"Holocaust Hymns" Withdrawn From British Methodists' Website

Pro-Israel Methodist preacher David Hallam reveals today on his eponymously titled blog that at the behest of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles the British Methodist church - which as he reminds us in a very useful synopsis has made offending Jews an artform of late - has withdrawn a page of "Holocaust hymns" from its official website (hat tip: reader Ian G).

The three hymns in question had been posted to the website to help boost sales of the book by their authors, the Revs Andrew Pratt and Gareth Hill, Singing the Faith, out later this year.

Among Dr Pratt's other hymns are a brand-new one lamenting the death of - are you sitting comfortably? -Osama Bin Laden, and one protesting this:

"On Friday, November 3, 2006, in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, a group of about sixty gunmen, believed to be members of the military wing of the ruling Hamas party, sought refuge in a mosque following two days of fighting. Israeli Defense Force tanks and personnel surrounded the building, and gunfire was exchanged. At mid-morning, a Hamas radio station in Gaza broadcast an appeal for Moslem women to surround the building and serve as human shields. The IDF opened fire on the women, killing two." (See the hymn here: http://www.kintera.org/atf/cf/%7B99060E75-01A6-4C6A-9281-8EA34E6C7367%7D/withoutprotest-pratt.pdf)

It seems that on the basis of bitter experience the Simon Wiesenthal Center fears the cynical ways in which commemoration of the Holocaust is liable to put by groups (no doubt including politically-hijacked churches) which do not necessarily have the best interests of the Jewish People and Israel at heart:

"Some groups were uncomfortable acknowledging a special Jewish role and dropped references to the 6 million, replacing them with references to the 11 million. In the process they lost the nuance that there was only one group that a modern state used its full inventory of technological know-how to systematically hunt down with the express purpose of bringing about their extinction.

Others believe that any linkage to the Holocaust to Jews endangered relations with Muslims, who saw anything evoking sympathy with world Jewry as a threat to the Palestinian cause, and whose more extreme members were in full support of Holocaust denial.

We hope that the hymns in question are not a manifestation of either of these phenomena, but we are concerned. We have to be, after monitoring the erosion of Jewish content in Holocaust ceremonies."

So although these hymns might appear innocuous - even banal - they perhaps have to be seen in the context of the Methodists' ongoing tendency to stir political mischief and give succour to Israel's enemies.

Read more about this issue and the Methodists' political agenda on the Middle East: http://www.methodistpreacher.co.uk/

The BDS-happy Methodist minister Richard Hall, a frequent critic of David Hallam (and vice versa), has posted the "Holocaust hymns" to his blog: http://theconnexion.net/wp/?p=10578#axzz1MLEvEJ27