"A letter signed by 15 leaders
of Christian churches that calls for Congress to reconsider giving aid
to Israel because of accusations of human rights violations has outraged
Jewish leaders and threatened to derail longstanding efforts to build
interfaith relations. The Christian leaders say their intention was to put the Palestinian
plight and the stalled peace negotiations back in the spotlight at a
time when all of the attention to Middle East policy seems to be focused
on Syria, the Arab Spring and the Iranian nuclear threat. “We asked Congress to treat Israel like it would any other country,”
said the Rev. Gradye Parsons, the top official of the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.), “to make sure our military aid is going to a country
espousing the values we would as Americans — that it’s not being used to
continually violate the human rights of other people.” The Jewish leaders responded to the action as a momentous betrayal and
announced their withdrawal from a regularly scheduled Jewish-Christian
dialogue meeting planned for Monday. In a statement, the Jewish leaders
called the letter by the Christian groups “a step too far” and an
indication of “the vicious anti-Zionism that has gone virtually
unchecked in several of these denominations.”