At the end of June, during the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s biennial General Assembly this summer, church leaders will consider a report that calls for divestment from three companies for their sales to Israel. Please join us in calling on Presbyterians to return to their commitment to positive outcomes and abandon the path to divestment, a path that will not foster reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians and that will only poison the well for positive interfaith relations between the Jewish and Presbyterian communities.
In the coming days, we will send the letter below to Presbyterian leaders and urge the PCUSA to join us in offering our hands as partners in peacemaking, including positive programs that will help foster a two-state solution, providing each people–-the Palestinian people and the Jewish people–a viable nation and the opportunity to live prosperously, independently, securely, and peacefully, side-by-side.
Please click here to add your signature to this Letter of Hope. Over 16,000 people have signed so far!
Dear Friends,
We, the undersigned tens of thousands of American Jews and supporters of peace in the Middle East, join 1300 rabbis from throughout our country to reach out in hope to our Presbyterian friends and neighbors. We have close relationships, deeply treasured and shaped over many years. We are partners on many social issues including fostering peace between Israelis and Palestinians. We ask you to stand shoulder to shoulder with us in rejecting the counterproductive proposal to selectively divest from certain companies whose products are used by Israel. We feel honored in our hope by the Methodist General Assembly which, after much forethought and debate, decided to oppose such divestment by a 2-1 margin.
These are our feelings. Any place in which a single human being suffers, we all suffer. We know that your concern for the Palestinian people, some of whom are your Christian sisters and brothers, comes from a deep commitment to the alleviation of human pain. There is suffering enough in the land of our common inheritance on both sides of the conflict. A just solution demands peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians. We share goals of a just and lasting peace, an end to affliction, a two-state solution, and the protection of the dignity and security of all in the Holy Land. We must marshal our efforts together to bring about this peace.
We understand and respect your calling to invest in a morally responsible manner. A policy of divestment to pressure Israel, however, runs counter to these goals. Such a one-sided approach damages the relationship between Jews and Christians that has been nurtured for decades. It promotes a lopsided assessment of the causes of and solutions to the conflict, disregarding the complex history and geopolitics. Furthermore, it shamefully paints Israel as a pariah nation, solely responsible for frustrating peace.
For Jews, the use of economic leverages against the Jewish state is fraught with inescapable associations. They resonate in the Jewish consciousness with historic boycotts against Jewish companies and the State of Israel. They are experienced by Jews as part of a pattern of singling out Jews for attack. To determine and continue policies that knowingly tap into the deepest fears and pain of another is, in our tradition, a serious failure of relationship.
Divestment, and the specious Apartheid terminology that frequently accompanies it, polarizes people and communities so that the policy of divestment, and not peace, becomes the central issue. Divestment will undermine the ability of many Israelis to imagine peace. Decades of terrorism and rejection have left Israelis feeling threatened and isolated. Many of the major proponents of divestment do not support Israel’s right to exist – thus deepening this fear. Divestment as a policy is more likely to encourage those with more extreme aims than to foster reconciliation. Simply put, the bitter debate over divestment drowns out the real conversation about how to end the conflict.
At a time when politics in general have become so divisive, here and abroad, our efforts should be aimed toward reconciliation. Together and independently, Christians, Jews, and Muslims must give the parties to the conflict the confidence they need to move toward peace. There are many meaningful coexistence programs that are necessary to foster a generation of Israelis and Palestinians that will work and live side-by-side – moving past the teaching of hate and the resort to violence. As leaders of the Jewish and Protestant communities we need to deepen our understandings of the multiple narratives in the region.
We recognize the urgency of these efforts and the frustration on all sides with achieving our lofty goals. Our collective voices can play an instrumental role, working with the American government and others, to help Israeli, Palestinian, and other Middle Eastern leaders to prevent violence and attacks on civilians, support Palestinian state-building and economic development, promote positive investment opportunities, provide humanitarian aid through appropriate channels, protect existing agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and, most importantly, encourage a resumption of negotiations among the parties toward a two-state agreement that will help bring about peace, which is at the core of our traditions. We recommit to such efforts, independent of any other matter.
Yet quite honestly, were American Christian denominations to indict only Jews and Israel for the conflict with the Palestinians, they would justify the violence perpetrated against Israeli civilians – including children – as the unfortunate result of Israel’s unilateral guilt. In other words, Israeli victims would be responsible for their own suffering. Frankly, such a representation is anything but an expression of friendship and common purpose, and it would replace the closeness and comfort the Jewish community feels in existing relationships with distance, distrust, and disappointment.
The Scriptures that bind us reveal that G-d created all of us in the divine image – human dignity and equality is a core value of Jewish and Christian traditions. Further, our traditions call upon us to be peacemakers. In Hebrew, the word Shalom doesn’t just mean “peace” but wholeness and completeness. Peace comes about by our labors to complete the work of creation. We must work towards the day when every human is granted the dignity, security, and beneficence that is the promise of the created universe.
Please click here to add your signature to this Letter of Hope.
IS THE CHURCH OR ISRAEL THE APPLE OF GOD’S EYE?
What does God have in store for so-called peacemakers who would divest Israel?
In all of this discussion about whether or not it is Israel that is the apple of God’s eye, and my conversation with Dr. Cone, a dramatic revelation has fallen on me, for which I must repent for this glaring omission of perhaps the most important reason why this must be Israel. I can’t believe I missed this.
It must be Israel because the return of the literal Jews to Israel is how God will unveil his glory in the Last Days, but to also prove with the literal fulfillment of Prophecy is Sovereignty over his people and take vengeance for his land. This is the elephant in the room that must demolish the stronghold of Replacement Theology, revisionist biblical history, and all of its masquerades and counterfeit deceptive disguises.
Ezekiel puts it best when he pens why God is going to this is guarantees it:
“Prophesy therefore concerning the land of Israel, and say unto the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I have spoken in my jealousy and in my fury, because ye have borne the shame of the heathen:”
Ezek 36:6
“…These [are] the people of the LORD, and are gone forth out of his land. But I had pity for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the heathen, whither they went. ”
Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I do not [this] for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name’s sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went.”
Ezek 36:20-22
“THEN THE NATIONS WILL KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD, DECLARES THE SOVEREIGN LORD!” Ezek 36:23
“And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, WHEN my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.” Ezek 37:28
BOL main theme is the sovereignty of God. So here is a perfect opportunity to declare it!
And here is more of WHY God is going to do this in the future End Times
” And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.
” Ezek 38:16
“And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, [that] my fury shall come up in my face. For in my jealousy [and] in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel;” ezek 38:18-19
Vengeance is mine saith the Lord. Jesus Christ response to poking (striking) a stick in the apple of his eye (Jerusalem…i.e. Zion) will be an act of vengeance against the surrounding nations for plundering his land…not for plundering the church…the church is NOT Zion. If the Church is now Zion, then we could call are Christians Zionists as a synonym. But they are not synonyms. But God will judge those who would dare remove or redefine who he can take vengeance upon. For the most part God has yet to take this vengeance out on and strike those who poked a stick in his eye…it remains unfulfilled or consummated. When it is we will all know it and it will be a sovereign act of a Sovereign God. He is the kinsmen avenger and will be glorified in it. Christ will not sit on the Throne of David until he has avenged the apple of his eye.
“So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not [let them] pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I [am] the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.” EZEK 29:7
It is impossible for the Lord to do this to the Church, so therefore would make it impossible for the “nations to know”.
Finally,
Eze 47:13 ¶ Thus saith the Lord GOD; This [shall be] the border, whereby ye shall inherit the land according to the twelve tribes of Israel: Joseph [shall have two] portions.
Eze 47:14 And ye shall inherit it, one as well as another: [concerning] the which I lifted up mine hand to give it unto your fathers: and this land shall fall unto you for inheritance.
Rev 22:20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
Blessings,
James Sundquist
http://www.perfectpeaceplan.com