Judeo-Christian Alliance Releases New Report:
Walls of Indifference, Walls of Contempt

Judeo-Christian Alliance
For Immediate Release
Sept. 14, 2005

The United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) crossed the line from criticism to outright racism when they passed resolutions condemning Israel’s security fence this summer, according to the Judeo-Christian Alliance, a group formed to stop the defamation of Israel by U.S. churches.

“Racism is the only word to describe resolutions that portray the uprooting of olive trees, which can be replanted, as a bigger problem than the deaths of Israeli children who are gone forever,” says Dexter Van Zile, director of the Judeo-Christian Alliance and author of Walls of Indifference, Walls of Contempt, a report on two anti-“wall” resolutions passed by the deliberative bodies of the UCC and DOC in July.

The report details how the churches portray Israel’s security fence as the cause and not the result of Palestinian terror against Israelis. It also documents how the churches portray the inconvenience suffered by the Palestinians as a bigger problem than the loss of Israeli lives. The resolutions make no mention whatsoever of the Israeli deaths caused by terrorism, but describe in great detail the impact of the security fence on Palestinians, notes Van Zile, a member of the UCC.

“These churches could not be bothered to ask Palestinians to stop the terror attacks that made the barrier necessary,” Van Zile says.

Dennis Hale, president of the Judeo-Christian Alliance, an initiative of the David Project Center for Jewish Leadership and Advocacy, acknowledges the charge of racism is troublesome, but says condemning the fence but not the terror attacks that made it necessary raises serious questions about the judgment of mainline Christian leaders and the synods over which they preside.

"Members of these churches should start thinking about what their deliberative bodies are doing in their name," Hale says. "And they should be asking: What were our leaders thinking when they crafted these patently unjust condemnations of Israel? Can they really know so little about what is going on over there?"

Members of the two churches have an obligation to condemn the racist indifference to Jewish suffering embodied in the resolutions, Van Zile says.

“These are not internal church documents, but statements of Christian witness that mortgage the credibility of the churches that approved them.”

The report is available here

For contact email dvz@davidproject.org