Cleric Says Protestant Churches, Clerics Have Anti-israel Bias

A Protestant clergyman accused Protestant churches and clergymen in the U.S. of taking a “one-sided” position in the Arab-Israeli conflict, prejudicial to Israel. The Rev. Dr. Carl Hermann Vass, Ecumenical Scholar in Residence of the National Conference of Christians and Jews (NCCJ), made that charge in a statement he presented today at a panel discussion on the Middle East conducted by the National Council of Churches of Christ (NCC).

“As an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, I have been disappointed and dismayed by the bias manifested in Protestant churches and among the clergy” and “in my own denomination particularly, and of late I have been taken aback by the one-sidedness and partisanship so clearly reflected in releases by the Office of News and Information of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.,” Voss said.

He referred specifically to a press kit supplied by the NCC in connection with its Middle East “hearing” summarizing the situation in that region. “I cannot help but deplore the prejudice and misinformation, the lack of objectivity, and the absence of comprehensiveness of the total picture as represented by this inadequate, often misleading informational packet,” Voss declared.

The NCC hearing, which began in New York Feb. 6 and resumed in Washington today, is a prelude to a three-week fact-finding tour of the Middle East. A number of major national Jewish organizations declined invitations to participate in the panel discussions on grounds that they were biased against Israel.

A letter on behalf of the organizations, addressed to Rev. Tracey Jones, chairperson of the NCC’s Middle East panel, charged that “The ‘Issues for Consideration’ attempt to place Israel on trial, and we judge them to be prejudicial and tendentious. The thrust of your formulation can be judged by the omission of any mention of the single most positive development in the history of the Middle East conflict: the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and the Camp David accords.”

BASIS FOR SUPPORTING ISRAEL

Much of Voss’ statement was taken up by the texts of a press release and letters to the editor of The New York Times written by NCCJ president Dr. David Hyatt, a Raman Catholic layman, between 1976-1978. Among the points stressed by Hyatt was that Israel is a bulwark against Soviet expansion in the Middle East and that a Palestinian state governed by the Palestine Liberation Organization would place a “Soviet-armed satellite next door to Israel — not unlike Castro’s Cuba.”

Voss said that Hyatt’s views “are as telling and compelling in 1980 as when he wrote them two years ago.” He urged the NCC to “remember that the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, following the pattern of the Camp David agreement, now serves as a solid basis to achieve at least a tolerable peace for the entire area.”

He added: “Remember that Israel has proven she is not ‘intransigent,’ as witnessed by her willingness to relinquish the oil fields, the entire Sinai peninsula, and giving up flourishing, firmly established new settlements carved out of the desert. Remember that the Palestine Liberation Organization, with which negotiations cannot be carried on, is still bent upon the total destruction of Israel, still subscribes to a policy of terrorism parallel to that now being experienced by the United States in Iran….”