 |
Dexter Van Zile is the Director of Christian Outreach for the David Project Center for Jewish Leadership & Advocacy. He is also a member of the United Church of Christ.
|
|
|
|
By Dexter Van Zile
November 17, 2005
A few weeks ago, I applied for admittance to a conference in Toronto sponsored by Friends of Sabeel North America, a group that portrays itself as an organization working to achieve a lasting and just peace in the Middle East. The goal of the conference was to encourage activists in Christian churches throughout the world to embark on a campaign of "morally responsible investment" in the Holy Land. In other words, the conference was part of an ongoing anti-Israel divestment campaign intended to isolate Israel and portray it as an apartheid state.
As part of the application, I had to express a commitment to ending the occupation and telling my fellow churchgoers about Sabeel's campaign of "morally responsible investment." Initially, I had qualms about subscribing to such views, but decided that indeed, like Israeli mothers and fathers, I would like nothing better than to see Israeli soldiers leave the disputed territories and return to the their families after a negotiated settlement, which brings with it, an end to Palestinian terror.
And given that due diligence is an important part of any investment program, I figured that churches in the U.S. needed to know more about Sabeel's product line, which includes support for a one-state solution (a code word for the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state) and tolerance for the use of deicide imagery in reference to Israel ? something that would set off alarm bells for everyone but the most obtuse. Churchgoers would also want to know that Sabeel's founder, Anglican priest Naim Ateek, asserts that there was no terrorism against Israelis before the occupation, as if the Egged Bus attack in 1954, which cost 11 Israelis their lives, along with hundreds of others attack like it before and after Israel's creation is something to be ignored.
While filling out the application, I dutifully provided the links to demonstrate my involvement in the issue of ?morally responsible investment? which included my writings at www.judeo-christianalliance.org. It took a while, but I received an email thanking me for my application and for providing the information I did in such an honest manner. But alas, I was told by a conference organizer that I was not welcome at the Sabeel event in Toronto.
I was however, able to obtain a list of registrants who were granted permission to attend, after of course, going through the same vetting process I submitted to. For the most part they were the predictable cast of characters -- prominent anti-Israel activists who have legitimate concern for the Palestinian people but who have yet to figure out a way to express this concern without demonizing the state of Israel.
But one name on this list caught my eye ? that of Joachim Martillo, author of some of the most frightening, hate-filled screeds about Israel and Jews that I've seen on the Internet. In one posting on an internet newsgroup, Martillo wrote: ?Racist ethnic Ashkenazi American traitors and their non-Ashkenazi panderers should be denaturalized, stripped of their property to cover the damages their criminal manipulation of the US political system has cause [sic] the USA, and they should be sent to prison camps like Guantanamo where they can be interrogated to determine the extent of their treason to America.?
Another one of Martillo's postings stated the ?only unfortunate aspect of a suicide attack on murderous racist genocidal Zionist colonizers is the death of the heroic Palestinian partisan.? Given the indiscriminate nature of suicide bombing, the conclusion is inescapable: The murder of Israeli children is acceptable to Martillo.
Martillo has uttered a similar statement in the presence of a reporter. For example, the Harvard Crimson has quoted Martillo as saying ?suicide attacks against Israel are completely justifiable.?
The irony was this: While I was denied entry to the Sabeel Conference in Toronto because I was not politically reliable enough to attend, Martillo, who has exhibited an atrocious indifference to the motive and impact of Palestinian terror on Israeli civilians was welcomed with open arms.
After the event, I called the conference organizer who rejected my application ? and informed him about Martillo's screeds. The good reverend dutifully condemned the passages I read to him, but then pleaded ignorance about the author, stating that Sabeel has no control over the people who come into its events. In other words Sabeel, which through its application process was able to assure itself that everyone who attended its conference expressed support for "morally responsible investment" could not be bothered to assure itself that attendees have the least bit of concern for the lives of innocent Israelis.
Go figure.
One last bit of irony. The conference organizer I spoke with on the phone knew who I was as soon as I said my name. ?Your reputation precedes you,? he said.
So does Martillo's.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
