Contact:
Sr.Ruth Lautt, O.P., Esq.
(516) 870-0335 Ext. 3

(Jericho, New York)August 24, 2006 -- Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East once again strongly condemns the lack of editorial judgment exercised by America Magazine, this time for publishing Fr. Donald Moore S.J.’s  version of recent events in Gaza (August 14-21 2006 edition).  “Fr. Moore’s article is filled with inaccuracies, distortions, and material omissions,” according to Sr. Ruth Lautt, National Director of Fair Witness.

“He brushes aside Palestinian aggression and terror tactics with a single  reference to the ‘senseless firing of Qassam rockets,’ and then devotes three full pages to a condemnation of Israel’s defensive tactics, manipulating facts and language to make Israel look like the unprovoked aggressor,” said Sr. Lautt.

Fr. Moore’s article fails to point out that Israel made repeated attempts to return Gaza in exchange for peace -- as early as the summer of 1967 and as recently as 2000 -- but was repeatedly rebuffed by the Palestinians and the Arab nations.  In fact, every offer by the Israelis to give  land for peace has been responded to with a volley of terrorist and rocket attacks.

U.C.C. Minister Rev. Suzanne Wagner points out  “In the fall of 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza completely, giving that territory over to the Palestinians without any reciprocal concessions.  Instead of seizing the opportunity for what could have been the start of a Palestinian homeland, Hamas turned Gaza into a base for the firing of over 800 Qassam rockets into Sderot and other Israeli towns, terrorizing its civilian population. Unfortunately this seems to make it quite clear that a homeland is not the real Palestinian agenda.”

Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit was captured by  a Hamas squad which crossed the border from Gaza into Israel, attacked an armored unit,  killed two soldiers and took  another -- Shalit – prisoner.  In response, Israel’s Defense Forces entered the Gaza Strip as part of Operation Summer Rains on June 28.  In addition to freeing the captured soldier, the operation had the broader goal of ending the continuous Qassam rocket attacks.

“Equating the capture of Corporal Shalit with Israel’s arrest of suspected Hamas terrorists is ludicrous,” says Rev. Dr. Roy Howard, Presbyterian Minister and Fair Witness Executive Committee member.   “Israel  arrests Hamas members on real criminal charges which constitute violations of Israel’s Ordinance for the Prevention of Terrorism, and for which there is due process -- criminal trials, with lawyers and judges.  Gilad Shalit, on the other hand, was not arrested, but captured and held prisoner without cause.  An Israeli soldier sitting in his tank on Israeli soil is not committing a crime.”

Fr. Moore makes no mention of any of this in his article however, preferring to make inflammatory and outrageous accusations like “collective torture” to create the inference that Israel’s  invasion of Gaza on June 28 was an unjustified act of aggression.

Fr. James Loughran, S.A. says, “As Hamas continues to press attacks on Israel and Israel defends itself against attack, both Israeli and Palestinian civilians suffer daily, albeit in very different ways.  Hope does not lie in maximizing one side’s suffering, as Fr. Moore does; it must be found in addressing the fears and grievances that underlie the violence, so that all the suffering can be ended.”

Fr. James Loughran added, “Just last week I visited a moshav on the Israeli border with Gaza whose residents talked of the terror they had experienced when for almost one year following the disengagement they were hit with daily Qassam rocket attacks.  Their terror does not ease Palestinian suffering and neither brings peace any closer.”

According to the Rev. Dr. Peter Pettit at the Institute for Jewish-Christian Understanding of Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA,  “In a world where anti-Semitism is on the rise it is deeply disturbing that America Magazine has published an article designed not to inform but  to inflame Christian passions against the Jewish state by portraying it as a malevolent force instead of a country seeking peaceful coexistence in a neighborhood that never welcomed its arrival.”