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Thursday, February 12, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 12, 2009
Contact: Christians For Fair Witness on the Middle East
(212) 870-2320
Fair Witness Finds Methodist Comments About Israel and the Holocaust Disturbing
Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East is deeply disturbed by recent comments made by Jim Winkler (General Secretary, General Board of Church & Society of the United Methodist Church) at a reception for a photography exhibit on Palestinian suffering. Rev. Winkler began his comments with a seeming attempt to create an analogy between the Palestinian "Nakba" in 1948 and the Jewish Holocaust in Nazi Germany by stating that just as some deny the Nakba, others deny the reality of the Holocaust.
1948 was indeed a tragic year when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians became displaced in the wake of the war between Israel and the surrounding Arab nations. Palestinian displacement was in some cases voluntary and in other cases involuntary to be sure. But it all took place in the context of a war that was not inevitable. A two-state solution could have been achieved had the Arab nations accepted the United Nations partition plan and the existence of a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian state.
"Rev. Winkler neglects to speak of the analogous Jewish displacement as a result of the 1948 war," says Rev. Dr. Roy Howard, pastor of Saint Mark Presbyterian Church (USA) in Rockville, Maryland. "Hundreds of thousands of Jews fled or were forced out of both the Arab nations and what became the Palestinian Territories. There are no Jewish refugees today because they were absorbed, mostly by Israel. That the surrounding Arab nations refused to absorb the Palestinian refugees is not Israel's fault."
"I am troubled that Rev. Winkler exploits the Holocaust by trying to create a false analogy between what happened to Palestinians in 1948 and what happened to Jews in Nazi Germany, especially in the context of a speech in which he blames Israel and only Israel for all current and past Palestinian suffering," says Rev. Dr. Archer Summers, Senior Minister, First United Methodist Church, Palo Alto, California.
"It is disturbingly reminiscent of how certain other Methodist groups employed Holocaust themes last spring in their (failed) campaign for United Methodist divestment from Israel," says Rev. David L. Harvin, pastor of Hay Street United Methodist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina. "As a United Methodist pastor, I am embarrassed by this to say the least."
