The Religious Left and Israel<3>

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ganen45
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Niebuhr's critique of the Presbyterian proposal in the Newsweek blog, which he co-authored with a Presbyterian seminary president, similarly denounced the anti-Israel stance as "unbalanced, historically inaccurate, theologically flawed and politically damaging." They also reported signing "a letter circulating among Presbyterians nationwide, calling on the General Assembly to reject the Middle East Study Committee's report." Wall naturally denounced these signers as "whether they know it or not, in the Hasbara army." Evidently a stranger to nuance, at least on this topic, Wall slammed Israel as guilty of the "the slaughter of the innocents [which] began with the Nakba [Palestinian term for "catastrophe"] in 1947," while bemoaning the "harsh reality of Israel's six decades of immoral and unethical treatment of the Palestinian people," and the "prison-like conditions under which Palestinians are forced to live." Wall does not seem to get similarly exercised over the sins of Israel's neighbors, or of virtually any other government in the world. And the Presbyterians do not have study committees or proposed human rights critiques aimed at Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, or other non- democracies notorious for abuses and oppression. At the risk of being accused of serving in the Hasbara Army, here is my Presbyterian colleague Alan Wisdom's own critique of his church's proposed anti-Israel stance. Religious Left anti-Israel zealots like Wall believe their opponents are simply tools of Israeli propaganda. But by the same conspiratorial measure, whose tool might Wall be?