FAIR Christians for Fair Witness on the
Middle East
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Treatment of
the Nazi Holocaust in the GBGM’s “Israel-Palestine: A Mission Study”
The United Methodist Church, General Board of
Global Ministries, Women’s Division’s “Israel-Palestine: A Mission Study”
exploits the history of the Jewish Holocaust to cast Jews and Israelis in a stereotypically negative light.
• The Mission Study first
assumes an attitude of sympathy towards the Jewish victims of the Holocaust
“More than sixty years have passed since the events of World
War II and the nearly successful elimination of European Jewry.” (p. 100) “The depth of these scars and their impact
on the Israeli or any Jewish psyche cannot be underestimated.” (p. 101)
• But then the Mission
Study’s sympathetic attitude turns into an attitude
of contempt,
as it portrays Jews and Israelis as psychically damaged and paranoid people
“The early Zionists had intended Israel to be a
safe haven for persecuted Jews, yet ironically Israel had come into existence
without being able to save the dead millions. To this day there is a latent
hysteria in Israeli life that springs directly from this source. It explains the paranoiac sense of isolation
that has been a main characteristic of the Israeli temper since 1948.” (p.
101)
• The Mission Study portrays
Israelis as corrupt, unhealthy and distrustful of other people as a
result of their experience in Nazi Germany
“The attendant rage has infected Israeli society
in terribly corrupting and unhealthy ways. . . . it has been the single most
significant factor in Israel’s unwillingness to trust their Arab neighbors” (p.
101) “Standing behind each Arab or
Palestinian, Israelis tend to see SS men determined to push them once again into
gas chambers and crematoria.” (p. 102)
• The Mission Study
casts Jews as disdainful even of other Jews
“I was aware of a mild disdain my father felt
for other Jews who had fled Hitler’s Europe . . .”
(p. 100)
“ I heard his lack of charity for some of his Jewish colleagues . . .
Hasidic Jews were viewed with disdain.” (p. 102)
• And accuses Israelis of
being indifferent to human suffering and of seeking to victimize non-Jews as a
result of their experience of the Holocaust
“this conflict has turned history’s most
celebrated victims, the Jews (and in this case Israelis) into victimizers of
the Palestinians.” (p.102)
• The Mission Study then
blames the violence in the Middle East on what it characterizes as a Holocaust
scarred Israeli psyche
“This
Holocaust consciousness has detracted from and undermined the on-going search
for peace in the Middle East . . . this dynamic . . . is perpetuating suffering for the Palestinians.” (p. 101)
This
attempt to employ pseudo-psychology to subtly or not so subtly suggest that as
a result of the Holocaust, Israelis have now turned into oppressors who
victimize the Palestinians just like the Nazis once victimized Jews, has no
place in any civil discourse -- much less a Christian Study Guide.
Given the
depth of the pain Israelis and Jews feel with regard to the Holocaust, this
raises significant questions about the Mission Study’s intentions in
bringing references to Nazis into play
in a discussion of the Arab Israeli conflict.
It is
clearly designed not to stimulate an informed, reasoned or problem solving
discussion regarding the Arab/Israel conflict -- but rather to create hostility
and inflame passions against one side -- the Jews.
Since time
immemorial, Jews have been characterized as inherently perverted souls and
morally deficient people. To witness this ideology being used by the
United
Methodist Church to describe the Jewish state is alarming at a time when
worldwide anti-Semitism is on the rise