News Release

Israel, Religious Bigotry and Liberation

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Newsweek reports: “Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner Blessed by Rabbi Who Compared Black People with Monkeys” and “Who Is Robert Jeffress? ‘Bigot’ Pastor From Texas Due to Speak at U.S. Jerusalem Embassy Move.”

Rev. NAIM ATEEK, TAREK ABUATA, tarek at fosna.org, also via Ashleigh Zimmerman, ashleigh at fosna.org, @fosnalive
Currently touring North America, Ateek and Abuata will be in Washington, D.C. beginning Tuesday afternoon. Ateek is a Palestinian priest in the Anglican Communion and founder of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem. He is author of A Theology of Palestinian Liberation. Abuata is executive director of Friends of Sabeel North America, a “Christian ecumenical organization seeking justice and peace in the Holy Land.”

They said today: “As we travel the country on our tour, we are taking a moment to honor the leadership of Palestinian youth, who are holding marches in cities around the globe, demanding to return home. On this day 70 years ago, Israel began its ethnic cleansing campaign against more than 400 Palestinian villages, displacing over 700,000 people. As the names of those murdered in Gaza yesterday by Israeli snipers continue to grow we, as Palestinian Christians, remember: ‘Thou shalt not kill’ (Exodus 20:13). Zionist forces engaged in at least two dozen massacres of Palestinian civilians during the Nakba. ‘Thou shalt not steal’ (Exodus 20:15). More than 400 Palestinian villages and towns were systematically destroyed, displacing more than 700,000 people.”

Among their projects is “HP-Free Church“: “Hewlett Packard Enterprise provides servers to the state of Israel for its population registry. IDs that are issued based on this registry determine what level of rights Israeli citizens have.” One of their events in D.C. will be at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ with Rev. Graylan Hagler on liberation theology on Thursday at 6:00 p.m.

ABBA SOLOMON, abbasolomon at gmail.com, @Abba_A_Solomon
Solomon is author of The Speech, and Its Context: Jacob Blaustein’s Speech “The Meaning of Palestine Partition to American Jews.” His articles include “The Occupation of the American Mind, Documented.”

Noting Robert Jeffress appearing on Fox News Channel, Solomon said today: “Trump and Fox News are aligning the U.S. government with Evangelical Christian Zionism and Israeli state ethno-nationalist claims in a way unprecedented in our foreign policy, which may lead to unpredictable results both for Palestinians and for American Jews. In previous administrations, the State Department made at least token acknowledgement of the rights of non-Jewish residents of Palestine, to be determined in a future agreement.”