On July 9, church commissioners voted 558-119 for a committee’s rewrite of a report that in its original form was widely viewed as pro-Palestinian and, in some respects, historically inaccurate. The Middle East Peacemaking Issues Committee had worked to remove this perceived bias, then voted 53-0 to send its revision forward.
A spokesman for an array of mainstream American Jewish organizations said that in adopting the revised report, the General Assembly may have preserved the church’s place at the table with both American Jews and Israelis in further peacemaking efforts.
“The tremendous unity of so many diverse elements of the church in favor of a resolution that calls for authentic narratives and balance is a very important signal to the American Jewish community,” said Ethan Felson, vice president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.
The original version of the report contained a 78-page analysis of the history of conflict in Israel and Palestine that became a bone of contention.
The version of the document approved by the Peacemaking Issues committee and the General Assembly omits both the analysis and the rabbi’s notes. It calls instead for the inclusion of eight narratives of comparable length, four from Israeli perspectives and four from the perspectives of Muslim and Christian Palestinians.
These narratives will be commissioned by a seven-member monitoring group, which will be appointed by the current and immediate past church moderators.
In another change made by the Peacemaking Issues committee, the revision no longer endorses in its entirety “Kairos Palestine,” a document issued by Palestinian Christians that places principal blame for obstacles to peace on the Israelis.
The revision also restates a longstanding PC(USA) position by affirming “Israel’s right to existence as a sovereign nation within secure and internationally recognized borders in accordance with United Nations resolutions.”
The document was called “Breaking Down the Walls,” but early in the weeklong General Assembly the wall of disagreement over its original version seemed unbreachable.
The impasse appeared to persist on July 5. The report betrays an “incredibly naive assumption” that peace would descend if Israel would unilaterally withdraw from Palestinian land, Harter said.
Several members of the committee huddled late July 5 to try to build greater balance into the document. The next day, the full committee fleshed out this informal group’s recommendations, fit them into the report, and approved it unanimously.
Before the General Assembly voted on the report, Shive said from the podium that over the previous week, “we finally have spoken across the wall” of division over the document and the result was “a strengthened report.”
MIKE JENNINGS is a career journalist, currently adjunct instructor in journalism at Bellarmine University, Louisville, Ky.
