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In this mailing:
by Denis MacEoin
• December 14, 2016 at 5:30 am
- The United Church
of Christ (UCC) published a guide to Israel-Palestine affairs in
August and again in September 2016. Entitled, "Promoting a Just
Peace in Palestine-Israel", this toxic document is a desperately
one-sided, inaccurate, and counter-factual exercise in futile
politics. It most certainly does not favour justice or peace in the
Holy Land, as its contents show on every page.
- The naïvety of
the UCC is particularly striking in its choice to take at face value
the Palestinian statement that if Israel ended its occupation peace
would follow as day follows night. When, after 1949, Gaza was occupied
by Egypt and the West Bank by Jordan, no one protested, no one
attacked Egyptians or Jordanians. In other words, Israel occupied only
itself. But Palestinian terrorism against Israelis continued up to
1967, right through the period of Israeli non-occupation. There were
no "settlements" then. Rather, the Palestinians have always
regarded all of Israel as one big "settlement." Just look at
any Palestinian maps; they cover both the entirety of Israel and the
Palestinian territories.
- Unfortunately,
the Palestinians have a history of regarding every retreat by Israel
as a triumph of aggression over diplomacy, as if to say: We shoot at
Israelis and they leave; so let's keep doing it.
- In its
introduction, the UCC, knowing full well that Israel has not occupied
Gaza since 2005, still speaks of "the Israeli military occupation
of the Occupied Palestinian Territories: the West Bank, East Jerusalem
and Gaza."
- The UCC Guide
states flatly that "Israeli settlements in the West Bank are
identified as illegal by the international community" -- even
though international law says exactly the opposite. The West Bank and
Gaza were both occupied as a result of a defensive war against Egypt
and Jordan in 1967, in which the Israelis were victorious. It is never
illegal to occupy territory obtained in defensive military action.
- The Palestinians
not only reject all offers of peace on that basis but go much farther
and call every day for the abolition of Israel and the creation of a
Palestinian state covering Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank.
- The UCC Guide
states that "Israel has built hundreds of permanent and mobile
military checkpoints throughout the West Bank." This, again, is
pure fantasy. In 2015, there were no more than fifteen checkpoints
across the West Bank. These checkpoints are not there to target
innocent Palestinians. They are there to restrain terrorists from
setting out to kill innocent Israelis. The only people to criticize
the checkpoints across Northern Ireland during the many years of
terrorism there were supporters of the Provisional IRA, who apparently
did not like being obstructed from killing people.
- The UCC boasts
that it is "a just peace church", but instead of supporting
peace and justice, it defends mass murderers. It complains about the
defensive actions of the Jews and is knowingly silent about the
horrors wrought by Palestinian wars and terrorism. It treats Palestinian
actions as mere responses to Israeli aggression -- a total reversal of
historical fact.
- Is the UCC
unaware that Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) is far from
being a feel-good interfaith movement for peace and warm relations? It
is, in fact, notorious for its close ties to Islamic terrorism. Even
ten years ago, its true character was well known. Has no-one in the
UCC the wit or decency to repudiate this unsuitable connection? Or to
raise the fact that many Muslims across the Middle East have been
killing, expelling, and humiliating Christians for a very long time,
but especially in recent decades? Will they not admit that the
expanding exodus of Christians from the West Bank and Gaza has been
precipitated by extremist Muslims and the Palestinian authorities?
That under the Palestinian Authority since 1995, the number of
Christians has plummeted?
- The UCC cannot
continue to assert its association with Jesus Christ, a man of peace,
when they so openly espouse the cause of Palestinian
"resistance" that embraces violence as a solution above any
form of peace-making. Christ said "Blessed be the
peace-makers," yet here is a Christian church that blesses men of
violence.
The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a shrinking Christian
denomination mainly active in the United States, and "perhaps the most
liberal of the Mainline Protestant American denominations." With just
under a million members and 5,000 churches (down from two million members
and 7,000 churches in 1957, when it was founded), it still has prominent congregations
in the heartland of the American Congregationalist movements, in states
such as Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.
by Mohshin Habib
• December 14, 2016 at 4:30 am
- "Since 2013,
Bangladesh has experienced a series of violent attacks by extremists.
The victims have included besides atheists, secular bloggers, liberals
and foreigners -- many Buddhists, Christians and Hindus as well as
Ahmadis and Shia Muslims." — Minority Rights Group International.
- "A new
school of Islam from Saudi Arabia is transforming South Asia's
religious landscape. Wahhabism, a fundamental Sunni school of Islam
originating in Saudi Arabia, entered South Asia in the late 1970s.
With public and private Saudi funding, Wahhabism has steadily gained
influence among Muslim communities throughout the region. As a result,
the nature of South Asian Islam has significantly changed in the last
three decades. The result has been an increase in Islamist violence in
Pakistan, Indian Kashmir, and Bangladesh." — Georgetown Security
Studies Review, 2014.
Pictured above: A Hindu temple in Bangladesh that was
recently vandalized by Muslims. The idol on the left was decapitated.
(Image Source: FM Hindu video screenshot)
Minority communities across Bangladesh are once again facing violence
and persecution by the Sunni Muslim majority. In the last month or so,
dozens of Hindu temples have been vandalized and hundreds of houses burned
down by Muslims in different districts across the nation.
In one incident alone, a group of Muslims carried out attacks that
left more than 100 injured and several hundred victims homeless. Hindus, at
9% of the total population the largest religious minority in Bangladesh,
were targeted in the attack on October 30, about 120 km from the capital
city, Dhaka. Muslims, led by two Islamic organizations -- the Tawheedi
Janata ("Faithful People") and Ahle Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat
--vandalized more than 15 temples and 200 houses belonging to Hindus.
Violence continued a few days later, when, on November 5, extremists
repeated similar attacks in the same area despite police
"vigilance."
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