The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith has asked the National Council of Churches (NCC) to delay adoption of its Middle East policy statement because it supports and encourages Palestinian terrorists and undermines the Camp David peace process.
The request, which urged “further discussions and study,” was made in a hand delivered letter (dated Nov. 4) to NCC president Rev. M. William Howard Jr., in advance of the NCC’s two-day Governing Board meeting, beginning today in New York. The first item on the agenda is consideration of the Middle East policy statement, which has been under discussion for almost a year.
Rabbi Ronald Sobel, chairman of ADL’s national program committee and one of six signatories to the letter, pointed out that ADL had refused to participate in NCC “hearings” on a Middle East statement last February because of the organization’s “clear and consistent pro-Arab and pro-PLO stance.” The letter to Howard noted that the ADL had several times since then expressed concern to the NCC over the direction of its Middle East deliberations.
The letter added that specific points in the revised statement scheduled for the NCC meeting “continue to profoundly disturb us … but more troublesome is the general misunderstanding of the way to help encourage the peace process.”
The ADL told the NCC, which represents 32 Protestant and orthodox churches, that the draft document bolsters the PLO by calling it “the only organized voice of the Palestinian people … able to negotiate a settlement on their behalf.”
According to the ADL, despite its formal call for PLO recognition of Israel, the NCC document “sends out a message to the PLO that it is making progress in acceptance in the United States without having first to change its policies of terror and negation of Israel. It does so by calling for Palestinian self-determination, “including a sovereign state,” without first considering the impact that this will have on stability in the region.”
The NCC document’s comments on Camp David, ADL told Howard, “lend support to those who reject the process,” adding: “Instead of calling on the Palestinians, Jordan and other Arabs to enter the process as the only road to peace, it talks of Camp David’s failure to bring in the Palestinians and the need to change (UN) Resolution 242, the basis for Camp David.”
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