"Holocaust Hymns" Withdrawn From British Methodists' Website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Methodist church - which as he reminds us in a very useful synopsis has made offending Jews an artform of late - has withdrawn a page of "Holocaust hymns" from its official website (hat tip: reader Ian G).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

The UK Methodists Remove Their Offensive Document

The background paper entitled "Jewish and Muslim Perspectives on the Land of Israel-Palestine," to which, following Elder of Ziyon's lead, I drew attention on Friday has been withdrawn (hat tip: reader Ian G.).

It appears that academic Dr Elizabeth Harris, its author, is a specialist in Buddhism http://www.hope.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&Itemid=898&task=userProfile&user=819, and if that is the case she would seem to be well-advised to concentrate on her area of expertise.

The offensive nature of the report was examined by Elder as well as here: http://hurryupharry.org/2011/05/07/methodist-church-implies-that-only-european-jews-suffered-in-holocaust/

And it seems that the redoubtable pro-Israel Methodist preacher David Hallam was partly responsible for its wihdrawal.  Well done, David!  Read his exclusive report: http://www.methodistpreacher.co.uk/

Dipping into the Trough of Antisemitism: The Methodist Church of the UK

The British Methodists, hijacked by leftists into a political agenda that is marginal to its mission and anathema to many of its members, and seduced by Sabeel into infection with Boycott Derangement Syndrome, has thought fit to comment on the death of that odious monster of our time, Osama Bin Laden.  Its politically-charged statement begins :

“We cannot rejoice in the death of another, even if that person is regarded by many as a threat. Proverbs 24:17 says ‘Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble’". 

In his blog http://www.methodistpreacher.co.uk/, the pro-Israel Methodist preacher David Hallam outlines what is objectionable about this statement in the context of the Methodists' obsessions.
 
But there is far, far worse.
 
In a background document "Jewish and Muslim Perspectives on the Land of Israel-Palestine" (http://pdfcast.org/pdf/methodist-church-jewish-and-muslim-perspectives-on-israel-palestine) the British Methodists appear to be dipping into the trough of antisemitism.
 
The esteemed Elder of Ziyon has the grubby details and a masterly critique: http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/05/outrageous-uk-methodist-church-document.html

Update: The Methodists have been shamed into removing the document (hat tip: reader Ian G.)  See David Hallam's blog for details.

British Quakers Get Infected With Boycott Derangement Syndrome

The British Quakers (Society of Friends), who muster 23,000 strong and have 475 meeting houses, are the latest religious group in the UK to join the ranks of the BDS Movement, which aims to force Israel to abandon the "Occupation" - in other words to be cajoled and forced into abandoning its legitimate self-interest and security concerns, to roll over and expose its soft underbelly to mortal foes.

Not only would the "Occupation" not have occurred had it not been for Arab rejectionism and aggression, the Arabs of Palestine would have had their own state had it not been for Arab bloody-mindedness and intransigence.

Moreover, there are good grounds for thinking that the Arab-Israeli Conflict is not about territory or settlements but about the Arabs' longterm unwillingness to accept a non-Muslim state  in the Middle East.  And it's by no means certain that the "settlements" are illegal.  See, for example, http://www.tzemachdovid.org/Facts/islegal1.shtml
and http://theisrealisettlements.blogspot.com/p/settlements-legal-issues.html

"People matter more than territory," the Quakers have pontificated. "We cannot do nothing."  (Hmmm. They seem to manage to do nothing where countries other than Israel are concerned, don't they? Now, isn't that strange!)

Here's precisely what the Quakers have to say on the matter:

"Boycott, divestment and sanctions (Israel/Palestine) ....

We have heard of the responses of Jewish Peace Groups within Israel. We hear these Israeli citizens risk being criminalised by their government if they actively support the Palestinian call for cultural and economic boycott. We were informed that most Jewish Israeli Peace Groups support the boycott of settlement goods, and only some support a boycott of Israel.

A just peace for Palestine means security for Israel too, and nonviolent protests by both Israelis and Palestinians for the end of the occupation are heartening to observe.

For nine years Quakers have been witnessing individually and through the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) to the human rights abuses of the military occupation of the Palestinian Territories. Today we have considered whether we should add nonviolent action to our witnessing – not as punishment or revenge, but as an external pressure to achieve change.

We understand the history and the trauma of the past, but it is Israelis who are the stronger and they need to make the changes.

John Woolman’s words remind us of the powerful sense we have of being brothers and sisters with people of other faiths. There are three main faiths in this part of the world, and we want to proceed in ways which allow dialogue to continue. We consider we should now act publicly, and, well-informed, be able to explain our action to others – because people matter more than territory, and because we approach others with a desire for peace.

Difficult decisions taken by us today can be reversed. The request for boycott comes from those who will suffer most, but a decision for boycott will give hope to Palestinians and support to those in Israel who are working for peace.

In the face of the armed oppression of poor people and the increasing encroachment of the illegal settlements in the West Bank, we cannot do nothing.

Our hearts are full of compassion for Israelis and Palestinians, all of whom are suffering from the effects of the occupation.

We are clear that it would be wrong to support the illegal settlements by purchasing their goods. We therefore ask Friends (Quakers) throughout Britain Yearly Meeting to boycott settlement goods, until such time as the occupation is ended.

We are not at this time proposing to boycott goods from Israel itself, being unwilling to jeopardise continuing dialogue with Israelis and British Jews.

 We pray fervently for both Israelis and Palestinians, keeping them together in our hearts. We hope they will find an end to their fears and the beginning of their mutual co-existence based on a just peace. And so we look forward to the end of the occupation and the end of the international boycott. We envisage our future relationship with both peoples as one of loving and generous co-operation.

Although we unite in this decision we recognise that Friends have different views, and we must treat one another tenderly."

There have been, historically, similarities between British Quakers and British Jews.  For generations they were the only non-Anglican groups permitted to conduct their own marriage services.  Small endogamous minorities, standing aloof from the British polity at a time when only Anglicans could participate in public life, they, like another group of outsiders, the Huguenots, constituted elites in business, perhaps, as sociologists have suggested, in compensation for their marginalised status but also because of their own intra-communal networks. Fry's and the other chocolate makers Cadbury and Rowntree were Quaker firms, as was Barclay's Bank. 

I spent a year at a Quaker college in the United States.  It was one of the most enriching experiences of my life, and I look back on that year fondly.  I have considerable respect for the Society of Friends, which from its origins strove for the equality of women with men, was in the forefront of efforts for penal reform and for the abolition of slavery, and during the Nazi era did much to rescue Jews, and especially "non-Aryan Christians," from the Reich.  The Quakers are pacifists and idealists.

However, that very pacifism and idealism has drawn them into an all too easily duped naivity and into stances which are incompatible with the hard facts of this world as it is.

Moreover, like most if not all small Protestant sects today they would appear have been hijacked to some extent by committed political leftists.  Leftism is not always the expression of noble idealism or what is correct and righteous and just, no matter how much some people would like to believe it is.

And some of the lefty infiltrators of the Quakers and other religious groups are anything but naive.

Methodist preacher David Hallam, who has fought strenuously against his own church's very mean-minded Boycott of Israel and gets a lot of flak for it from certain other Methodist preachers, observes on his blog (http://www.methodistpreacher.co.uk/):

'A lifetime ago they enjoyed much love and respect among the Jewish community stemming from Quaker involvement in the Kindertransport (incidentally there's a recently unveiled memorial to this achievement at Liverpool Street station). In many parts of the country local synagogues would worship at the Friend's meeting houses where they had no building of their own. Sadly generations and attitudes have changed.

Over the years I've met some wonderful Quakers but must admit that when I've attended Quaker worship services the emphasis has been on a vague spirituality, sometimes verging on the new age, rather than the living Christ.

About 30 years ago I was asked to speak at a "Christian-Marxist" dialogue held at a Quaker Meeting House in Sussex. They had been meeting for about ten to 12 years. It consisted of about 20 people, all in their sixties, half of whom were Quakers and the rest Communists of the "tankie" variety.

Naturally I based my contribution on Holy Scripture (having read my Conrad Noel) - Leviticus 25, Deuteronomy 15, Luke 4 and Acts 2.

Wow! Half the congregation were furious and half were delighted. The Communists explained. "We've been coming here for over ten years and no one has ever referred to the Bible, no one has explained why a Christian can be socialist."

The Quakers were furious. "For over ten years we have been trying to persuade the Communists that not all Christians stuff the Bible down people's throats."'

The Quakers might learn a thing or two from the drubbing-cum-poli sci/history lesson prominent Israeli blogger Yisrael Medad has given them: http://www.myrightword.blogspot.com/2011/04/they-would-have-us-quaking.html

Instead of poisoning their minds courtesy of Israel-demonisers they should read my penultimate post, to learn from Professor MacEoin just how Palestinians really fare at the hands of the Israelis.  And I find the Quakers' assumption that the Netanyahu government and the bulk of the Israeli people do not want peace insulting and ignorant.  Have they honestly never read any of Netanyahu's speeches?

For more on the Quakers' descent down the BDS path see http://www.quaker.org.uk/quakers-boycott-products-israeli-settlements

Children of the Martyr Race

Harrowing photographs of the Fogel Family following their cold-blooded slaughter – reportedly at the hands of members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, a wing of the supposedly moderate Fatah, Israel’s “partner for peace” – were made available by the victims’ relatives and have been widely reproduced.

I chose not to use these photographs, believing that to do so was disrespectful to the victims, preferring to show the family members as they were in life – and unwilling to give satisfaction to any sick individuals who might gloat at the sight of dead Jews.

In common with many other bloggers, David Hallam, a philosemitic Methodist preacher in the UK, has reproduced two of the pictures on his website, in a post calling for his church – which is nowadays in the forefront of the BDS movement – to condemn their killings. One shows the three-year-old boy, Elad, stabbed through the heart, lying on the floor in a pool of blood; the other shows his eleven-year-old brother, Yoav, who had been reading in bed when the demons struck and slashed his throat, slumped diagonally across the blood-stained sheets, one of his bare feet on the blood-soaked carpet. http://methodistpreacher.blogspot.com/2011/03/church-must-condemn-itamar-killings.html

Richard Hall, another Methodist minister – one who is continuously critical of Israel and who certainly supports the Boycott – soon posted a thinly veiled response on his own blog:

“Their [the Fogels’] murders are being put to most cynical use. Photographs of the Fogels’ bloody bodies lying where they died have been released to the internet, provoking outrage and revulsion, as any such act should. Unfortunately, much of the reaction has gone beyond revulsion at the killings and has become an outpouring of hatred not merely towards the individuals who carried out this dreadful crime but also towards the community from which they are presumed to have come. Israeli Minister of Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Yuli Edelstein said on Sunday, “Only these ghastly images can show the world what and who the State of Israel has to deal with,” and many bloggers have been even more strident. This message is reprehensible and dishonouring to the Fogels, feeding as it does the racist lie of uniquely Arab savagery.

Sadly, the bitter truth is that these deaths do not change anything. If the settlements were illegal before , they remain so now. And while this killing is shocking, it is not unique. It stands as one more link in a chain of violence and injustice which has been forged in this conflict for generations.”  Read more: http://theconnexion.net/wp/#ixzz1Ghaqcp8B

A like-minded colleague of Hall was soon fulminating about “Hallam’s despicable use of them [the pictures]” and before long that well-known defamer of Israel, young Ben White (you can read about him here http://cifwatch.com/2010/07/02/ben-whites-latest-anti-israel-analysis/ and here http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2010/11/12/there-is-no-such-thing-as-anti-semitism/ ) was putting the boot into the Jewish State – cynically using the murders to make squalid political points, in fact.

To the blogger himself I commented:

‘I think the best response from you to the cold-bloodied murder of the Fogel Family would be silence, Richard, in view of the fact that you have cynically used their butchery to inveigh against Israel yet again.

That the settlements are illegal is, in fact, a matter of dispute.

But what should not be in dispute is the fact that babies and children of “settler” parents cannot be held accountable for the “illegal” choice of their parents.

There have been 123 deliberate murders of Israeli children by Palestinian terrorists since the First Intifada commenced in 2000.

By contrast, Israelis do not kill children in cold blood, nor do they rejoice when children are murdered.

Please do not demonise the mourners and the bereaved; it ill becomes a Christian minister.’

Commented an indignant Israeli from Jerusalem:

‘The photographs were published after great public discussion, which I have been following for 2 days on Israel radio; they were published with the consent of the nearest relatives of the massacred family.

They were published exactly because of people like you: people who can still write “This message is reprehensible and dishonouring to the Fogels, feeding as it does the racist lie of uniquely Arab savagery”, and can find it in their hearts and minds to turn the event into yet another attack on Israel, meaning JEWS.’

Another outraged commenter noted:

“The pictures were released at the express wish of the children’s grandparents. For years Israel has refrained from using such emotive and distressing pictures, such as the 12 month old baby killed by a sniper, the two children murdered in their beds as their mother read them a story, or the two boys bludgeoned to death when they were out on a hike.

Did I hear any objection from you when the notorious man in a green helmet carried round the same allegedly-killed Palestinian children to different sites where they could be photographed and then went around strategically placing toys among rubble to set a false picture [?].”

And another pointed out:

“... it is chuffing rich of your to suddenly develop a sense of propriety over the use of images of dead children when these are de rigeur on anti-Israel rallies/riots - sometimes even the same child used on multiple occasions.”

The above is an excellent point.

Here, for example, is the singer-cum-activist Annie Lennox at an anti-Israel rally in London, showing child casualties of Operation Cast Lead, for which, although obviously tragic and regrettable, there is of course no moral equivalence with cold-bloodied acts of terror:

And here, courtesy of Richard Millett’s trusty camera, is “Michael,” a bloke who regularly pickets the Ahava shop in London, always carrying this photo montage, apparently:

This list of atrocities by Palestinian terrorists before the Six Day War, some of them involving the deaths of children, gives the lie to the oft-heard claim of Israel’s detractors that Palestinian terrorism came in response to “Occupation”:

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+before+2000/Which+Came+First-+Terrorism+or+Occupation+-+Major.htm


It was with the Ma’alot massacre of 1974 – in which 22 children were killed and 68 injured – that the deliberate murders of Jewish children by Palestinian terrorists reached its nadir.

And as Daled Amos (from whose blog I've copied these two composite photos, directly above and below, of child victims) explains in detail, since the start of the First Intifada 123 Israeli children have lost their lives at the hands of terrorists. http://daledamos.blogspot.com/2006/08/123-israeli-children-killed-by.html

Things really have got to a shameful state when posting photographs of dead Israeli children provokes more condemnation than do the monstrous acts of evil men that caused those children to lose their lives.

Update: Another must-read from the great Melanie Phillips: http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/6786364/a-terrible-resonance.thtml

Methodically Maligning Israel – Leaders of Britain’s Methodist Church

In an essay entitled “Christian Theology and the New Antisemitism,” which appears in A New Antisemitism? Debating Judeophobia in 21st-Century Britain, a book of essays published in 2003, Melanie Phillips quotes Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Institute of Islam and Christianity, as saying that since September 11 the issue of the Palestinians has had what Ms Phillips terms ‘a major distorting impact’ on practising Christendom.

Explained Dr Sookhdeo to Ms Phillips:

“Those who blame Israel for everything don’t realize that, for Islam, the very existence of Israel is a problem.  Even a Palestinian State would not be sufficient. Israel may be behaving illegally in a number of areas, but she is under attack. But white liberal Christians find it deeply offensive not to blame Israel for injustice.”

In the same book both Ms Phillips and Edward Kessler, in his essay entitled “Jews, Christians and the New Antisemitism,” discuss, inter alia, the powerful influence “replacement theology” has had in shaping much Christian hostility towards Israel.

Part of Christian theology for the past 2000 years, and a potent factor in antisemitism, “replacement theology” is based on the premise that the Church has replaced the Jews as the People of the Covenant,  that the idea of Israel, meaning the Chosen People, the Jews, has been superseded by a new, enlarged spiritual Israel – Christianity and its adherents. Thus the idea of the Jewish People’s special relationship with Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel) has been compromised if not voided. Indeed, it has been voided in the radical liberation theology of the Palestinian Christian leader Naim Ateek, founder of the Sabeel organisation, which seeks to delegitimize the unique claim of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel and to indoctrinate the world with the idea of Palestnian victimhood, with the reqirement that Christians must fight the oppressor, the State of Israel.

“Over and over again, “ writes Ms Phillips,

“I was told of the great influence in Britain of the Palestinian canon Naim Ateek. Yet his book, Justice and Only Justice, inverts history, defames the Jews, and sanitizes Arab violence. Modern antisemitism gets precisely one paragraph; Zionism is portrayed not as the despairing response that it was to the ineradicable antisemitism of the world, but as an aggressive colonial adventure. Courageous Jews are those who ... say that Judaism should survive without a state ...”

Indicative of the influence of Naim Ateek and Sabeel is a joint blog in which the President and the Vice-President of the Methodist Conference, Reverend Alison Tomlin and Deacon Eunice Attwood, have given their impressions of a visit they made to Israel and the disputed territories. http://methodist-presandvp.blogspot.com/2011/03/visit-to-israelpalestine.html

Their account is largely lachrymose, an account of Palestinian victimhood at the hands of villainous Israel. They have swallowed the Palestinian narrative wholesale, and have seemingly made no account to discover the feelings and attitudes of mainstream Israelis. Rather like the BBC and other leftist media outlets, they appear to think that “balance” means speaking to a handful of Israeli dissidents rather than to people across the political spectrum, let alone to persons on the political and religious “right”.

That Arab rejectionism, aggression, and terrorism have contributed in no small measure to the plight of the Palestinians is of no or trifling avail for these leaders of a Boycott-happy church. They have scant regard for the difficulties facing Israel; the security fence is called, apartheid- and BDS-style, a “separation barrier”:

‘One of the most heart-wrenching experiences during our visit (Alison described it as gut-wrenching) was to go through the Bethlehem check-point at 6am as the Palestinian community leave to go to work. Some of the men in particular sleep outside near the check-point so they can be the first people in the queue. We travelled though wire cages and scanners presenting our documents on several occasions. Whilst we acknowledge security is important, it seems deeply de-humanising to treat people in this manner.’

(But of course not as dehumanising as blowing people to smithereens with a suicide bomb, something not acknowledged by the pair.)

And, nauseatingly, the claim is repeated, with no attempt at verification, that “settlers” in Hebron pour noxious substances over Arab produce.

“Hebron is very much a divided community with Jewish settlers and Palestinians living with different laws and access rights. Below [photo in original] is a street of shops, the metal grids are to prevent the objects which are thrown down by Jewish settlers from hurting Palestinians. Apparently urine used to be poured out of windows but currently bleach is preferred thus destroying the goods for sale below.

Blockaded streets in Hebron dividing the Palestinian and Jewish community, since Jewish settlers returned. Over 2,000 soldiers permanently guard the 400 members of the Jewish community.”

The place of Hebron in Jewish history, its sacred status in Judaism, the long tradition of Jewish residency in that city, the bloody Arab massacre of Jews in 1929 there which led to Hebron being judenrein until after the Six Day War – none of this is mentioned, as the pro-Israel, anti-Boycott Methodist preacher David Hallam has pointed out in his admirable blog on the subject: http://methodistpreacher.blogspot.com/2011/03/methodism-new-best-friends-no-2.html and see also http://methodistpreacher.blogspot.com/2011/03/methodists-are-not-anti.html which is the subject of attack from another Methodist minister, Richard Hall, who doesn't seem to like Israel very much at all: http://theconnexion.net/wp/#axzz1G88G2uPH

It might be tempting to dismiss the opinions of church leaders as irrelevant, but to do so would be a big mistake.  To quote from Melanie Phillips's essay again:

"The attitude of the churches is extremely important.  Contrary to the popular belief that Britain is now a post-religious society and so what the churches say doesn't matter, it does matter greatly.  The churches stll have a great deal of influence in helping create a climate of opinion.  Church leaders not only set a tone, but they legitimate attitudes that might otherwise be regarded with suspicion.  Moreover, what they say seeps deeply into the wider culture; at a time when government spokesmen have lost the trust of the media and general public, statements by priests or Christian non-governmental organizations are treated as unchallengeable truths."

That's why we should be grateful to David Hallam for so resolutely countering the present received wisdom of the Methodist Church in Britain, and to other stalwartly pro-Israel Methodists like reader Ian G, who often posts comments on my blogposts (and has done so on David Hallam's latest post).  Chazak, chazak, gentlemen!

Methodist Boycotters Try Some Cyber Warfare – and Boycott Challenger David Hallam Holds Fast

You’ll probably remember that at their conference this summer – in obedience to a call from the World Council of Churches – Britain’s Methodists, on the motion of Rev Nichola Jones seconded by Dr Stephen Leah, voted to boycott Israeli goods from “illegal settlements” in the Disputed (aka “Occupied”) Territories. The Methodists, whose lengthy conference report on which the vote was taken heeded such serial Israel-defamers as Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim, Robert Fisk and Anglican cleric Stephen Sizer, but studiously ignored mainstream Jewish voices, also voted to review whether Zionism is compatible with their beliefs.

The Board of Deputies reflected Jewish communal opinion as a whole in observing:

“This outcome is extremely serious and damaging, as we and others have explained repeatedly over recent weeks. Israel is at the root of the identity of Jews and of Judaism, and is an expression of Jewish spiritual, national and emotional aspirations. Zionism cannot simply be ruled as illegitimate in the way that the conference has purported to do. This smacks of breathtaking insensitivity, as crass as it is misinformed. That this position should now form the basis of Methodist Church policy should cause the conference to hang its head in shame, just as surely as it will cause the enemies of peace and reconciliation to cheer from the sidelines.”

“In the Bible we learn of the Chosen People”, said Rev Jones.

“Who are they and what are they chosen for? Genesis tells us again and again that God choose Abraham and makes a covenant with Abraham and his heirs. A covenant being a two-sided agreement with obligations on both parties, like marriage. God’s covenant with the Children of Israel, Abraham’s heirs, is that he will be their God and they will be his people if they walk humbly before God, obey God’s laws and are a light to the nations....Of course, Israel today is not the same as Israel in the Bible: in the Bible, Israel refers to the people of Abraham’s descendants, who are in covenant with God. Israel today is a modern, secular state, created in 1948”.

That, to most people’s ears, surely sounds like an endorsement of supersecessionist theology – avowing that Jews have been superseded as the Chosen People and a form of undermining the Jews' divinely-sanctioned entitlement to their ancestral land  – and yet another weapon of choice in the “soft war” (which I referred to in my last blogpost) being waged with odious intensity on all fronts against the Jewish State.

Dr Leah, who as well as being a Methodist minister chairs the York branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, is a lyricist on the side – his muse aroused by anti-Israel spleen, he penned alternate words to  “O Little Town of Bethlehem”, making that familiar carol a vehicle of invective against the Jewish State. Regarding the Methodist motion, Leah remarked: “I personally would like to have divestment going a little bit further into the full boycott of Israel, but I know how much I can get away with in the churches sometimes.... Churches are paranoid about being critical of Israel sometimes, they want to be balanced all the time, we must put pressure on church leaders.” (Hat tip: Seismic Shock).

Just recently, Terry Gallogly, Secretary of the York PSC, and also an advocate of a total boycott on Israel including its trade union movement Histadrut, suggested that anti-Zionists answer in the affirmative a Jewish Chronicle website poll regarding the far-right ostensibly Israel-supporting English Defence League (EDL) in order that it would appear that the Jewish community approved of forging links with the EDL: "People might like to vote in this poll if only to embarass Hoffie [Jonathan Hoffman] and the Zionist Federation”, advised Gallogly conspiratorially. As far as is known, and despite his calling as a man of the cloth, Leah has yet to distance himself publicly from Gallogly’s immoral tactics (hat tip: Harry’s Place & Seismic Shock)

In the wake of the boycott resolution, a Methodist Friends of Israel group has been formed, and, pro-Israel Methodist minister David Hallam – who on his blog (take a look at his many interesting posts regarding this sorry situation www.methodistpreacher.blogspot.com/ )calls upon Leah to distance himself from Gallogly’s vote-rigging proposal – has announced his intention to mount a legal challenge to the resolution.

As was said of the Bourbons, the Methodist boycotters have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Despite the protests of anguish that came from many Jewish leaders – including the Chief Rabbi – and from mainstream Jewish groups (who, significantly, are not given to crying “wolf” often) they continue to revel in their shameful stance. That Mr Hallam is putting noses out of joint is evident from some of the remarks Methodist Church members have been making of late, attempting to justify their singling out of Israel for obloquy and punitive measures and mounting a cyber warfare against Mr Hallam that is not entirely free from ad hominem attacks. His opponents are insisting – despite online challenges from myself and others, including the Zionist Federation’s feisty co-vice-chair and a highly articulate Orthodox Jew from Jerusalem who has not held back with some home truths – that opposing Zionism is not antisemitic. They have gone onto the defensive, trying to redefine antisemitism so that it sits comfortably with their anti-Israel rhetoric and reviving old blogposts about Israel and Jews. They have also, in their desperation, invoked the example of some of their anti-Zionist Jewish heroes to justify their own standpoint.

Thus, a  Methodist minister in North Wales scrapes the bottom of the barrel when on his blog (theconnexion.net/wp/) he posts a comment from a member of a marginal Israel-bashing organisation composed of “as-a-Jews” that hardly represents mainstream Jewish opinion regarding Israel. “As a Jew, I fully appreciated the Methodist’s resolution ‘Justice for Palestine and Israel’. I’m increasingly distressed by the unceasing determination of my fellow Jews in Israel, and in our diaspora, to never accept any criticism of their ill-treatment of Palestinians — who have historically been displaced from their lands by the Israelis in the name of their claimed God-given right”, wrote the habitual Israel-basher in question, claiming that “Israel is actually creating a world-wide anti-Semitism from which I and my fellow Jews will ultimately suffer.”

Evidently rankled by the fightback on the blog from Zionists, including yours truly, one boycott champion, who really doesn’t seem to like Israel or its champions very much at all, invokes the views of that well-known Jewish loather of Israel, Professor Avi Shlaim. ‘I was thinking of injecting a little Robert Fisk into the ongoing conversation on Israel-Palestine - though after the recent hurling of comment grenades by Hallam’s Army, I use the word “conversation” loosely - and I would no doubt have to jettison it altogether were I to cite Fisk. So I’ll try a little Avi Shlaim ...’ is the opening jibe, prompting one commenter to remark “it looks very much as if you want to showcase the Jews who support your argument to prove you’re not anti-Semitic. It reminds me of how the Mediaeval Church would wheel out its Jewish converts to participate in “debates” wherein Jewish religious communities were harshly denounced”.

And then there is another Methodist minister who found my suggestion that the Methodist Church has been “hijacked” by leftists offensive, and took refuge in her own blog to have a conversation with the Almighty in which she observed:

“A very distressing and disturbed night. I have been following and participating in a blogged debate on the Church's report on Justice for Israel Palestine and the bizarre threat of one Methodist to take the Church to court over its contents.

There can be no doubt that the report has raised some emotive issues, but that is no excuse for the appalling lack of grace in some of the posts. When Christians slander one another, evil flourishes.

The charge being made against the Church and certain individuals is of Antisemitism.. a charge designed to raise the spectre of the Holocaust and shame us all into silence - regardless of what atrocities are currently being perpetrated. In a nutshell the argument is - Gentiles committed the holocaust therefore the Gentiles have forever forfeited the right to censor a Jew. Any and all criticism of Jews or of Israel by Gentiles is antisemitic.

This is, however, a shallow and dishonest definition of antisemitism. It mocks and makes a lie of the past by reducing it to a vacuous insistence that it is never politically, spiritually or socially 'correct' to criticize or question anything Jewish or Israeli....

It is not antisemitic to seek to be informed about the current plight of the ordinary Palestinian

It is not antisemitic to be offended by the wall

It is not antisemitic to question why human rights are being denied to Palestinians in Israel.

It is not antisemitic to ask what can we do to which might help Palestinians.

It IS antisemitic to not question or challenge any of these things, to hate the Jew so much that we would be prepared to stand by and watch whilst they perhaps commit crimes against You and against humanity which we know from our own bitter experience will only result in long-lasting spiritual, social and political damage.” (http://www.the-kneeler.blogspot.com/)

In the face of all this, the admirable and courageous David Hallam is holding fast. All praise and all power to him. Make no mistake: in his intention to take the Methodist Church to court he deserves all the encouragement and support (moral and practical) that well-wishers of Israel can muster. Much rides on his legal challenge to the Methodist boycott. If that challenge succeeds, the ruling could mean the end of other anti-Israel boycotts emanating from England and Wales. I’m not a lover of alcohol – but I’ll gladly drink to that!

Postscript: for those who remain determined to boycott Israel, here's a must-see video (hat tip: Avraham Reiss) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saeky9I5T9c/