Survey Shows More Christian Leaders Oppose Internationalizing Jerusalem

The results of a survey of Christian public opinion disclosed here today showed that a growing number of Christian leaders say they are opposed to proposals to internationalize Jerusalem and want the city to remain under Israeli jurisdiction. The survey was made public by Philip E. Hoffman, president of the American Jewish Committee, at the annual meeting of its policy-making National Executive Council. He said it was based on public statements, speeches, news articles and editorials in recent weeks by Roman Catholic, mainstream Protestant and Evangelical leaders and organizations in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Israel.

Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum, the national director of the AJ Committee’s Interreligious Affairs Department who conducted the survey, said. “The study and wide dissemination of these statements will contribute to a balance and perspective in the mounting discussions over the status of Jerusalem, resulting in avoidance of invective and in the searching out of solutions that will reconcile Muslims. Christians and Jews one to another.” Tanenbaum said he was “convinced that the views expressed in this study, which support the current status of a reunified Jerusalem under Israeli Jurisdiction, represent in fact the feelings of thousands upon thousands of Christian people in this country and abroad whose voices thus far have been far from adequately heard.”

A new AJ Committee publication, Currents, had its debut here today. The quarterly is edited by Milton Ellerin, director of the AJ Committee’s trends analysis division. In the first issue, Ellerin warns that Nixon administration policies that offend conservatives, such as his moves toward a rapprochement with China, could provide an opportunity for anti-Semitic hate mongers to re-enter the political mainstream in the US from which they have been effectively excluded in recent years. Ellerin’s article cited recent far-right wing and anti-Semitic publications which accuse “Kissinger, the Zionist Jew” of being the author of Nixon’s China policy which they consider repugnant. Dr. Henry J. Kissinger is President Nixon’s advisor on national security affairs.