Comments on: Sabeel’s impact on Christian charity

By: Susan

Susan — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:37:34 +0000

There is a movement within Palestinian and Arab Christianity to de-Judaize Jesus. They claim that Jesus was a “Gallilean” not a Jew. The best archeological evidence is that the people of the Galilee were indeed Jews. There is also antisemitism within the Liberation Theology movement. Amy-Jill Levine has a chapter in her book, The Misunderstood Jew called “With Friends Like Theses…”.

By: Israelinurse

Israelinurse — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:14:24 +0000

For links between Sabeel and other charities see this:

http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2008/12/british-pro-palestinian-ngos-abuse.html

I also find the links between Pax Christi, the CND and Stop the War very interesting.
Yesterday there were posters up in Manchester advertising a CND/STW campaign against NATO. They demanded the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan, and somehow managed to squeeze Gaza into the subject matter too, despite there being no foreign troops there.
Maybe Mr. Kent could explain that one?

By: Fran Waddams

Fran Waddams — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:09:00 +0000

Seismic Shock and Lauren

This list was passed to me last week. I suppose it was bound to happen. It’s ironic given that Israel’s opponents (rather than critics) so readily accuse those of us who challenge their assertions of trying to silence them …

By: Lauren

Lauren — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:47:16 +0000

Wendy, your comment reminded me of a disturbing sermon I recently heard at our Unitarian chapel. It wasn’t as overt as that, but was treading on it. There was an analogy between a comment she got annoyed by in a seminar that the Palestinians were lazy that it was just like comments that the Germans made about the Jews in the Nazi time. There was nothing wrong with her being annoyed with someone who was stereotyping the Palestinians as lazy, but she seems to be trying to generalize this attitude to the Israelis and make them into the new Nazis. It was all tied in somehow with the good Samaritan story and how she had looked up why the Samaritans were hated by the Jews. This was made more spooky by the fact that a few weeks earlier I had been at a meeting with her and expressed concern about the website that wanted people to name and shame friends of Israel groups. She was sympathetic, but compared the wrongness of this to the wrongness of naming and shaming the BNP. Was she simply saying that just because you disagree with someone, you shouldn’t expose them on the internet, or was she really thinking that friends of Israel groups were as bad as the BNP? I gave her the benefit of the doubt and assumed the former at the time, but now in connection with the sermon, I don’t know. I talked to her after the sermon, and she said it had nothing to do with the current Gaza situation, so perhaps I’m over-reacting, but I have a bad feeling about it, like if it was not what I am suspecting, I’m not sure what the point of the sermon was. The Samaritans desecrated the temple, so what? Has somebody led her to think the Israelis are killing the Palestinian because they did something comparable to desecrating the temple?

By: Seismic Shock

Seismic Shock — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:47:15 +0000

Yes, Ateek really is awful, he’s a one-man time machine to the Dark Ages. More on Sabeel coming soon!

By: Seismic Shock

Seismic Shock — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:45:59 +0000

Have you guys seen this?

http://www.redress.cc/cms-files/UK_FOI.pdf

By: Fran Waddams

Fran Waddams — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:20:43 +0000

Excellent post, Seismic Shock.

Sadly, Ateek’s take on the Middle East conflict is widely accepted within the Church of England, many of whose members’ opinions are BBC/Guardian/Independent led. The Church Times rarely seems to recognise anything other than the ‘Palestinian narrative’ either.

Ironically many Anglican leaders recognise the ‘inalienable right’ of Palestinians to self-determination but aren’t prepared to extend that generosity to Jews! Instead, most adopt the Christian Aid position that Israel may exist just as long as it’s on Palestinian terms – apparently blind to the oft-stated position of Palestinian leaders that their aim is for an end to any Jewish state in the region.

Ateek’s shocking repetition of blood libel and deicide smears against Jews should have been condemned years ago by Anglican leaders. Instead, his theology was peddled around the country by Christian theatre company ‘Riding Lights’ in their unpleasant play, Salaam Bethlehem. At the production, their bookstall sold nothing except Sabeel publications and Ateek’s books and the play’s website contained links to all sorts of unpleasant organisations, some openly anti-semitic all deeply hostile to Israel.

By: Serendipity

Serendipity — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:44:08 +0000

Sabeel, in the UK and elsewhere, is a poisonous organisation.

Naim Ateek, Sabeel sees Samson as the first suicide bomber (now that was neat, given that there were no such things as bombs in those days) in an attempt to excuse suicide murder of Israelis by Palestinians; and Sabeel is busily engaged in invidious revisionist theology which seeks to separate the Jewish people from their history in the holy land.

See: http://blog.camera.org/archives/2009/03/naim_ateeks_spring_tour.html

Thanks, Seismicshock, for this.

By: Nick (ex South Africa)

Nick (ex South Africa) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:54:15 +0000

liberation theology movement

An oxymoron if ever there was!

By: Sophia

Sophia — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:33:59 +0000

Oy. “Crucified Palestinians”?

Words fail.