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Predictably enough, the resolution, which was passed with 462 yeas, 78 nays and 18 abstentions in an online vote, made no mention of any sins perpetrated by the Palestinians or their leaders in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank.

For example, the resolution had nothing to say about the monthly stipends disbursed by the Palestinian Authority to imprisoned terrorists and their families, nothing about the anti-Jewish incitement broadcast by media outlets controlled by Fatah and Hamas, and nothing about the genocidal anti-Semitism broadcast during Friday sermons in the Al-Aqsa Mosque. And the resolution said nothing about Hamas rocket attacks directed at civilians, nor about the refusal of Palestinian leaders to negotiate in good faith with Israel, having turned down numerous peace offers over the years.

With the passage of this resolution, the UCC's General Synod has revealed itself to be a bystander to anti-Jewish violence in the Holy Land, and a promoter of a dishonest narrative that justifies violence against Jews in the rest of the world.

The resolution speaks in vague terms about the evils of "supersessionism" and anti-Semitism but does not acknowledge the role these ideologies play in fomenting hostility towards Jews and Israel in Muslim-majority environments in the Middle East – nor the UCC's own role in fomenting this hatred.

The UCC resolution – the latest in a long list of anti-Semitic attacks – portrays the Jewish state as a singular source of sin and suffering in the Holy Land, recapitulating many of the messages Christians have offered about the Jewish people and their institutions over the past 2,000 years, even as the faith attempts to distance itself from this history.

"At a time when Jews are being physically attacked worldwide for their solidarity with Israel, suffering violence that clearly crosses the line from criticism of Israeli policies into blatant anti-Semitism, one could rightfully expect an American Christian church to be more guarded in its judgments," said Rabbi Noam Marans, director of Interreligious and Intergroup Relations for the American Jewish Committee.

"Where in this resolution for a 'just peace' is there any mention of Israel's relentless pursuit of peace for 73 years?" he asked.

Two things need to happen in response to the passage of the resolution. First, it's time to convene a beit din [Jewish religious court] to render a judgment on the UCC's decades-long war against the Jews and their state.

Second, it's time for rank-and-file Jews to reach out to local UCC churches and tell them that while the resolution was passed without any real input from the laity in the denomination, the people in the pews are ultimately responsible for the lies broadcast by their leaders in Cleveland and affirmed by the General Synod.

The beit din could and should declare that the UCC has repeatedly violated the prohibition against "talebearing" and against standing idly by when one's neighbor is threatened. These prohibitions are articulated in Leviticus 19:6.

The UCC has also violated the prohibition against bearing false witness, as delineated in Exodus 20:13.

In sum, the UCC engages in talebearing by retailing and repeating lies and propaganda produced by Israel's enemies; it bears false witness by omitting crucial information about the Arab-Israeli conflict in its so-called peacemaking resolutions; and it stands idly by the blood of its neighbor by refusing to condemn Palestinian terrorism and the lies used to justify it.

The evidence to support these charges is simply overwhelming.

In 2005, the UCC's General Synod passed a "Tear Down the Wall" resolution, which asked Israel to dismantle the security barrier it constructed to stop terror attacks from the West Bank without asking the Palestinians to stop the terror attacks that prompted its construction.

In 2015, the denomination's General Synod passed, with great fanfare, a resolution calling on the church's investment managers to sell their stock in specific companies that do business with Israel's defense establishment and operate in the West Bank. As it turns out, the staff who manage the denomination's pension fund and other holdings were legally obligated to ignore the Synod's call – a fact obscured in the fanfare surrounding the passage of the divestment resolution.

In 2017, two years after the denomination's General Synod passed the divestment resolution, the body passed a resolution condemning Israel's alleged mistreatment of Palestinian children detained in Israeli jails. The same resolution remained silent about Palestinian abuses of children, including the use of child labor to build smuggling tunnels between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, and Fatah and Hamas summer camps and other programs that give children guns and teach them to murder Jews.

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To achieve approval of the resolution, anti-Israel activists in the UCC went so far as to coach teenagers into demonizing the Jewish state at the microphone on the floor of the General Synod. During the proceedings, one youth delegate asked, "How can we be paying an incredibly high amount of tax dollars to a country that values the torturous interrogation of children?" The denomination is teaching its children to demonize Israel and to be voyeuristic bystanders to violence against Jews.

Jews and Christians alike must reach out to the lay members of the denomination about the misdeeds perpetrated by a coalition of anti-Israel extremists who have fomented hostility toward the Jewish state and the Jewish people for far too long

Featured on JNS.org, this article was first published by CAMERA.

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Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., made a stunning condemnation of anti-Semitism on Wednesday. In an oblique but thoroughgoing rebuke to the Jew-hatred promoted by E. Michael Jones, who lives in the diocese Bishop Rhoades serves, the bishop declared that Catholics "recognize that the anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism of past centuries contributed to the rise of the Nazi project to exterminate Jews."

He then warned the Catholic faithful in his diocese (and the rest of the world) that "all must take care, lest in catechizing or in preaching the Word of God, they teach anything which is not in accord with the truth of the Gospel or the spirit of Christ."

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"Unfortunately," Rhoades declared, "there has been a rise in recent years of anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic rhetoric in our society," and that "there have been incidents of violence by hateful speech about Jews. The Church has firmly condemned such rhetoric and violence."

He added, "We must never forget that Judaism was the religion of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the apostle, and of the early disciples who spread the good news of Christ to the world," and that the Jewish people "are Jesus' own family."

This and other teachings, he said, "are not optional for Catholics, but require our consent as true expressions of our faith. Negative language towards Jews as a people, a culture or religion is not acceptable."

In an implied reference to commentators such as the virulent writer E. Michael Jones, who resides in the bishop's diocese, the Feb. 19 statement declared: "Some writers today do not present Jews or Judaism in a respectful or theologically correct manner," and that "the Catholic church offers no shelter to anti-Jewish bias, regardless of its content or expression. This applies to racist statements against Jews, to anti-Semitism, or to any religious opinion that denigrates Jews or Judaism."

The statement offers a badly needed counterpoint to Jones, who has described Jews as "the group that is responsible for virtually every social ill in our day – from wars in the Middle East to pornography and gay marriage at home" and the people "around whose evil machinations the axis of history turns."

After 11 Jews were murdered at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, Jones argued that Jews had invited the violence perpetrated against them. "You have undermined the moral order and now don't be surprised if people start acting out their aggression towards you," Jones warned. "And don't blame me."

Rhoades warned the Catholic faithful that "in this age of social media, people read or listen to all kinds of opinions expressed about Judaism and the Jewish people on Internet blogs, websites and the like. Some are filled with false and hateful rhetoric, opposed to the very spirit of Christianity. As Catholics, we must reject any that express or can lead to contempt for Jews."

"The Jews are not our enemies," wrote Bishop Rhoades.

The statement comes after CAMERA corresponded with Bishop Rhoades about the anti-Semitic writings of E. Michael Jones.

Dexter Van Zile is a researcher at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA).

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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My answer is simple and direct. In their efforts to promote peace in the Holy Land, these activists end up lending aid and comfort to folks who have murdered (or have tried to murder) Jews.

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Let's call this phenomenon "the Fools' Crusade." They're too old to be called children (even if they think and act like them), so the moniker "Children's Crusade" doesn't work. They're fools who seek to demonstrate how moral and righteous they are by giving propaganda victories to people who murder civilians – Jews especially.

The worst offenders are associated with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). If you live anywhere in Jerusalem or the West Bank, there's a good chance you've seen these activists, who have been recruited by the World Council of Churches to come to the Holy Land and annoy Israeli soldiers as they protect Jews living in places like Gush Etzion and Hebron.

They wear brown vests with the logo of a cross and a dove on the back and the words "World Council of Churches" stenciled across the top. The vests (which the volunteers sometimes hide when they want to downplay their connection to the WCC) give their wearers an air of authority. When they do things that bring shame on the WCC, the organization's staffers in Geneva say that their volunteers do not engage in political activism while in the Holy Land.

EAPPI activists have, on at least one occasion, visited with the families of known terrorists and then bragged about it afterward. The visit happened in November 2016 when EAPPI volunteers graced the homes of Labib Khaldon Anwar Azzam and Mihmoud Hisham Ali Z'jalan, two 17-year-old youths who were killed while attempting to murder Roy Harel and his family in their home in Eli.

The attack happened in March 2016 when Labib and Mihmoud assailed Harel early in the morning as he was leaving his home for reserve duty. They had waited outside his house after praying at the mosque the night before.

"They started attacking me with heavy wooden clubs," Harel told reporters after the attack. The two young men were able to gain entrance into his home where they headed for the children's bedroom. Harel was able to push them back out of the house and close the door behind them. During the melee, Harel yelled for his wife to call for help. After they were driven outside, the two hid nearby and attacked with knives the soldiers who arrived on the scene before they were shot and killed.

EAPPI activists from England and Ireland visited the families of Labib and Mihmoud a few months later, in November 2016. In a blog post in which they described their efforts to console the families of Labib and Mihmoud, EAPPI activists obscured the murderous intent of their attack, declaring, "The settler sustained light injuries." The blog post then goes on to describe the two would-be killers as good boys who were doing so well in school. "Labib hoped to study art and Mohammed engineering."

In their blog post, the EAPPI activists relayed a story told to them by the families that a preliminary medical report indicated that one of their boys had been shot through the head and the other through the mouth and that both had been driven over by a car.

These are gruesome details, but it's tough to know if they are true because one of the boys, Labib, was named after a Hamas suicide bomber who blew himself up on an Israeli bus in 1995, killing six Israelis and injuring 33 others. It's not as if folks associated with Hamas have been all that truthful in their dealings with the media!

Hamas praised the two young men after their attack on Harel, declaring they died during "a heroic stabbing attack." Prior to their deaths, the two young men posted pro-Hamas propaganda on their Facebook pages.

It's time to bring the WCC's Fools' Crusade to an end. The last thing the Holy Land needs is a bunch of well-meaning but ignorant young and naïve outsiders without skin in the game.

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