In his recent book, retired professor David M. Crump argues explicitly that political Zionism is the modern-day equivalent of Nazism. “American Evangelism,” Crump writes, “is helping to finance political Zionism’s flagrant imitation of Nazi Germany.”
The World Council of Churches called on the Palestinian Authority to rein in violence against Christians in the West Bank. In doing so, it cited a well-known Zionist website, IsraellyCool, as one of its sources of information. This is frankly astounding.
When Independent Catholic News published, nearly verbatim, a press statement from Churches for Middle East Peace about a brutal attack at a farm in the West Bank, it omitted a crucial sentence that revealed the attack was likely perpetrated by Arabs living nearby. In light of the omission and other articles published by ICN about the farm where the attack took place, readers might conclude the attack was perpetrated by Jews living nearby.
In a video published in June, 2021, J. Herbert Nelson, II, the highest ranking elected official in the Presbyterian Church USA declared that his fellow Christians need to start looking at Jewish individuals in the United States who are supporting "evil" Israeli policies, which he characterized as “20th century slavery” and “some of the worst atrocities the world has ever seen.”
Addressing the horror of attacks like those perpetrated in London on August 18 — and their roots in the Islamic tradition — is not an act of bigotry. Quite the opposite.
On Monday, Aug. 30, 2021, Rick Wiles declared that Israel was responsible for the death of Christians at the hands of ISIS in Afghanistan and were trying to start a world war. Rhetoric like this has mobilized violence against Jews for more than 2,000 years, culminating in a mass killing of Jews in Europe during the Holocaust.
With its mendacious and one-sided activism, the United Church of Christ has been a negative force for peace in the Middle East and on Jewish life in the United States. With is ongoing polemics against Israel, the UCC has brought wood to the fire of antisemitism.
Maya Zinshtein and Abraham (Abie) haven’t said a word publicly about the well-documented problems with their film. They haven’t admitted to the allegations. They haven’t denied them. They haven’t even tried the old defense that the quotes were fake, but accurate. They’ve said nothing. Not one word. And the people in the documentary filmmaking community have let them get away with it. No one in this community has called them to task — at least not publicly.
Filmmakers Maya Zinshtein and Abraham (Abie) Troen did the the same thing to David Brog that they did to former U.S. President Donald Trump. They altered what he said in a manner that fundamentally changes the meaning of what he said at a 2018 meeting of Christians United for Israel.
It’s appropriate that after a long period of isolation, suffering, and polarization coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic, CAMERA can offer some qualified good news about Christian Century, historically referred to as the flagship magazine of mainline Protestantism in the United States. The magazine has finally come to grips with the legacy of its second-longest-running editor, James M. Wall.
