CAMERA Christian Media Analyst Dexter Van Zile clarified Sabeel’s true agenda in the following letter to the editor in the January 18, 2007 edition of the Jewish Advocate:
View Is Not For All Christians
As a Christian largely responsible for the efforts of both The David Project and CAMERA to expose the hostile agenda put forth by Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, I take issue with Marty Federman’s assertion (“Bullies on the block,” Jan. 12) that the group and its founder, Rev. Naim Ateek, are victims of a campaign of bullying by Jewish activists. Ateek and the organization he leads are victims of their own nauseating rhetoric and nothing more.
Sabeel and its supporters have repeatedly called for Israel to be dismantled and subsumed into a state in which Jews would be a minority. No other people, except the Jews, would be expected to embrace such a future.
Contrary to Federman’s suggestion, Sabeel is not a peacemaking organization, but a group that offers a false moral narrative of Arab innocence and Israeli malevolence to churches in the U.S. Sabeel’s big lie is that Israel can single-handedly end the violence against it through concessions and peace offers to those vowing the destruction of the Jewish state. History has proven such narratives false.
Federman may find it tolerable to see Christian scriptures used as a weapon against the Jewish State and its people. He may find it tolerable to see Christian institutions used to broadcast a false moral narrative about the Arab-Israeli conflict. As a Christian, I object.
Dexter Van Zile
Christian Media Analyst
CAMERA