1. The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same - Talk about "prescience" - check out. F L A M E : Israel's Peculiar Position by Eric Hoffer.
2. United Church - I hope that this is the last item on the Church and the anti-Israel proposals until the next General Council next year.
"With a sense of urgency, the Council recommended that United Church Conferences, presbyteries, congregations, and community ministries immediately enter into consultation, dialogue, study, and prayer, and then undertake appropriate action toward ending the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. It also asked these bodies to enter into conversation as to how to move the two peoples toward reconciliation, including, but not limited to, economic boycott."
Sorry, I find this to be arrogant and misguided. The proposed actions of "...consultation, dialogue, study and prayer.." are to be taken with the goal of undertaking "appropriate action toward ending the illegal occupation..." Doesn't sound like a very open-minded process - the goal has apparently already been determined. As well, having "boycott" and "reconciliation" in the same sentence is, in my humble opinion, ludicrous.
The notion of prayer sounds very condescending - like when someone else tells you that they are going to pray for you - the implication being that you are deficient in some manner and need them, who are in some sense morally superior, to pray for you.
This has been explained to me on the basis that the theology in the United Church places great emphasis on the writings of the Prophets - especially the Book of Amos which, after containing admonitions of the nations that surrounded ancient Israel, then tells the Israelites that G-d is going to judge Israel for its sins, and it will be a foreign nation that will enact his judgment. Apparently, the modern United Church believes that among its purposes is to act as the moral guide for the State of Israel.
It seems to me that we Jews, who after all, constitute the 85% majority of the population of Israel, cannot win. Either people hate us because we say that we arrogantly assert that we are the Chosen People (which other do as well, by the way) or we are lectured that we do not live up the that mantle.
There are serious issues to be resolved between Israel and the Palestinians. The help pf outsiders will likely be necessary. However, this type of one-sided input is not going to help, but only make things worse. At the start of this most recent version of the controversial, I took the view that it was probably unfair to label the United Church as an entity as being anti-Semitic. But now, having done a lot of investigation, noting in particular the manner in which the Church is dealing with only this issue and not issues in Iran, China, Russia, Sudan, Venezuela and so on, and having regard to the decision reached at the General Council, I am very concerned that the direction of the Church smacks of being ant-Semitic.
