCUSA – Zionism Unsettled. So,
both for wisdom and information, read, A Time for Every Purpose and Divest This.

I will now add that I am going to place these two blogs on my side where I have blogs I like to read.

4 comments:

will spotts said...

Viola -
Hi. Thanks very much for the links.

But I have to point out, Divest This is Jon Haber's. He has posted some of my pieces from previous years from a website I contributed to. The article you mention is his.

My blog on PC(USA) / Israel issues is http://wspotts.wordpress.com/

will spotts said...

I probably need to make that clear on my site navigation. The link kind of implies it's mine, rather than that I'm linking to something I have contributions on.

Viola Larson said...

oh, I'm sorry, well it is a good article. And I really like your new blog.

will spotts said...

No worries ... and thanks very much.

Jon is friend, and I'd highly recommend his posts on PC(USA) BDS issues.