With some glee it notes the Methodist stance, demonstrating the ease with which this clumsy report will be used against Israel:
The 54-page report to the conference, which decides Methodist policies, identifies that Israel’s “occupation of Palestinian territory” is the "key hindrance to security and a lasting peace for all in the region.”
When the Iranian government talks of the "occupation of Palestinian territory" they always make it very clear that they mean the entire area of the soverign State of Israel.
However Iran shares with Israel and the area of the Palestinian Authority the dubious distinction of not having one Methodist Church on its soil.
Any volunteers to open a Methodist Church in Tehran?
Why don't we ask the finger waggers on working party that drew up that report to go? They could start by trying to persuade the Iranian government to stop hanging homosexuals .
Once they are flushed with success by that achievement they could approach the Iranian government and ask them to stop funding Hezbollah attacks on Israeli civilians.
I wonder how long this putative Methodist Church would last?
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I attended the Methodist Conference as a local Jewish observer. Though acknowledged as such from the podium, I was not allowed to speak. Your neighbour Rev.Nichola Jones from Erdington Methodist Church made a chilling speech. Here is an extract, transcribed word for word from the conference video http://tinyurl.com/32m45hn
"In the Bible we learn of the Chosen People. Who are they and what were they chosen for? Genesis tells us again & again that God chooses Abraham and makes a covenant with Abraham & his heirs: a covenant being a two-sided agreement with obligations on both parties, like marriage......Of course, Israel today is not the same as Israel in the Bible: in the Bible, Israel refers to the people of Abraham's descendants, who are in covenant with God. Israel today is a modern, secular state, created in 1948.......For years I cherished the Galatian text...now I read it properly: 'In Christ there is no longer male or female, slave or free, Jew or Greek (we could say Jew or Arab): we are all one in Christ.' We are heirs of Abraham, and so inheritors of the promise of Abraham. Jesus, who makes with us a new covenant which transforms us utterly, never speaks of the land or owning it: he speaks of the Kingdom & joining it and invites us to do so. He teaches us God is not a racist God with favourites, but God loves all his children & blesses them. What is it God requires of you, asks Micah today: to do justice, to show mercy, to walk humbly with God....."
Listening to this and others (there were also approving references to Messianic Judaism and disparaging references to Christian Zionism), I felt like the accused in a Nazi show trial. This is pure supersessionist ideology, identical with that espoused by the revanchist Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson.
If this is now to be the official policy of the Methodist church in Britain - that the State of Israel by its 'oppressive actions' has broken the Jews' covenant with God - then I see no purpose in further dialogue between Anglo-Jewry and Methodism.
Thanks Richard, I have re-blogged your comments as a main posting. You may well like to send a similar letter to the Methodist Recorder, though I suspect its chances of publication are slim. Copy me in and I will publish here if nothing appears.
I met with a Jewish friend yesterday. We joke that he is the country's only Methodist Jew. He is really upset at what has happened. I am really sorry. I know many Methodists are heart broken.
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