BDS gains church advocates

By Bruce S. Ticker

Bruce S. Ticker
Bruce S. Ticker

PHILADELPHIA — J Street and the Catholic Church proceeded on the same day, last Friday, to press for Israeli and Arab action to end the so-called occupation of Israel’s territories, and they were joined by a large Protestant denomination four days later.

Ira Stup, a senior consultant to the J Street Education Fund, occupied extensive editorial space in the June 26 Forward to explain that critics of Israel joined the BDS movement because of the failure of negotiations and diplomacy to end the “occupation,” a word that Stup repeatedly recites.

Archbishop Paul Gallagher, foreign minister at the Vatican, explained in a New York Times article that the Church signed a treaty recognizing a “state of Palestine” partially to influence an end of the conflict.

The Rev. John Deckenback of the United Church of Christ said delegates to the church’s general synod in Cleveland voted to join the BDS movement for the same reason, according to The Times.

For all their expertise, Stup, Gallagher and Deckenback conveniently ignore recent history, as do most of Israel’s harsher critics: Israel offered Yasser Arafat everything his people needed for an independent state at Camp David in 2000, and Arafat rejected it and started a war. When Israel abandoned Gaza in 2005, the Arabs responded by firing rockets into Israel.

Since these gentlemen behave as if they have all the answers, maybe they can advise Israel on what it should do now. We know Israel must do something. Just because the Arabs responded with hostility, is it not still Israel’s burden?

Stup writes in The Forward, a national Jewish weekly, that college students are joining the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement to pressure Israel economically. “They want to translate their concerns and commitments into action,” he writes. “BDS resolutions…offer a nonviolent action that students can take to shift the conversation around Israel/Palestine and to create a ‘cost’ for the occupation.”

He adds, “Recent efforts at bilateral negotiations and diplomacy have failed.” Whose fault is that?

Gallagher said the pact could be a “stimulus to bringing a definitive end to the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which continues to cause suffering for both parties.” He called for the two countries to make “courageous decisions.”

He must mean that Israel’s offer at Camp David and its removal of settlements in Gaza were cowardly acts.

Deckenback, conference minister of the UCC’s Central Atlantic Conference, which submitted the boycott resolution, said that the measure’s outcome reflects the church’s “spirit of love for both Israelis and Palestinians.”

Does Israel need so much love?

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Ticker is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia.  You may comment to him at bruce.ticker@sdjewishworld.com or post your comment on this website provided that it is civil and that you identify yourself by your full name and by city and state of residence.

1 thought on “BDS gains church advocates”

  1. I agree with everything the writer says here, and enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek tone. But there is other minor detail that should be pointed out: the United Church of Christ represents only 0.4% of the entire US population and at most 1% of the Protestant population. Woop-dee-doo! Some victory. See http://www.catholicleague.org/anti-israel-divestment-agenda/ .– J.J. Surbeck, San Diego

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