Sabeel’s Use of Anti-Semitic Themes

Rev. Naim Ateek and others affiliated with the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center represent themselves as Palestinian Christians seeking a just and a peaceful solution to the conflict in the Middle East. But their repeated use of classical anti-Semitic language, themes and imagery when depicting Israel and Israelis belies this claim and is revelatory of a much darker agenda -- the isolation and demonization of an historically oppressed people -- the Jewish people.

Deicide Imagery

• Most shocking is that Rev. Naim Ateek and others affiliated with Sabeel have a history of using the language of Deicide -- the theology which condemned the Jewish people as Christ killers -- when they talk about Israel.

• For example, in Naim Ateek’s Easter Message in 2001, he wrote that “[i]n this season of Lent, it seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians around him . . . the Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily.”

• In a sermon delivered in the Notre Dame Chapel in Jerusalem on February 24, 2001 Rev. Ateek said that “Israel has placed a large boulder, a big stone that has metaphorically shut off the Palestinians in a tomb. It is similar to the stone placed on the entrance of Jesus’ tomb.”

• In the Winter 2004 edition of Cornerstone, Sabeel’s Quarterly publication, a poem about Israel’s security barrier ends “Walled God here before our eyes, Dead and buried, crucified . . .Yet! God of Bethlehem! so small, Born in a cave, in an opened wall!”

• Historically, imagery of this kind has fostered anti-Jewish persecution and violence at Christian hands. Its use against the Jewish State is inexcusable.

Use of Scripture to Create Supersessionist Themes

• Sabeel also takes scripture passages out of context to create Supersessionist themes.

• In the Spring 2006 edition of Cornerstone, an article discussing the joy of living in the land of Christ’s birth where one can walk in the footsteps of the Lord describes the particular joy of “living in Taybeh . . . knowing that before his crucifixion Christ came into this area.” The article then cites a quotation from the Gospel of John:

Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim . . . ((John 11:54)

• The reference is as clear as it is morally and theologically offensive. God has abandoned the Jews and chosen Christians as their replacement.

Uses of Scripture to Create Anti-Semitic Themes

• Sabeel also uses scripture in the service of other traditional anti-Semitic themes such as the notion of the “Jewish God” being a God of violence and Jews themselves being violent and unloving.

• In Sabeel’s Alternative Assembly Sermon, on February 22, 2001 in Jerusalem, Rev. Naim Ateek contrasted Jesus Christ “[who] is not a God of violence and war, but a God of peace and reconciliation” with the God of the Hebrew Scriptures whom he portrayed as a violent God:

“[violence in scripture] has been researched by many scholars. There are 600 passages in the Old Testament with very explicit acts of violence. ‘One thousand verses where God's own violent actions of punishment are described; a hundred passages where Yahweh expressly commands others to kill people; and several stories where God irrationally kills or tries to kill for no apparent reason (for example, Exodus 4:24-26). ‘Violence,’ one scholar concludes, ‘is easily the most often mentioned activity in the Hebrew Bible.’”

• Rev. Ateek refers to the Christian notions of “love and concern for the well being of the neighbors even if they are our enemies” and contrasts this with his version of the corresponding Jewish notions which he claims require love only for one’s fellow Jew by saying “Our litmus test that we must use in such cases is based on what it means to love our neighbor. The Hebrew Scriptures, our Old Testament, mentions the dictum, ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ Unfortunately, in Classical Judaism it has been narrowly defined as being limited to loving one’s own fellow Jew.”

Supersessionism or Replacement Theology, And Other Anti-Semitic Themes, Helped Sow the Seeds of Anti-Semitism For Centuries and Have Long Been Abandoned by Modern Christian Scripture Scholars

Why Are They Being Revisited By Sabeel

in an Attempt to Cast the Jewish State in a Negative Light?