Fifteen leading church groups in the United States have urged President Bush to deny Israel’s request for loan guarantees until it halts settlement-building in disputed territories.
In a statement delivered to the White House last week, the groups urged the administration to “oppose housing loan guarantees to Israel until it halts construction and expansion of settlements in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.”
The U.S. guarantees would allow Israel to borrow $10 billion from commercial banks on favorable terms. The money would be used to help resettle immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
“The continuation of settlements poses an enormous obstacle to this fragile peace process,” the four-paragraph church statement maintained.
“We seek peace and security for Israel as we seek justice and self-determination for Palestinians. Neither cause will be served by making loan guarantees while settlements continue to be built and expanded on land occupied since 1967,” the statement said.
The signers include the professional leadership of the American Baptist Church, American Friends Service Committee, Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church, Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, National Council of Churches, Presbyterian Church, Roman Catholic Conference of Major Superiors of Men, Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ.
The National Council of Churches is the umbrella group representing 31 mainline, generally liberal, Protestant denominations, which claim some 40 million members.
All of its constituent churches, with the exception of the United Methodist Church, signed onto the statement individually, as well as through the National Council.
JEWISH GROUPS DISTRESSED
Representatives of the Jewish community were distressed by the statement.
“I regret that it was issued without consultation with the Synagogue Council of America, despite our longstanding relationship with the National Council of Churches,” said Rabbi Joseph Ehrenkranz, chairman of the Synagogue Council’s Israel Affairs Committee.
The council represents mainstream Orthodoxy, Conservative and Reform Judaism in inter-religious affairs.
“This is hardly the time for a one-sided declaration,” Ehrenkranz said. “I hope that the individuals involved who signed the statement would accept our invitation to sit down, explore the issues, not the least of which is the humanitarian needs, which were not mentioned in the statement at all.”
The Union of American Hebrew Congregations said it is “deeply troubling” that the church groups’ statement linked the separate humanitarian and political issues.
“No less saddening is the manner in which this open letter came to the fore, without any consultation with us or others in the Jewish community,” said the Reform congregational body, in a statement issued by Rabbis Alexander Schindler and Gary Bretton-Granatoor, respectively its president and director of interreligious affairs.
“We regret that the traditional consultative process has been utterly disregarded in this instance, and we pray that the church action does not presage a rejection of the spirit of dialogues and consultation by the National Council of Churches and the groups which joined in this statement.”
Rabbi A. James Rudin, director of inter-religious affairs at the American Jewish Committee, said that the professional church leaders who signed the statement do not necessarily reflect the sentiment of their church members.
“On the local and regional level of these churches, there is strong understanding of Israel’s needs,” he said.
SOME CHRISTIAN GROUPS SUPPORTIVE
He pointed out that other Christian groups are supporting Israel’s request for the guarantees.
The National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel, an ecumenical group of Catholics, Evangelicals and mainline Protestants, is calling on the administration to approve the loan guarantees without regard to disputes over settlements in the territories.
Sister Rose Thering, a Catholic nun who is executive director of the group, has been quote in the Catholic press as saying that the group has no official policy on the settlements but opposes tying the dispute about them to the guarantees.
The executive committee of the Leadership Conference issued a statement supporting the loan guarantees during its visit to Israel in January.
The Catholic establishment, in the form of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, has not taken a position on the loan guarantees.
But a group of 18 Evangelical Christian leaders, including Jerry Falwell and Pat Boone placed an advertisement in the Washington Times late last month urging the president to approve the loan guarantees.
The first sentence of the ad states that the signers represent 70 million Christians. And it makes no bones about the fact that they include millions of voters who voted for Bush in 1988.
“Israel, as our free democratic friend and ally, has earned our support,” the ad continues. “This humanitarian, virtually cost-free effort will save lives and must not be linked to political issues.”
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