PART 9:THEY DARE TO SPEAK OUT PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS CONFRONT ISRAEL'S LOBBY,CHURCH & STATE

THEY DARE TO SPEAK OUT
PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS 
CONFRONT ISRAEL'S LOBBY 
by Paul Findley


Chapter 9 

Church and State 

Dwight Campbell, the youthful clerk of Shelby County, Illinois, sat quietly through the meeting in a Shelbyville restaurant. It was fall 1982, the campaign season in Illinois, and during the session I discussed foreign policy issues with a group of constituents. Only when the gathering had begun to break up did Campbell call me aside to voice his deep concern over remarks I had made criticizing Israeli policy in Lebanon. 

He identified himself as a Christian and, speaking very personally and without hostility, warned me that my approach to the Middle East was both wrong from a political standpoint and, more importantly, in conflict with God's plan. He concluded with a heartfelt injunction: "I would not advocate anything to interfere with the destiny of Israel as set forth in the Bible." 

The urgency in his voice was striking. It seemed clear that this public official, well-respected in his community, was not compelled to support Israel by external pressure. Nor was he motivated by a desire for professional or social advancement. As with many evangelical Christians, his support came from deep conviction. 

Americans like Dwight Campbell comprise a natural constituency for Israel and add enormous strength to the manipulations of the Israeli lobby. Democratic Congressman Lee H. Hamilton, chairman of the Middle East Subcommittee, hears similar comments when he visits his district in rural Indiana. At "town meetings" which Hamilton conducts, constituents frequently speak up, beginning by identifying themselves as Christians, and then urge that he support Israel's needs completely and without reservation. 

Many U.S. Christians, both conservative and mainline, support Israel due to shared cultural and political values and in response to the horror of the Holocaust. Many conservatives feel, as did the young official in Shelbyville, that the creation of Israel in 1948 came in fulfillment of biblical prophecy, and that the Jewish state will continue to play a central role in the divine plan. 

Religious affiliation also tends to influence members of the mainstream denominations, particularly Protestant, toward a pro-Israeli stance. An exclusive focus on biblical tradition causes many Christians to see the Middle East as a reflection of events portrayed in the Bible: twentieth century Israelis become biblical Israelite's, Palestinians become Philistines, and so on in a dangerous, though most often unconscious, chain of historical mis-association. The distinction between Jewish settlers on the occupied West Bank and the Hebrew nation which conquered the land of Canaan under Moses and Joshua becomes obscured. 

Virtually all Christians approach the Middle East with at least a subtle affinity to Israel and an inclination to oppose or mistrust any suggestion that questions Israeli policy. The lobby has drawn widely upon this support in pressing its national programs. More important, fresh perspectives which challenge shibboleths and established prejudices regarding the Middle East are often denounced by both the lobby and many of its Christian allies as politically extremist, anti-Semitic, or even anti-Christian. 

The religious convictions of many Americans have made them susceptible to the appeals of the Israeli lobby, with the result that free speech concerning the Middle East and· U.S. policy in the region is frequently restricted before it begins. The combination of religious tradition and overt lobby activity tends to confine legitimate discussion within artificially narrow bounds. 

Conservative Christians 

Rally to the Cause 

Fundamentalist and evangelical groups have been active in this campaign to narrow the bounds of free speech. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson proselytize tirelessly for ever-increasing U.S. backing of Israel, citing scriptural passages as the basis for their arguments. As the membership of conservative Protestant churches and organizations has expanded over the last decade, this "Christian Zionist" approach to the Middle East has been espoused from an increasing variety of "pulpits": local churches, the broadcast media and even the halls of Congress. Senator Roger W. Jepsen, a first-term legislator from Iowa, told the 1981 annual policy conference of A.I.P.A.C that one of the reasons for his "spirited and unfailing support" for Israel was his Christian faith. He declared that "Christians, particularly Evangelical Christians, have been among Israel's best friends since its rebirth in 1948." His views are hardly unique, even among members of Congress, but his statement on this occasion aptly expressed the nearly mystical identification some Christians feel toward Israel: 

I believe one of the reasons America has been blessed over the years is because we have been hospitable to those Jews who have sought a home in this country. We have been blessed because we have come to Israel's defense regularly, and we have been blessed because we have recognized Israel's right to the Land.... [clueless clown following his parents beliefs DC]

Jepsen cited his fundamentalist views in explaining his early opposition to the sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia but then credited divine intervention as the reason he switched position the day before the Senate voted on the proposal. On election day, November 6, 1984, Iowans-spurred by the Israeli lobby- did their own switching, rejecting Jepson's bid for a second term. 

Jerry Falwell, leader of the Moral Majority and a personal friend of Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, has been described by The Economist of London as "the silk-voiced ayatollah of Christian revivalism." Acclaimed in a Conservative Digest annual poll as the most admired conservative outside of Congress (with President Reagan the runner-up), Falwell embodies the growing Christian-Zionist connection. He has declared: "I don't think America could tum its back on the people of Israel and survive. God deals with nations in relation to how those nations deal with the Jew." He has testified before Congressional committees in favor of moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Falwell is perhaps the best known of the pro-Israel fundamentalist spokesmen, but he is by no means the only one.[The country is better off that he is now pushing up daisies DC] 

In the summer of 1983, Mike Evans Ministries of Bedford, Texas, broadcast an hour-long television special called "Israel, America's Key to Survival." Evangelist Evans used the program to describe the "crucial" role played by Israel in the political-and spiritual-fate of the United States. Since the show was presented as "religious programming," it was given free broadcast time on local television stations in at least 25 states, in addition to the Christian Broadcasting Network cable system. Yet the message of the program was by no means entirely spiritual.[Reality says "Israel key to American's destruction", you folks who believe that something good is going to come out of the united states backing a state that practices genocidal apartheid are delusional D.C]

Interspersing scripture quotations with interviews of public and military figures and other evangelists, including Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts and Jimmy Swaggart, Evans made a number of political assertions about Israel. These included the wild contention that if Israel gave up control of the West Bank and other territories occupied after the 1967 war, the destruction of Israel and the United States would follow; and the implication that Israel is a special victim of Soviet pressure in the form of "international terrorism," which would otherwise be brought to bear directly against the United States and Latin America. 

Evans concluded the broadcast with a climactic appeal for Christians to come to the support of "America's best friend in that part of the world" by signing a "Proclamation of Blessing for Israel." Stating that "God distinctly told me to produce this television special pertaining to the nation of Israel," Evans argued that the proclamation was particularly important since "war is coming, and we must let our President and Prime Minister Begin know how we, as Americans, feel about Israel." He has since presented the proclamation to both Prime Minister Shamir and President Reagan, and in a recent publication he congratulated his supporters: "You never thought you would be having such an effect upon the two most powerful leaders in the entire world I But, yes, you arel" [What a delusional mofo DC]

Still, Evans was dissatisfied with Reagan's response. In an August 1984 fund-raising appeal, Evans blamed the U.S. for Israel's economic woes: "Because of America's encouraging Israel to give up the Sinai and its oil [they lost, he said, $1.7 billion] and because of Israel's assistance to America through defense of the Middle East, Israel is on the verge of economic collapse." He said Reagan was "hesitant" to "alleviate Israel's great pressures." 

The Evans theme linking America's survival to Israel was echoed in a full-page ad for the National Political Action Committee, a proIsrael fund-raising organization, in the December 18, 1983, New York Times. It proclaimed that "Israel's survival is vital to our own," and "Faith in Israel strengthens America." 

Radio and television broadcasts by Jim Bakker, Kenneth Copeland, Roberts, Swaggart and others routinely proclaim the sanctity of Israel through scriptural quotation, usually from the Old Testament, and then reinforce it with political and strategic arguments supplied by the broadcaster. 

The arguments find a considerable audience. Most estimates place the number of evangelical Christians in the United States in the neighborhood of 30 million. Jerry Falwell's "Old Time Gospel Hour" is aired on 392 television stations and nearly 500 radio stations each week. Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin describes Falwell as "the man who represents twenty million American Christians." [Totally all right not being counted among those useful idiots DC]

Nor is the American style of evangelistic programming confined to U.S. shores. Its pro-Israeli message is now broadcast from the Middle East itself. The High Adventure Holyland Broadcasting Network of George Otis has maintained the Voice of Hope radio station in southern Lebanon since the first Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1978. He describes it as an effort "to bring the Word of God to an area that has not had the Word of God in many centuries." Otis named his broadcast ministry after his personal conviction that "Jesus is high adventure"; but over the last several years the station has been actively involved in adventure of a more secular sort. 

The late Major Saad Haddad, before his death the Lebanese commander of the Israeli-backed militia which controlled southern Lebanon prior to the Israeli invasion in 1982, frequently used the Voice of Hope to broadcast his military objectives, including threats against civilians. Evangelist Otis, overlooking grim aspects of Haddad's rule, described Haddad as a "born-again" Christian who was a "good spiritual leader" to the people of southern Lebanon. The U.S. State Department confirms that Haddad often carried out threats to shell civilian areas, including the city of Sidon, "without previous warning." Haddad rationalized these attacks as reprisals against the Lebanese government for not meeting his demands for salary payment. (The Lebanese government ceased paying the salaries of Haddad's forces after he was dishonorably discharged from the Lebanese army). 

In the spring of 1980, Haddad forces used five U.S.-built Sherman tanks in an attack on a Boy Scout Jamboree near the city of 'Tyre, killing 16 boys. Haddad's gunners also shot down a Norwegian medivac helicopter which arrived to help the wounded. The scout gathering, which was sponsored by the Christian Maronite Church, was just beyond the limits of the "Free Lebanon," or "Haddadland," the area controlled by Haddad's Israeli-backed army. Haddad announced at the time that such attacks would continue until the Lebanese government provided more electricity to this area and recognized Haddad schools. [Just a peach of a christian huh DC]

With the support of both Israel and the remaining Christian forces in the south, High Adventure Ministries is going ahead with plans to establish the Star of Hope television station in southern Lebanon. Otis himself describes the Israeli support as "a miracle": "Did you ever think we would see the day when the Jews would push us for a Christian station?" Yet since a television station will assure more effective communication with the public-for military and other purposes Israeli approval seems more the product of sound strategic thinking than of divine intervention. Like the Voice of Hope before it, the new Star of Hope will be financed through tax-deductible contributions of money and equipment from donors in North America. [I wonder which star they are referring too,NOT! Is it the David made king by Saul, or is it the David made king by his men?Bet most of you bible trumpeters are not aware of the 2 different accounts.Sort of like the Israel of God,and the Israel of men,the 2 are not the same,no matter how many fools claim it so DC] 

Through such endeavors, American evangelical broadcasting supports the Israeli government indirectly by emphasizing the moral and religious commitment to the Jewish state which many Americans already feel and, directly, by broadcasting in the Middle East messages which promote the military objectives of Israel and its Lebanese allies. 

Jerry Falwell periodically conducts tours of Israel for "born again" Christians. Although Falwell is careful to avoid the appearance of money flowing from Israel to Moral Majority, former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin demonstrated his commitment by arranging for a jet plane to be sold to Falwell's organization at a substantial discount. 

Besides Falwell, there are many other Christian groups offering Israel their support. In eastern Colorado, more than ten churches coordinate an annual "Israel Recognition Day" involving films, lectures, cultural exhibits and sermons reaching more than 25,000 parishioners. The National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel (N.C.L.C.I) holds an annual conference in Washington attended by more than 200 delegates representing Christian groups from all over the United States. As Dr. Franklin H. Littell, president of NCLCI, has noted, "Concern for Israel's survival and well-being is the only issue that some of the organizations ever cooperated on." 

Other publicized events have included a "Solidarity for Israel Sabbath" at Washington's Beth Shalom Orthodox Synagogue in October 1982-in which evangelical leaders and local rabbis joined to "build bridges" and coordinate their efforts in behalf of Israel-and the "National Prayer Breakfast in Honor of Israel," which has become an annual event in the nation's capital. [Why don't they get on their knees and lick Israel's ass,you do not pray for an abomination ever. DC]

The third such breakfast conference, given February I, 1984, attracted over 500 ardent supporters of Israel, most of them Christians. The setting was brightly decorated with Israeli flags and symbols, including apples bearing Star of David stickers.[just know we are talking the israel of men DC] The printed program for the affair carried an impressive list of political and evangelical leaders, including Edwin Meese III (unable to attend, it was announced, because of his just-announced nomination as attorney-general), Meir Rosenne, Israeli ambassador to the United States, and representatives from the National Religious Broadcasters and other conservative Protestant groups. Congressman Mark Siljander of Michigan, a member of the Middle East Subcommittee, delivered a stirring reaffirmation of evangelical solidarity with Israel: "It's not that we are anti-Arab. We seek peace in God's plan." [How is that peace you refer to working out,and why is it only Arabs suffer in this so called peace that you in total ignorance claim to be The Creator's plan? DC]

The breakfasts are coordinated by The Religious Roundtable, a group which describes itself as "a national organization dedicated to religious revival and moral purpose in America," yet one of its primary purposes is advancement of the Israeli cause. Edward E. McAteer, president of the group, is known in the Washington area as a partisan speaker and editorial writer on behalf of Israel. He uses the religious format of his organization to back such political stands as closer U.S.- Israeli strategic cooperation, restriction of U.S. arms sales to Arab states, and transfer of the United States embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In 1984 McAteer was an unsuccessful candidate in Tennessee for the Senate. 

Writing in the Washington Post on January 2, 1984, McAteer supported the Israeli intervention in Lebanon, likening opponents of the invasion to "the pre-med student who proposed removing only half a cancerous growth the PLO because of the blood generated by surgery." Considering the fact that the invasion led to staggering civilian casualties, this crusading knight of The Religious Roundtable certainly cannot be accused of fear of blood. 

Perhaps inspired by Mike Evans Ministries, the prayer breakfast committee created its own Proclamation of Blessing for Israel. Issued in the name of "America's 50-mill ion-plus Bible-believing Christians," it included a curious mixture of religious and political/military points: 

A call for "Strategic Cooperation" with Israel is followed by an appeal to "the God of Israel, Who through the Jewish people, gave to the world of Scriptures, our Savior, Salvation and Spiritual blessings"; 

Scriptural selections affirming the divine right of the Jews to the Land follow language rejecting of "dual loyalty" charges against American Jewish supporters of Israel; 

A call for the transfer of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem is accompanied by an exhortation that "the Scriptural-delineated boundaries of the Holy Land never be compromised by the shifting sands of political and economic expediency." [And some of us think that the so called god of israel is a legend in it's own mind DC]

Cooperation between Jewish and conservative Protestant groups has an important impact in the political sphere. At a recent address in Israel, Jerry Falwell declared that "The day is coming when no candidate will be elected in the United States who is not pro-Israel." Although the Moral Majority has not had 100 percent success in putting its favorites in power, candidates for high office, regardless of their own religious inclinations, now often feel compelled to address the issues on the evangelical political agenda. Israel ranks high among these. 

Falwell's Moral Majority broadens its power base through voter registration drives in every state, the result that many members of the House and Senate-such as Siljander and Jepsen-welcome in order to emphasize the religious foundation of their political support for Israel. 

Many conservative Christians see a theological basis for this support, as they ascribe to Israel a prominent role in the interpretation of Christian doctrine. On the one hand, it is maintained that Israel deserves Christian support because it exists as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Old Testament passages are most often quoted in defense of this view. On the other hand, many Christians back Israel because they believe the Jewish people remain, as they were in biblical times, the chosen nation of God. The same advocate will often cite both arguments. The prophecy argument is held by the most conservative fundamentalist groups, such as the Moral Majority, and has received more public attention, but the covenantal view is probably held by a larger segment of America's 40 million conservative Christians.[Well I am myself a Brother to Christ and I was informed that Jerusalem was left desolate and forsaken DC] 

Dr. Dewey Beegle of Wesley Theological Seminary commented on the differing views of Israel held by American Christians in his 1978 book, Prophecy and Prediction: "All Christian groups claim to have the truth, but obviously some of these views cannot be true because they contradict other interpretations which can be verified." 

Like many biblical scholars, Beegle has concluded that the scriptural basis which pro-Zionist Christians often cite for the establishment of modern Israel does not withstand close scrutiny. His conclusions can be broadly summarized in two basic propositions: 

First, the prophesied return of the nation of Israel to Palestine was fulfilled by the biblical return from Babylon, and has nothing to do with twentieth-century Israel. 

Second, the covenant through which God promised Israel "the land" was not permanent but conditional; it was abrogated in biblical times when Israel failed to be obedient to God's commandments and thereby forfeited the promise. 

But the issue is not whether the scholarship of Beegle or the Moral Majority is the more sound, but the importance of open debate of such difficult issues. Here again the experience of Beegle is revealing. Because his book treated the controversial issue of modern Israel and its relations to biblical tradition, many publishers, even those who had handled previous works by this scholar, declined to publish it. One of these told him bluntly: "Your early chapters on the biblical matters of prophecy and prediction are well done. The only chapter that seriously disturbs us is number 15 on 'Modern Israel Past and Present.' " Beegle was informed that his views on Israel, which accept the legitimacy of the modern Jewish state though not on biblical grounds, would be "bound to infuriate" many readers. 

Yet the fact that a book or a point of view is controversial is not, at least in the United States, usually grounds for rejection. Dr. Beegle views Christians and Jews who disagree with him in this way: "We know that these people think alike and feel alike and are going to help each other. It's perfectly natural. All I'm saying is we ought to have just as much right on the other side to speak out openly and put the information out there." His book finally was published by Pryor Pettengill, a small firm in Ann Arbor, Michigan. 

Many Christians who are neither fundamentalist nor evangelical are also inclined to accept the supposed counsel of prophecy as justification for Israel's dominant role in the Middle East. The president of the United States appears to be among their number. 

President Reagan, in his October 1983 telephone conversation with A.I.P.A.C executive director Thomas A. Dine, turned a discussion of Lebanon's present-day problems into a discourse on biblical prophecy: 

I turn back to your ancient prophets in the Old Testament and the signs foretelling Armageddon and I find myself wondering if ... if we're the generation that's going to see that come about. I don't know if you've noted any of those prophecies lately but, believe me, they certainly describe the times we're going through. 

Reagan's views are not unprecedented, even in the Oval Office. His views reflect the wide credence given to biblical prophecy-and its use to justify Israel's existence. 

A Puzzling Paradox 

Yet, recognizing Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy implicates the Christian-and even more so the Jew-in several paradoxes. First, conservative and "premillennial" Protestants have traditionally sought to convert Jews to Christianity, and relations between the two groups have often been less than cordial. Jews instinctively mistrusted Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter in 1976 because, as Jewish author Roberta Feuerlicht writes, "In Jewish history, when fundamentalists came, Cossacks were not far behind." 

Ironically, the Christian groups most likely to accept a biblical basis for supporting Israel are also those most likely to feel the necessity of Jewish conversion to Christianity, an extremely sensitive issue to Israelis. Dan Rossing, director of the Department for Christian Communities in the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs, states the problem succinctly: the evangelical "theological scheme clearly implies that Jews have to become Christians-clearly not today, but some day." 

Many evangelical organizations carry on missionary activities in the Middle East, particularly in Israel, which are strongly opposed by many Israelis. The evangelists openly proselytize, seeing conversion of the Jews as another precursor of the times which the "recreation" of Israel in 1948 is said to foretell. 

The International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, an organization which works to foster support for Israel in twenty nations, is one of a number of evangelical organizations which have come under fire recently for missionary activities inside Israel. The "embassy" was opened in Jerusalem in October 1980 as a gesture of "international Christian" support for the controversial transfer of the Israeli capital to that city from Tel Aviv. 

Despite expressing political support for the state of Israel, the International Christian Embassy has devoted some of its efforts to the conversion of Jews to Christianity, becoming controversial in the eyes of many Israelis. 

In Israel, Orthodox Jews have been active in pressing for legislation banning foreign missionaries and organizing opposition against them. Despite the monetary support and goodwill brought to Israel by these organizations, they are widely regarded as Trojan horses. There have even been physical attacks on their members. 

The dilemma faced by the Israeli government in dealing with Christian groups like the International Christian Embassy is essentially the same as that faced by American Jewish groups in forming their relations with conservative Christian groups in the United States. While spokesmen within Israel. such as Rabbi Moshe Berliner, decry the inherent threat to Judaism posed by proselytizing fundamentalists-"Are we so gullible as to take any hand extended to us in friendship?"-the Israeli government under both Begin and Shamir has offered an emphatic reply: "Israel will not turn aside a hand stretched out in support of Israel's just cause." 

In November 1980. Jerry Falwell was awarded a medal in recognition of his steadfast support of Israel. The award came at a New York dinner marking the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky and was made at the behest of Prime Minister Begin. Opposition to the presentation was intense. Henry Siegman, executive director of the American Jewish Congress objected to "the way [Falwell] conducts his activities and the manner in which he uses religion." In Israel. the Jerusalem Post quoted Alexander M. Schindler, former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. as saying that it was "madness and suicide if Jews honor for their support of Israel right-wing evangelists who constitute a danger to the Jews of the United States." [They are insane the only 

What Schindler meant was illustrated by a remark Falwell had made at a Sunday service in his own Liberty Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. He declared that God did not "hear Jewish prayers." He later expressed regret over this remark. but for many Jews it confirmed their suspicion that Falwell was more interested in their conversion than the security of Israel. His protestation that "the Jewish people in America and Israel and all over the world have no dearer friend than Jerry Falwell" has not made Jewish leaders forget his fundamentalist religious bias against Judaism, yet they openly continue to cultivate the support of American evangelicals in backing Israel. The paradox is striking. 

New View from Mainline Churches 

The pro-Israel alliance between American Jews and conservative Protestants comes at a time of friction between the Jewish community and the mainstream American Christian community. The friction has increased recently with the widespread objection among Christians to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. 

In September 1981, United Methodist Bishop James Armstrong issued a letter to Indiana United Methodist ministers in which he sharply criticized the "Falwell gospel" and the "Moral Majority mentality." He pointedly observed that 

Israel was seen as God's "chosen people" in a servant sense. Israel was not given license to exploit other people. God plays no favorites. 

Christian concern over events in the Middle East, particularly the suffering of Palestinian refugees, has been a source of tension between Jewish and Christian groups for some time. Though traditional efforts toward ecumenical cooperation between American Judaism and the mainline churches continue-as reflected in the recent announcement by the American Jewish Congress that a new Institute for Jewish/Christian Relations was being established to study the common Judeo/Christian scriptural heritage-the larger denominations have in recent years begun to view the Middle East in a new light. 

The mainline churches focus more and more on the need to respect the human rights of the Palestinian refugees, as reflected in a series of church policy statements which show more sympathy for the plight of these refugees than many Jewish groups find acceptable. The United States Catholic Conference, United Presbyterian Church, United Methodist Church, American Baptist Churches, United Church of Christ, and others have called for mutual recognition of the Israeli and Palestinian right to self-determination, Palestinian participation in peace negotiations and Israeli withdrawal from lands occupied in the 1967 war. Several of the churches have identified the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. 

As Father Charles Angell, S.A., associate director of Graymoor Ecumenical Institute, has observed, for the American churches to commit themselves to such an "evident clash between their position and that of the state of Israel abroad and the majority of the American Jewish organizations at home" represents a break with the past. He feels that the "fundamental shift" occurred after the 1973 war, when Christians responded sympathetically to appeals for a peaceful settlement from the Arab side. 

Members of the Jewish community have largely received the statements of the mainline churches as threats to their religious rights. Despite more than forty official statements by Protestant and Catholic organizations in the past two decades condemning antisemitism as non Christian, Christian officials who assert the right of all peoples-not just Israelis-to territorial security and a decent standard of living are accused by the Israeli lobby of antisemitism. 

Christian churches have been accused of "self-delusion" in opposing both antisemitism and at the same time Israeli government policies which restrict or violate the human rights of Palestinian refugees. Even confirmed humanitarian and pacifist groups like the Quakers have been branded antisemitic for urging greater restraint and mutual understanding upon all of the contending parties of the Middle East. Journalist Ernest Volkmann even sought to pin the antisemite label on the Reverend William Howard, president of the National Council of Churches, for his criticism of the June 1981 Israeli air strike against the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq. 

The paradox thus becomes compounded: mainline Christians who accept the legitimacy of the Jewish faith but question some policies of the Jewish state are branded anti-Semitic, while evangelical Christians who back Israel but doubt the theological validity of Judaism are welcome as allies. 

The experience of the National Council of Churches is instructive. An N.C.C insider describes the relationship between the council and the American Jewish community as "the longest case record of Jewish influence, even more than in government." For many years no one in the Jewish community had serious complaints about the council. Whenever disagreement arose, the Jewish leadership demanded-and usually received--prompt action. As a former N.C.C official described it, Jewish leaders would come "en mass with the heads of departments of about half a dozen different Jewish agencies and then really lay it out. They felt that they had a special right to get direct input to the council leadership. " 

A Committee on Christian-Jewish Relations, long a part of the council hierarchy, gives special attention to fostering cooperation and understanding between Christians and Jews in the United States. In addition, Inter-Faith, a division of the N.C.C devoted to humanitarian programs, was, despite its ecumenical title, until recently composed solely of Jewish and Christian groups.

The Committee on Christian-Jewish Relations has traditionally been known to share whatever information or new council materials it considered important with the American Jewish Committee. This practice was troubling to some council officials, as the American Jewish Committee is not a religious body. Although it maintains a religious affairs department, it is mainly a lobbying organization. Jewish organizations of a primarily religious nature, such as the Synagogue Council of America, are not so closely involved in the workings of the council. But because top-level administrators at the N.C.C are understandably sensitive about the charge of being anti-Israel or insensitive to Jewish concerns in any council actions or publications, the oversight of N.C.C activities and literature-up to the point of accepting long critiques of proposed materials from the American Jewish Committee-has been accepted as standard procedure. 

A representative of one of the largest Protestant denominations observes that the American Jewish Committee had "much more effect" on the content of National Council study materials than his office, even though his denomination accounted for the purchase and distribution of three-quarters of these publications. 

After several years of mounting Jewish criticism-during which the council had debated but failed to adopt a number of resolutions on the suffering of Palestinian refugees-the N.C.C decided in December 1979 to issue a Middle East policy statement. As Allan Solomonow puts it, "because of strong Jewish criticism it became apparent that the N.C.C, which up to that point did not have a clear stand on the Middle East, had to have one." The consensus was that "the only way to limit criticism was to say exactly what you feel about these issues." But the Middle East policy statement which ultimately appeared was nevertheless unacceptable to many American Jewish groups. 

Declaring that "the role of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. is to seek with others peace,justice and reconciliation throughout the Middle East," the controversial final section included a call for control of arms transfers to the Middle East and an appeal for "reciprocal recognition of the right of self-determination" by the government of Israel and the PLO. 

The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, which had not presented its views in open forum, quickly denounced the statement as "a naive misreading of the contending forces and issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict which can have mischievous consequences."[I think not,hindsight shows what it shows,and might does not make it right.Someone in Israel better start making right with these people and soon,for I see a dark cloud appearing over that land DC]

Pro-Israel writers and commentators seized upon the policy statement as an example of growing antisemitism within the N.C.C,despite the clear emphasis of the text on secure peace for all peoples and denunciation of violent acts on every side. Journalist Ernest Volkman, in his book A Legacy of Hate: Anti-Semitism in America, somehow manages to cite the policy statement as the prime example of "an indifference to American Jews that has occasionally strayed into outright anti-Semitism." The Campaign to Discredit Israel, the "enemies list" assembled by A.I.P.A.C, goes to the length of claiming that "some segments of the National Council of Churches" are tools of a "systematic effort" to attack Israel's image in the United States.[Israel attacks it's own image with it's genocidal policy we see before us each day DC] 

A high-ranking N.C.C official at the time summed up the matter this way: "For years no one in the Jewish community had any serious complaints about the National Council; and then when they started to have political decisions that ran afoul of conventional pro-Israeli opinion, all of a sudden it became anti-Semitic and suspect." 

Critics do not like to note, however, that the policy statement recognized the right of Israel to exist as a "sovereign Jewish state" rather than a "sovereign state" as some on the panel preferred. Butler identified this as "one of the most hotly debated phrases in the policy statement," because some members of the drafting committee refused to vote for the completed document unless it specified the Jewish identity of Israel. 

The document also explicitly reaffirms the long and continuing close relationship between the Jewish community and the National Council of Churches. 

God's Empire Striking Back? 

As interest in the Middle East and humanitarian concern for the Palestinian refugees becomes more widespread among Americans of all religious persuasions, many Jewish groups and their pro-Israel allies are more adamant in rejecting open discussion as a means to broader public understanding. Under such pressures, even activist religious groups which are involved in campaigning for social justice and world peace often grow timid when the Middle East becomes a topic of discussion. 

The Sacramento Religious Community for Peace (S.R.C.P), a group which works to foster ecumenical cooperation in support of peace and social issues, in October 1983 organized a major symposium on "Faith, War and Peace in the Nuclear Age" at the Sacramento Convention Center. A large number of religious organizations, including the Sacramento Jewish Relations Council, co-sponsored the symposium under the auspices of the S.R.C.P. 

In early September, as publicity for the symposium was being arranged, the Sacramento Peace Center (S.P.C), another well established local activist group, asked that a flier publicizing its memorial service for victims of the refugee camp massacres in Lebanon be included in the S.R.C.P mailings for the symposium. Since it is routine for peace organizations in the area to cooperate in this way, Peggy Briggs, co-director of the peace center, was shocked to be informed that the flier could not be included in the promotional mailing. :the S.R.C.P told Briggs that the Jewish Community Relations Council,the strongest local Jewish group and a major participant in S.R.C.P activities-had made it known that if the flier appeared in the mailing, Jewish participation in the symposium would be withdrawn. This would have meant not only diminished support from the large local Jewish community, but also the loss of a rabbi scheduled as one of the keynote speakers. 

Helen Feeley, co-director of the S.R.C.P, further informed the Peace Center that no literature prepared by the S.P.C Middle East task force could be displayed during the proceedings. In discussing the matter later, Feeley was emphatic: "The Middle East task force has absolutely inflamed the Jewish community here, because they do not uphold the right of Israel to exist. That material is just inflammatory." 

Greg Degiere, head of the S.P.C Middle East task force, protested that his group does recognize Israel's right to exist. He pointed out that the S.P.C calls for an end to war in the Middle East, respect for the human rights of all persons in the region and mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO. 

The prohibition on discussion of the Middle East, along with the restriction on the Peace Center's right to distribute information, was accepted as the cost of Jewish participation in the symposium. Lester Frazen, the rabbi who served as a keynote speaker and thus helped provoke the issue, had unusual credentials for a showdown over free speech. He had boldly asserted his own First Amendment right at the outset of the 1982 Israeli march into Lebanon. He was among the leaders of a Sacramento march consisting mainly of fundamentalist Christians who expressed their joyous support for the invasion with a banner proclaiming: "God's empire is striking back!" Yet Frazen and his backers denied the Sacramento Peace Center the right to memorialize the victims of that invasion or to call for a negotiated end to killing on both sides. 

In light of this background, it is not surprising that although the official title of the gathering was "Faith, War and Peace in the Nuclear Age," the agenda failed to address conflicts in the Middle East-in the region many observers believe to be the most likely center of nuclear confrontation. As Joseph Gerson, peace secretary for the American Friends Service Committee in New England observes, "The Middle East has been the most consistently dangerous nuclear trigger. Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson and Nixon all threatened to use nuclear weapons there .... " 

The Uproar over Palm Sunday 

Despite Jewish-fundamentalist cooperation and the pressures brought to bear against those who publicly advocate negotiation and reconciliation in the Middle East, a few religious leaders have had the courage to speak out. Foremost among them is the Very Reverend Francis B. Sayre, who took the occasion of Palm Sunday, 1972, to raise a number of questions to which American Christians are still debating the answers. 

Throughout his twenty-seven years as dean of National Cathedral in Washington, the hearty and dramatic Dean Sayre took controversial stands on a wide variety of public policy issues. In the early fifties he fired some of the first salvos in the campaign to discredit McCarthyism. Declaring the Wisconsin senator's followers "the frightened and credulous collaborators of a servile brand of patriotism" brought Sayre a torrent of hate mail, but the possibility of criticism never caused him to shy away from speaking out on issues that stirred his conscience. He worked as an early advocate of civil rights for blacks, and in the sixties and seventies he stood in the forefront of opposition to the Vietnam War. 

Dean Sayre is the grandson of Woodrow Wilson, and his father had been a diplomat, law professor and eminent Episcopalian layman. Sayre continued the family tradition of leadership, relishing his position as leader of the cathedral's influential congregation. Offered a government post by the newly installed Kennedy administration in 1960, his reply was swift: "No thanks. I already have the best job in Washington. " 

He once described his role as dean of the cathedral as a "liaison between church and state" and as a platform for "moral guidance" for government leaders. He explained his activism with characteristic candor: "Whoever is appointed dean of a cathedral has in his hand a marvelous instrument, and he's a coward if he doesn't use it." 

On Palm Sunday 1972, Dean Sayre used his prestigious pulpit to deliver a sermon which was perhaps the most powerful-and certainly one of the most controversial-of his career. He spoke on Jerusalem, identifying the ancient city as a symbol of both the purest yearnings and darkest anger of the human heart. Historically, he proclaimed, both extremes were embodied in events of the single week between Jesus's triumphal entry into the city and His crucifixion. 

Amidst the pageantry and exultation of Palm Sunday, Jerusalem was the emblem of all man's dreams: a king that will someday come to loose us from every bondage; dream of peace that shall conquer every violence; holiness of heaven driving out the dross of earth. 

But just as Jerusalem symbolized "man's yearning for the transcendently good," so did it demonstrate his capacity for "hateful evil": 

Her golden domes are also known as 'the Place of the Skull.' ... Jerusalem, in all the pain of her history, remains the sign of our utmost reproach: the zenith of our hope undone by the wanton meanness of men who will not share it with their fellows but choose to kill rather than be overruled by God. 

Having recognized Jerusalem as a portrayal of "the terrible ambivalence of the human race about truth, about himself, about God," Sayre spoke compassionately about the meaning of Jerusalem for the people now living in Israel: 

Surely one can sympathize with the loving hope of that little state, which aspires to be the symbol, nay more: the embodiment of a holy peoplehood. For her, Jerusalem is the ancient capital; the city of the Temple that housed the sacred Ark of the Covenant. To achieve a government there is . . . the fulfillment of a cherished prayer tempered in suffering, newly answered upon the prowess of her young men and the skill of her generals. Around the world Hosannah has echoed as Jewish armies surged across the open scar that used to divide Arab Jerusalem from the Israeli sector. 

Yet Dean Sayre's sermon was fired by a troubled sense that since the military victory of 1967, five years before, something had gone terribly wrong. 

By 1972 Jerusalem was completely under Israeli control. But, to Dean Sayre, mankind's moral tragedy had been reenacted in Israeli treatment of the city's Arab population. As he saw it, the dream had been tarnished: 

Now oppressed become oppressors. Arabs are deported; Arabs are imprisoned without charge; Arabs are deprived of the patrimony of their lands and homes; their relatives may not come to settle in Jerusalem; they have neither voice nor happiness in the city that after all is the capital of their religious devotion too! 

Addressing the moral consequences of the Israeli annexation of Jerusalem, Dean Sayre quoted Dr. Israel Shahaka Jewish survivor of the Nazi concentration camp at Belsen, a professor at Hebrew University, and a dissenter from Israeli policy-who branded the annexation "an immoral and unjust act," and called for recognition that "the present situation of one community oppressing the other will poison us all, and us Jews first of all." 

Sayre explained that Israel's treatment of the Arabs mirrored "that fatal flaw in the human breast that forever leaps to the acclaim of God, only to tum the next instant to the suborning of His will for us." 

He was not the only Washington clergyman to express a theme critical of Israel that day. Dr. Edward Elson, pastor of the National Presbyterian Church and chaplain of the U.S. Senate, chided "those Christians who justify Israel's actions in Jerusalem on the basis that they are the fulfillment of prophecy." And the Armenian Orthodox legate to Washington, Bishop Papken, called on Israel to recognize that "Jerusalem belongs to all men." 

But because of his reputation and eminent position in American religion, Sayre was singled out to bear the brunt of the criticism. Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman of the Washington Hebrew Congregation reported to Sayre that the sermon was "so distressing to the Israel government that there had even been a cabinet meeting on the subject what to do about this minister who had been friendly always to the Jews but who was so misguided." The response was not long in coming. Two leaders of the Washington Jewish Community Council issued a statement denouncing all three sermons and taking particular exception to the address of Dean Sayre. Drs. Harvey H. Ammerman and Isaac Frank said Jews, Christians and Moslems "freely mingle in the reunited city and live and carry on their work in peace." They characterized the Sayre sermon as "an outrageous slander." 

Their position received support in a Washington Post editorial which called Sayre's sermon "an intemperate denunciation of current Israeli policy in Jerusalem." The Washington Post editors objected to Sayre's assertion that "even as Israelis praise their God for the smile of fortune, they begin almost simultaneously to put Him to death." They found the statement "painfully close to a very old, very familiar line of the worst bigotry."[And never mentioned? His right to speak his mind DC] 

An angry editorial letter in the Washington Post dismissed Sayre's sermon as "non-factual garbage": 

This churchman illustrates well the typical liberal gentile bleeding-heart attitude to the Jews-we'll commiserate with you as long as you're dependent on our goodwill for your survival, and we'll weep for you when you are slaughtered every few years by our coreligionists-but Lordy, don't you start winning and controlling your own destiny! The hell with them, I say. [Jackass made no mention of any of Sayre's points,just a shoot the messenger piece of propaganda DC]

Several such letters appeared in the Washington press in the weeks after Palm Sunday, yet few challenged Sayre's central contention that Israeli policy did not grant equal treatment to Arabs and Jews living in Jerusalem. The situation in Jerusalem was a matter of fact, subject to relatively easy refutation-or confirmation-through inquiry. Yet Sayre's critics, in the manner of the Post editors, largely confined their attacks to the tone and lack of "temperance" in his sermon. Sayre received widespread criticism, not for being wrong, but for being a forthright critic of unjust Israeli policies and therefore, in the eyes of some critics, anti-Semitic. Despite his long career of humanitarian activism, partisans of Israel sought to discredit Sayre himself since they could not discredit his arguments. Writer Ernest Volkman charged that Sayre demonstrated "mindless pro-Arabism [which] had undone many years of patient effort to improve relations between Christians and Jews." 

David A. Clarke of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference wrote to defend Sayre: "I do view with some distrust the emotional rebuttals which follow any question of the propriety of Israeli conduct." He likened such emotionalism to the initial reaction against those who first challenged long-established concepts of racial superiority. Referring to U.S. policy in the Middle East, he expressed gratitude "that one of such intellectual integrity as Dean Sayre has given a differing view so that our perspective will not be one-dimensional." 

But influential Christians remained divided in their reaction to the speech. Some shared Sayre's troubled disapproval of Israeli policy in the Holy City. Others continued to invoke the spectre of antisemitism. 

The Reverend Carl Mcintire, an outspoken Protestant fundamentalist, took exception to Sayre's sermon in a letter published in the Washington Star. He and Sayre had clashed previously, when McIntire had sought to disrupt a rally against the Vietnam War at the Washington Cathedral and Sayre had personally ushered him away from the gathering. "The liberals represented by the dean have long since departed from the historic Christian view concerning Israel and Jerusalem," proclaimed Mcintire. Describing the 1967 war as "a thrilling example of how to deal with aggressors and the forces backed by Communism," he invoked scriptural justification for Israeli possession of conquered territory: 

It is for those of us who believe the Bible to be the Word of God [to] come now to the assistance of our Jewish neighbors. What God has given them they are entitled to possess, and none of the land which they have won should be bartered away. 

Some mainline clergymen joined in the fundamentalist outcry over the Palm Sunday sermon. Two leaders of the Council of Churches of Greater Washington issued a public statement declaring it "distressing and perplexing that men of goodwill should choose the start of this holy week for both Christians and Jews to make pronouncements which would inevitably be construed as anti-Judaic." 

Two Catholic clergymen-an official of the Secretariat for Catholic-Jewish Relations and a director of the United States Catholic Conference-joined in an attempt to discredit Sayre. First they questioned the propriety of Sayre's quoting Israel Shahak, a dissident, to substantiate his charges of Israeli injustice in Jerusalem: "Is it not too close to the old anti-Semitic stratagem of using passages from the Hebrew prophets in order to scold Jews?" More significantly, they asserted that they had "failed to find any evidence of Israeli oppression" during a recent trip to Jerusalem. [Blind assholes DC]

Yet an article at the same time in Christianity Today reported a quite different reaction from the editor of the United Church Observer, an official publication of the United Church of Canada. The Reverend A. C. Forrest praised Dean Sayre for "the courage, knowledge and insight to speak prophetically about one of the most disturbing situations in the world today." Citing United Nations reports on Jerusalem, he said Sayre's charges "are kind of old stuff to anyone who's done his homework or traveled enough in the Middle East." 

Support for Sayre was voiced by Jesuit educator Joseph L. Ryan of Georgetown University. Explaining that he spoke in response to the injunction of Pope Paul-"If you wish peace, work for justice"-Father Ryan cited statements by the Pope and by Catholic leaders in several Middle Eastern countries expressing concern about Israeli actions in Jerusalem and about the misery of Palestinian refugees. He pointed out that Israeli oppression of Christians and Muslims in Jerusalem was documented by publications of the Israeli League for Human Rights and the United Nations. ''There is no dearth of evidence," he wrote. "If the public raising of these cases of oppression is shocking, the reality is incomparably more shocking." 

Father Ryan reserved his strongest language for criticizing unquestioning Christian supporters of Israeli policies: 

Further, a few Catholics and Protestants propagate the insinuation that to be anti-Zionist (that is, critical of Israel) is to be anti-Semitic. In their anxiety to wipe out racism, these spokesmen go to extremes. This insinuation which they try to make widespread hinders, instead of helps, the development of proper relations between Christians and Jews, and inhibits the free and open discussion of fundamental differences for Americans as citizens of their country and of the world community is essential in the search for justice and peace. 

Dean Sayre remained largely detached from the tempest he had stirred on Palm Sunday. His only public action was to state through an aide that he would not retract any of his comments. Years later be acknowledged that, while he had given previous sermons on the plight of the Palestinian refugees, the 1972 Palm Sunday address was his first direct criticism of Israel. "Of course I realized that it would make a big splash," he said. "But if you put it more mildly, as I had previously, it made no dent at all. So what are you going to do?" 

Prior to the controversial sermon, Sayre had enjoyed high standing with the American Jewish community. A local Jewish congregation, at Sayre's invitation, held services in the cathedral until its synagogue was built. Jews respected him for the work he had done as president of the United States Committee for Refugees. In this capacity he had worked to resettle Jews from Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. As an Episcopal minister in Cleveland after World War II, he had been head of the diocese's committee to settle refugees, many of them Jews, from Eastern Europe. 

The sermon had personal implications. Sayre and his family experienced a campaign of "very unpleasant direct intimidation" through letters and telephone calls. On a number of occasions, when his children answered the phone they were shouted at and verbally abused. The phone would ring in the middle of the night, only to be hung up as soon as a member of the Sayre family answered. "Even when I went out, I would be accosted rudely by somebody or other who would condemn me in a loud voice." Such harassment continued for about six months, Sayre said, "even to the point where my life was threatened over the phone; so much so that I had the cathedral guards around the house for a while." 

The ecumenical spirit between Sayre and community rabbis was strained again six months after the sermon. When eleven Israeli athletes were killed at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, while being held capture by the radical "Black September" guerrillas, Dean Sayre shared the shock and revulsion felt around the world. Together with rabbis and other Jewish leaders in Washington, he immediately began to plan a memorial service in the cathedral. 

Three days after the tragedy Israeli warplanes attacked Palestinian camps in Syria and Lebanon, killing 40 people. Sayre then told the rabbis of his intention to "make this a more general service than just for victims of Arab killing," memorializing the dead Palestinians as well. 

Confronted with this prospect, the rabbis did not participate after all. There were, however, a number of Jews among the approximately 500 persons who attended the broadened memorial service. They heard Dean Sayre describe the Arab guerrillas as "misguided and desperately misled" victims "of all the bitterness their lives had been surrounded with since birth, bitterness born of issues left callously unresolved by any international conscience." 

He condemned the Israeli retaliation: "An eye for an eye, tooth for tooth is the rationale of that violence, by which I am desolate to think the government of Israel has sacrificed any moral position of injured innocence." The Dean invoked the broader historical and humanitarian view which had marked his Palm Sunday sermon in words which might well be repeated for every victim of Middle East violence: 

I perceive that the victim of the violence which we mourn today is not only a latter-day Jew upon the blood-stained soil of Germany, nor yet the Arab prisoner of an equally violent heritage. The victim is all of us, the whole human race upon this earth. 

Despite these words, unexceptional in their Christian message, Sayre was treated as though he somehow was a preacher of extremism. His career never had quite the shine it had before his forthright words on the Middle East. 

Now in semi-retirement on Martha's Vineyard, an island off Cape Cod, Sayre serves as chaplain at the local hospital but has no regular church responsibilities. One morning in 1983, I delayed his project for the morning-digging clams-to ask if the controversial Palm Sunday message had had any effect on his career. Still robust in voice and spirit, Sayre answered without hesitation: "Yes, very definitely. I knew it would. It's not popular to speak out. I don't like to speculate about it, because no one knows what would have happened. But I think I was a dangerous commodity from then on, not to be considered for bishop or anything else." 

"I Felt I Had to Do Something" 

The American religious community has seen few figures with the stature of Dean Sayre willing to speak out forcefully for peace and justice for all Middle East peoples. At the time of the Palm Sunday sermon in 1972, he was one of the most prominent spokesman of American Christianity: a powerful and intellectually gifted man wielding the authority of Washington Cathedral's prestigious pulpit. Despite the price Sayre paid for his courageous stand, younger voices are emerging which express similar resolve and depth of commitment. 

The Reverend Don Wagner, a Presbyterian from Chicago, has risen quickly to the forefront of those within the religious community who seek to educate the public on realities in the Middle East and to counter the religious bias which often obscures awareness of those realities. His experiences have also brought him firsthand acquaintance with the intimidation which such efforts call forth. 

Wagner first became involved in public debate over the Middle East while serving as associate pastor of a large Presbyterian church in Evanston, Illinois. He was at the time, in his own words, "very pro Israel." In the wake of the first oil crisis, in 1974 the young pastor helped organize a series of speakers within the church, alternating between pro-Israeli and pro-Arab points of view. He felt the series would aid his parishioners to understand better this unprecedented event. Wagner was quite surprised when, halfway through, he began receiving pressure to stop the series. A barrage of anonymous telephone calls threatened picketing outside the church and more severe, unspecified reprisals if the series continued. 

Wagner did not stop. In the end, however, the series was marred by the refusal of two Jewish members of the final panel to take part. They announced a half-hour before the scheduled discussion that the presence of an Arab academic on the panel rendered the event anti-Semitic and that they consequently refused to dignify it with their presence. They implied that Wagner had deceived them about the make-up of the panel and the nature of the discussion, although the topic of the discussion and the list of participants had been publicized well in advance. 

Wagner suspected that these men had been pressured to quit the conference by their rabbis. This suspicion was reinforced later when he learned that many of the earlier telephone calls had also been from members of the local Jewish community. One of the callers even told him directly: "I am a Jew, and this kind of activity is very anti-Semitic. For a Christian to be doing this is unconscionable." This was an eyeopening experience for Wagner. He discovered, as have others who have dared to speak out and become involved, that one need not actually criticize the Jewish people or the state of Israel to be labelled antisemitic. Simply raising questions about Middle East issues and assuming that the answers may not all be obvious is enough to evoke the charge. 

Wagner first traveled to the Middle East in 1977. He paid his own way but traveled with representatives of the Palestine Human Rights Campaign (P.H.R.C), an organization concerned with the protection of Palestinian rights. After spending time with refugees and other residents in Beirut, the West Bank and Jerusalem, Wagner felt his longstanding sympathy for the displaced Palestinian refugees growing into a strong personal imperative. "I felt I had to do something," he recently recalled. 

After his return to United States, he learned how difficult it could be to "do something." Shortly before his departure for the Middle East, Wagner had arranged a church speaking engagement for Dr. Israel Shahak, a prominent Israeli critic of government policy. He returned to discover that the senior minister of his church had acceded to pressure from local rabbis to cancel the Shahak engagement without informing either him or Shahak. The senior minister explained that the local rabbis had convinced him that it would be "in the best interests of the church and Jewish relations" if the appearance of such a well-known critic of Israeli policy were cancelled. 

Undeterred, Wagner became increasingly active in speaking up about the Palestinian plight, offering Sunday morning prayers for the refugees, promoting more educational activities, and even bringing Palestinian Christians to his pulpit to speak. His activities led not only to a continuation of public criticism and pressure but also to problems within the staff of his own church as well. One associate frequently referred to him as "the PLO pastor," and staff friction grew as Wagner proceeded with plans for the First LaGrange Conference, (LaGrange I), named for the Illinois town in which it was held in the spring of 1979. 

This conference, like LaGrange II which followed in May 1981, was aimed at raising awareness of the Palestinian refugee situation among American church groups and leaders. Both meetings were attended by a broad ecumenical body of Christians, including Evangelical, mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox. The first conference was jointly sponsored by P.H.R.C and the Middle East task force of the Chicago Presbytery. The second was sponsored by P.H.R.C and the Christian peace groups Pax Christi and Sojourners. The theme of these conferences was summed up in the title of LaGrange II: "Toward Biblical Foundations for a Just Peace in the Holy Land." 

After a series of speakers and panels, each conference issued a statement. These two documents have become a topic of debate within the American religious community. The statements stress the common humanity of Arabs, Jews, and Christians and call upon the American Christian churches to be more active in spreading information and promoting reconciliation and peace. Specifically, the churches are enjoined to "encourage dialogue with other Christians as well as Jews and others concerning the priorities of peace in the Holy Land" and to "inform and educate their people of the historical roots of the Israeli Palestinian conflict." 

The participants in LaGrange I and II made a significant step in ecumenical cooperation for greater public understanding of the Middle East. Unfortunately, the opponents of cooperation and understanding were also in attendance.

Prior to the convening of LaGrange I, the Chicago Presbytery received pressure from the local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, led by associate director Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, to withdraw Presbyterian sponsorship of the conference. There were telephone calls, an extensive letter-writing campaign, and finally meetings between Jewish leaders and members of the church hierarchy. 

The elders of the church stood by Wagner, but the Jewish community promptly passed judgment on the conference. The day before the conference convened, the A.D.L issued a press release condemning its "anti-Semitic bias." 

Efforts to discredit the conference did not end there. The slate of speakers had been planned to include Father John Polakowski, a noted writer on the Holocaust and active Zionist. The morning of the conference Father Polakowski sent a registered letter to Wagner announcing his withdrawal from the conference. He had been fully informed as to the nature of the conference and the identity of many of the other speakers, but he denounced the conference as unfairly biased against the Israeli perspective. He fulfilled his own prophecy. His decision to deprive the conference of his own perspective caused the Zionist view to be underrepresented at LaGrange I. 

LaGrange II witnessed a virtual repeat of the same tactic. Rabbi Arnold Kaiman had agreed to address a section of the conference entitled "Religious People Talking from Their Perspectives." He had been invited to speak partly because of his long-standing personal friendship with Ayoub Talhami, co-convener of the conference. Talhami had discussed the planned conference with Rabbi Kaiman in detail, even sending him a draft copy of the conference flier, and, of course, the rabbi was aware of the previous conference. The day of the conference Kaiman sent a special delivery letter to Wagner, Talhami and others announcing his withdrawal from the conference. The letter denounced Talhami and the conveners of the conference for having "misled" and "deceived" him. Talhami felt that the letter was intended mainly for Kaiman's congregational board, both because the chairman of that board was a co-addressee of the letter and because the accusations of deceit were so preposterous. 

Whatever his reasons, Kaiman went beyond a personal refusal to speak and repudiation of the conference. He provided copies of his letter to reporters, so that the withdrawal of a pro-Zionist could be publicized before the conference could issue its statement. 

To Wagner, the last-minute withdrawals of Polakowski and Kaiman after it was too late to schedule other pro-Israel speakers suggested that these supporters of Israel were more concerned with discrediting opposing points of view than with stating their own in an atmosphere of free and open debate. These withdrawals added color to subsequent A.D.L charges that the LaGrange Conferences were "anti-Israel conferences" or "PLO gatherings," despite the balanced character of the statements which emerged from the conferences. 

However, the most disturbing incident to emerge from LaGrange I and II did not involve attempts to discredit the conferences themselves, but false charges made against one of the participants. 

Sister Miriam Ward, a professor of humanities at Trinity College in Vermont and a Catholic nun, has a long record of humanitarian concern for Palestinian refugees. By her own description, her role in LaGrange II was modest. "I had doubts about whether I could justify the expense of going," she recently recalled. Sister Miriam moderated a panel discussion and received an award for her humanitarian endeavors. Like Mr. Wagner, she knew from experience the price of speaking out on Palestinian questions. Her activities had also attracted hate mail and personal innuendo's. Still, she was not prepared for the smear which resulted from her participation at LaGrange. 

Sister Miriam was singled out for a personal attack in The Jewish Week-American Examiner, a prominent New York City Jewish publication. The June 21, 1981, issue gave prominent coverage to a scheme to disrupt Israeli policy on the occupied West Bank which Sister Miriam had supposedly advanced at the conference. The article claimed that she had urged that "churches finance a project with staff in the U.S. and fieldworkers in Israel and the West Bank for the purpose of 'spying on the Israelis.'" She was reported saying, "By the time the Israelis caught on to what was going on and expelled a field worker, they [presumably Sister Miriam and her co-conspirators] would have a replacement ready." The Jewish Week article added that "the proposal was accepted without dissent, and ways of obtaining church funds for it were discussed." 

The report was a complete fabrication. No one at the LaGrange Conference had suggested such a plan, least of all Sister Miriam, and she was stunned when Wagner telephoned from Chicago informing her of the printed allegations. She had always shunned publicity for her humanitarian activities, and felt intimidated and intensely alone at being singled out for attack. "I was physically ill for some time," she recalls, "and could not even discuss the matter with other members of my religious community." 

After pondering how-and whether-to respond, she finally sought the advice of a prominent biblical scholar then guest-lecturing at Trinity College. He advised her to see an attorney about the possibility of legal action. The attorney was sympathetic and agreed to take at least preliminary action free of charge. After several letters from the attorney elicited no response from the newspaper, the same scholar himself a prominent member of the New York Jewish community personally telephoned the editor. Sister Miriam feels that it was his call that impelled the editor to act. 

In January 1982-more than six months after the original charges-a retraction was finally printed in The Jewish Week-American Examiner. The editors admitted that, "on checking, we find that there is no basis for the quotations attributed to" Sister Miriam. They explained that the story had been "furnished by a service" and "was not covered by any staff member of the Jewish Week." In their retraction, the editors added that they were "happy to withdraw any reflection upon" Sister Miriam. 

Yet, as Sister Miriam discovered, the published apology could not erase the original charge from the minds of all readers. Later the same year, a Jewish physician from New York was visiting Burlington as part of a campus program at Trinity College. In a conversation between this woman and another member of Sister Miriam's religious order, the name of the biblical scholar involved in Sister Miriam's case came up. The nun mentioned that he had recently visited Trinity at the invitation of Sister Miriam. Recognizing the name from the original Jewish Week article, the physician repeated with indignation the accusations made against Sister Miriam. 

She had not seen the retraction. The visitor was quickly informed that the charges were false. Sister Miriam cited this as an example of why she is convinced that the damage to her reputation can never really be undone. "It's the original thing that does the harm. I just don't want it to happen to anybody else."

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