Justice in Palestine

Early next month the Methodist Council will receive an update on the work of the Methodist Church in its opposition to the State of Israel following the report to the 2010 Methodist Conference entitled Justice for Palestine and Israel.  This update will eventually go to the 2011 Methodist Conference.

It would be sensible for a member of the council to seek to amend the report to reflect the worsening human rights position in Palestine. Amnesty International reported this week:

Five Palestinian men were executed by the Hamas de facto administration in Gaza during
2010, in the first executions to be carried out in either part of the Palestinian Authority since
2005. Two men, convicted in 2009 by military courts of “collaboration” with the Israeli
military and involvement with murder, were executed in Gaza City on 15 April 2010. Three
others, convicted of murder in separate cases prior to 2010, were executed in Gaza City on
18 May 2010. At least 11 new death sentences were imposed by military and criminal courts
in Gaza in 2010.

Should members of the Methodist Council be under any illusion that within the Palestinian Authority area all is well they should just watch this video which claims to show Hamas militia attacking a wedding party and undertaking extra judicial executions.Modern British Methodism has traditionally been opposed to the use of the death penalty.

A guest speaker at the 2010 Methodist Conference said  that "some things which Hamas does
are appreciated by Christians" (Daily Record  day two 25 June 2010, Methodist Recorder 1 July 2010). I trust that the death penalty and extra-judicial murder are not among those "things" that are "appreciated" by Naim Ateek and his Methodist "Friends of Sabeel".

Note: For all intents and purposes the State of Israel has abolished the death penalty. Only two people have been executed in the history of the 63 year old state, the last in 1962.

There's a nasty smell about this story

The Daily Mail is running a story which claims that a cafe owner  was ordered  by Stockport Council  to tear down an extractor fan because the smell of bacon offended Muslims. Yet another instance of our Muslim neighbours  attacking our British way of life?

A planning inspector has now heard an appeal and the order has been rescinded which the Mail hails as  "a victory for common sense", which it probably was, but not for the reasons headlined by the Daily Mail.

Were it not for just one comment by an objector with an English name, this issue would have hardly rated a sentence in the local newspaper. It offers a case study in how the media has an agenda to create division and hatred.

The Stockport Area Committee met on October 14. They received a committee report which made absolutely no mention of any religious or cultural dimension. They were simply doing the job of a local council in ensuring that business premises do not have a detrimental impact on their neighbours. From my experience as a councillor it was an exemplary report.

Twenty three neigbours were consulted, there was just one objection from a Mr Webb-Lee who  is not above creating offence himself. He apparently had what he believed were good reasons for objecting.

However he seems to have over-stated his case by claiming "I have a lot of Muslim friends. They refuse to visit me any more because they can't stand the smell of bacon." I do wonder how many serious Muslims would want to visit the home of a couple who display four letter words on their car.

However this simple statement allowed the story to take off in October with coverage in the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph. The story was taken up by those bloggers who are antagonistic to the Muslim community, David Icke - who should know better,   and even some claiming that Jesus will save.

Shortly after publication of the original Daily Mail story  in October the blog Tabloid Watch pointed out that the story was a lie. The only Muslim actually mentioned was a Mr Akciecek, who happened to be the husband of the cafe owner.

Why take this up in detail on a Methodist blog?

Firstly, we want to strive for good community relations. We obviously have differences with our Muslim neighbours, but that doesn't mean that we should stand by and see them defamed.

Secondly, we have a commitment to truth and the Daily Mail's presentation of this story is obviously at variance with the truth.

Thirdly, we know that were this same story to have referred to Jews or any other religious or ethnic minority we would have automatically understood it to be anti-Semitic, part of the racism that we state is a denial of the gospel in our one line standing order 013B.

Finally,  I recognize the story telling, and the myth creation and repetition that goes with racist bigotry. Sadly, our own denominational leaders are not above giving a ethnic or religious group the Daily Mail treatment.

A nasty incident on our doorstep

Those locals who remember the police crime scene cordon last year will be delighted that detective work has paid off and the perpetrator will now face a nine year jail sentence and be registered as a sex offender for life.

The incident happened in the early morning and part of me wants to scream that a 17-year-old should not have been walking home alone in the early hours. However our little corner of Smethwick is about as safe as Smethwick gets and if someone can be attacked here they can be attacked anywhere.

One of the difficulties is that we often hear shouts and screams from the woods but on investigation have found them to be young people larking around. I know, because a couple of times I've gone and investigated.

On this morning we heard nothing. We were all fast asleep and could offer no help to the police when they conducted their house to house inquiries. Our prayers must be with the victim, only now do we know the full extent of the attack, and also with the perpetrator who clearly must repent and accept his well deserved punishment.

Our congratulations must go to the unnamed police officer who had previously encountered the perpetrator and made a note of his name. It looks like a good bit of instinctive community policing. Let us hope he is not one of those officers in Sandwell facing redundancy.

CPD is actually worth a read

Over on The Kneeler blog Angela is vexed because some independent consultants have been bought in to advise the Methodist Church on organisation. Over on Connexions some commentators are having fun at the expense of the church's book of rules and standing orders called The Constitutional Practice and Discipline of the Methodist Church. Our priorities and organisation is very much a live issue.

This comes in two volumes:

Volume 1 contains the fixed texts, including Acts of Parliament and other legislation, and historic documents.

Volume 2 contains the Deed of Union, Model Trusts, and the standing orders, updated annually after amendments by Conference.

Methodists can often get into quite a state about "CPD" as it is affectionately named. Most of the annual eight day conference is devoted to revising its contents. A revised version of Volume 2 is published annually.

I have a copy of the 2010 edition. It weighs (according to the kitchen scales) 1lb 3oz or 590 grams. Coincidentally this is the same weight as my leather bound Gideons Bible.

Volume 1 consists of 49,028 words. Volume 2 consists of 274,230 words. Together 323,258 words. Volume 2 is 868 pages long.

Just as a comparison, The Bible has  593,493 in the Old Testament and 181,253 words in the New Testament. A total of  774,746.

So our Volume 2, very much the working document of the Methodist Church is one and a half times longer than the New Testament.

Among more than a quarter of a million words Volume 2 has  two references to "Holy Scripture",  three references to "Jesus Christ", four references to "Holy Spirit",  five references to the "Bible", eight references to "evangelism",  44 references to" prayer" or "prayers",  66 references to "G-d",  133 references to "Christ", 148 references to "mission", 265 references to "membership", 449 references to "president", 572 references to "synod", 716 references to "council", 2143 references to "conference", and  2323 references to "committees" or "committee".


For all the words CPD has some staggering omissions.

The words "complaint" or "complaints" are mentioned 642 times. But there is no reference to the scriptural procedures laid out in Matthew 18.

Eight pages are devoted to the appointment of "district chairs", our equivalent of a bishop. The "qualification" (SO420) is simply "A minister appointed to be Chair of a District shall be a minister in the active work". Yet scripture makes it clear that a bishop (KJV) or overseerer (NIV) has very special qualifications.There is no reference to these scriptural standards.

My simple calculation is that words   like "Bible", "prayer" "mission", "G-d", "evangelism" appear about 400 times. Words like "committee", "synod", "conference" appear more than 5700 times. A factor of more than 13 to 1. This illustrates our priorities. This is where we are going wrong and have been going wrong for many years.

Bootiful Bearwood

Sally Taylor, who describes herself as a Bearwooder, rather than a Bearwoodian, is seeking to establish a local blog Bootiful Bearwood. Let's hope it goes well.

On the streets!

Congratulations to all those involved in yesterday's demonstration in London. Even the Tory media are conceding that  there were at least a quarter of a million people there. According to the Morning Star one local union sent down 57 coaches. My wife went down and was joined by my daughter. Sadly I was on town twinning duty.

Much media attention has been focused on the two or three hundred tossers who apparently believed that vandalising a few shops and banks in central London would somehow help the dinner ladies now facing redundancy. I don't thing we yet know the full story.

I really do wonder if these people are being co-ordinated by Special Branch. Take a look at Sky News coverage. Notice how much leeway they seem to have. They are able to carry offensive weapons without a challenge. Note too how a group manage to attack a bank branch surrounded by cameramen but not a policeman to be seen. It all seems too neat, I do wonder if the same forces were at work during the student protests last year.

My first job

On Tuesday evening I was due to meet a friend for tea in the Liverpool Street area of London. I had a few minutes to spare before we met and decided to take a look at Curtain Road, just to the north of the station.

The area has undergone massive changes since I lived in the area as a child. Where there were scruffy buildings and bombed sites are now massive office blocks.

Curtain Road  was the site of one of the original Elizabethan London theatres. It's other claim to fame is that it was the location of my very first full time job.

At the age of sixteen I made my way from Hackney to number 23 Curtain Road, a then modern office block and home to the London headquarters of Gestetner duplicators. It was 1964. In those days children from Hackney's secondary modern schools were given fairly stark advice - get a job as an office boy or become a machine minder in a factory, and if you had a Dad who could pull strings, get into Fleet Street.

Well I became an office boy. It was not as easy transition from school to work. Most of the staff in my office were "Essex girls" and I could not join the conversation. However the credit controller was a very well educated  Indian and he took me under his wing.

It was interesting to see the accounts. (Am I about to break commercial confidentiality?) Some firms had massive discounts. These included the Communist Party of Great Britain - quite a good customer - and the Leysian Methodist Mission, who really didn't spend very much at all. The credit controller explained to me that discounts were sometimes offered on the basis of sentiment rather than sales. I don't think he approved of this system as it depressed the monthly sales figures which determined bonuses.

My career trajectory was apparently pre-ordained. After a couple of years in the office I would go on the road with a rep for a couple of months and then be given my own accounts. I'd have a reasonable, though low salary, with a very progressive commission structure. I would have nothing to worry about. Gestetner was the world's leading brand. The Americans and Japanese were experimenting with photocopiers but these would be far too expensive for most offices. My job would be safe.

In 1997 when in Japan I met the MD of the company that had bought up the shell that was left of Gestetners. They had bought the company for a song, sold off the property portfolio, took on the goodwill and absorbed a fraction of the UK workforce.

Now looking grubby and dated 23 Curtain Road still stands and is the home of several office service companies using and selling the products that swept Gestetner duplicators from the office.

What happened to my glittering career as a sales rep? Well when the GCE results came in I found that I had passed commerce and English. But the English result was a real surprise as I had got it at grade 1, the equivalent of an A star today.

Our secondary modern had just become a comprehensive. There was a catch up sixth form. I returned, and two years later became the first student from the school to go direct to university at a time when only 1 in 100 boys from Hackney stayed in education beyond the age of 18.

Walking along Curtain Road, peering through the windows, remembering the Essex girls and the sales reps, certainly brought back some memories. Just for a moment, I did wonder, did I make the right decision? Life would have been very different had I stayed.

Just what must Israelis do to defend themselves?

It has been a difficult fortnight for the people of the democratic state of Israel.

Less than a fortnight ago a family was butchered. Two parents and three children had their throats slit. The youngest, a baby was decapitated.

Over the weekend more than 50 rockets were fired at Israeli civilian targets from Hamas controlled Gaza.

On Wednesday, another attack on civilians which killed a 59 year old British Protestant who was visiting Israel as part of her Bible translation work.

No state can allow such terrorism to go unanswered. When it happened in the UK we flooded civilian areas in which the perpetrators lived with military occupation. This lasted for nearly thirty years and some terrorists make it clear that they still have unfinished business.

I gather that the Israelis believe that both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hammas  in Gaza believe that these organisations operate close to civilian populations. To these organisations, dead civilians, especially children, are martyrs and have a high propaganda value.

These terrorists will welcome an Israeli incursion. The  know that organisations like the Methodist Church in Britian, though quiet about the Fogel killings, silent on the rockets and unable to comment on the bus bombing, will quickly issue statements condemning the Israelis.

At this difficult time we must pray for the peace of Jerusalem. That doesn't mean that we give aid and succor to those whose intentions are to eliminate the Israeli state and murder its population.

On me bike!

Well I'm off on a high powered management course this week.

I will probably be the oldest person present, but I'm now trying to sell my skillset into a new market. I just hope I can keep up with the powerpoint slides - if they are purple I go dizzy.

A couple of years back I did a PRINCE2 course. It cost £1200 but actually did make me considerably more marketable in the new technology transformation sector. It paid for itself several times over. At the end of the course I even got a certificate for passing an exam!

So no blogging until Friday. Behave yourselves while I'm gone.

Portugal comes to Oldbury

A friend of a friend has opened a Portuguese cafe in Oldbury. It will  provide the excellent Bicafe coffee, lots of those wonderful specialty Portuguese pastries and much more beside. It also has a small retail area where the local Portuguese community and the rest of us can stock up with groceries. This is a wonderful new facility in Oldbury and I hope that those who visit the town centre will pop in and support this enterprise. We called in on Saturday and had a warm welcome.

The Atlantic Cafe, 38 Birmingham Street, Oldbury B69 4DS 

What should Christians make of Libya ? (Part 2)

It feels like ancient history, but nearly a month ago this blog asked "What should Christians make of Libya?".

The post got less than 200 views, no comments, no links. Not many people were interested it appeared.

I noted that whilst the Methodist Church had rightly asked our members to pray for the victims of the New Zealand earthquake, no call for prayer had been made about the unfolding tragedy in Libya. Since then we have been rightly asked to pray and give for the victims of the disasters in Japan, but again, no call for prayer for the people of Libya. It seems we find it easier to pray for the victims of "acts of God" than we do for the activities of those He created.

I ran a few google searches and find that British Methodism's silence is by no means unique. Many churches are struggling to say anything about the crisis, apart from a handful of individuals, that regretfully does not include any Methodists. As far as I can see just one other  British Methodist blogger, Angela, has made a late and brave attempt to comment, though I found some of her reasoning very confused.

This has all been brewing for several weeks and we now find our country engaged in an armed conflict - real planes, dropping real bombs on real targets. And yet our Christian community in this country and elsewhere has had so little to say.

Until 1995 I was always against any form of military intervention. I was about as near to being a pacifist as it is possible to get. By 1995 I had climbed the greasy pole and found myself helping to run the organaisation that had been charged by the world community to sort out the lethal mess that had emerged from the break up of Yugoslavia. During the early part of that year came worrying reports of the siege of the town of Srebrenica.

There were EU soldiers there but the political will was not present for them to intervene militarily. I did not join the calls for military intervention. Nor did many others. The result was a massacre. All the information I had then, and have had since, suggests that minimal intervention or even the credible threat of military force  could have saved many lives. I longer describe myself as a pacifist.

There is not an absolute case for non-intervention in circumstances where a civilian population is at risk. Gadaffi has made his intentions clear. He intends to wipe out his opposition. The world cannot stand by and allow this to happen. There is no Christian case to be made for leaving the people of Libya to the mercies of Gadaffi, anymore than there was to leave the people of Srebrenica to their fate.

Nor should we accept that there is no case for supporting those who seek to change the regime. In the west we take democracy  and the freedoms that go with it for granted. People living under varying sorts of dictatorships will tell you how draining and demeaning it is. At the top end it can mean imprisonment and torture. Further down it can mean blighted careers and opportunities.At the very least it means subservience and compromise. I just don't accept that people want to live in societies controlled by the likes of Gadaffi and Hamas. Humans aren't made that way and it is racist to simply believe that Arabs, Africans and others do not have the same aspirations for a civil society as we enjoy in the west.

However where Christians can make a positive contribution is that we can talk about the nature of military intervention. We can and should insist that the governments acting on behalf of the United Nations do wage war in a way that targets the military and not civilians, though we should be understanding that once battle commences this becomes increasingly difficult.

We can also discuss the purpose of intervention, especially where countries have large quantities of commodities such as oil or mineral deposits. The Iraq war was clearly about oil. The coalition went in with detailed plans about how to run the oil industry but none about nation building and social infrastructure.

Christians must surely have something positive to say about what should happen next in Libya. We should be ready to urge our government through the EU, UN or Arab League, to invest in developing a new form of civil society with universal suffrage and respect for the rule of law.

There must surely be something we can say about the profits which the Libyan oil industry generates. Rather than go into the pockets of foreign investors and corrupt local officials we must press for it to be used for the benefit of local people. This could include investment in agriculture - the Israelis and Palestinians are showing just how the desert can bloom - and new industries designed  to give real opportunity  to north Africa's growing population. A prosperous north Africa would provide Europe with new trading prospects and greater security.

 Christians can also point out the benefits of international co-operation. For so long the psychological walls of fortress Europe have been through the Mediterranean. It has almost become the new "iron curtain" with little understanding between Europeans and our neighbours to the south and east.

One of the positive aspects of the current intervention has been the involvement of the Arab League. We should support greater co-operation across the Mediterranean basin. This would mean getting the countries of the EU together with Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, the Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco around one table. Together we could examine such contentious issues as migration, pollution, fishing, sea bed exploitation with a view to a common mind and agreed policies. Economic and social tability in the basin would do much to mitigate the increasingly diversive  impact of globalisation.

One final point. The continuing hostilities in Libya will create a refugee and asylum problems. We should be in the forefront of those saying that our country take our share of those running in terror.

Christians have much to say about the present crisis. We can highlight our fears but we can also headline our hopes.

Fifty rockets fired at Israel

Whilst the world's attention has been turned towards Japan and Libya, Hammas were trying to kill Israeli civilians.

We have until Monday to stop Murdoch

If you are disturbed at the prospect of Rupert Murdoch getting his hands on more of the British media you have until MONDAY to make your voice heard. Please make your representation HERE and NOW!

Local link

Readers in our circuit may be interested in this news link.

Palestinian outrage at Itamar killings

Thanks to Harry's Place I came across this interesting clip from Israeli TV. An Israeli TV  crew went to Nablus, an Arab town on the West Bank, and asked locals what they thought of the Itamar killings. In sharp contract to the "celebrations" in Gaza these Palestinians freely expressed their outrage.

Admittedly they were speaking from an obviously affluent shopping centre (not quite the image we have of towns like Nablus) but the action of the teenager in showing the picture of the murdered child and saying that it was wrong to kill him seemed genuine.

I'm sorry that our own church seemed unable to positively respond to my suggestion that we should condemn these killings without equivocation.

Meanwhile in Itamar an Israeli Defence Force paramedic team saved the life of a Palestinian child who the parents have named Jude.

The progressive case for Israel

One of the surprises in recent years has been the way in which traditionally progressive organisations in the UK such as parts of the trades union movement, the Quakers and the Methodist Church have come to view Israel as an oppressor. This is surprising because the State of Israel from its outset has sought to proclaim the highest and most progressive Judeo-Christian values.

Part of this can be put down to the well funded and constant campaigns that are financed by oil. When I was young my Jewish neighbours used to say that it was all because Moses lacked a sense of direction. Had he turned right instead of left, the Arabs would have the oranges and the Jews would have the oil.

There are those that have grown rich on oil, who have all the resources necessary to run campaigns against the only democratic state in the region. Many workers in the region envy Israel with its free trades unions, freedom of speech, intensely democratic parliament and open society.

It is no accident that a recent poll of Arabs living in East Jerusalem shows that many would prefer to remain part of Israel   and continue to enjoy access to the same services as Israelis, including health care, education, unemployment benefits and pensions.

However we have to understand that anti-Semitism is still very much part of the darker side of western societies. We only need to read 19th and early 20th century English literature to realise how casually it was an accepted part of our culture. It went underground after the horrors of the Holocaust and is now re-emerging disguised as an attack on Zionism. Not all, but many of those campaigning against Israel are anti-Semite to the core. It is a form of racism to which the British left, and out own church,  must not indulge or excuse.

The Jewish Chronicle recently carried an impressive article by Robert Philpot  which sums up the case far better than I can. His critical argument is:


Israel is, after all, a country founded on social democratic principles; and the Israeli Labor Party, which, alongside our own Labour Party, is a member of the Socialist International, was the country's dominant political force for decades. 

Indeed, it is because of those social democratic principles that Israel's attributes are undeniably progressive: a free and vibrant media; a robust and independent judiciary; strong trade unions; a generous welfare state; and a commitment to free, world-class education that enables Israel to have one of the highest-skilled workforces on earth. 

Contrast, too, the equal rights which women, gays and lesbians and other minorities enjoy in Israel with the second-class citizenship and persecution meted out to such groups in most, if not all, of Israel's neighbours.

Dariusz Butowski

I was very upset to hear that my favourite doctor at the Sherwood House Health Centre in Bearwood had died. We said prayers for his family in church. I shan't go into great detail. But Dr Butowski treated me on several occasions and was a lovely man

Now his colleague, my good friend Ann Jaron, has written a really fitting tribute that has appeared in this morning's Guardian. It is worth reading. May he rest in peace.

Comments on this blog

There has been a problem with comments appearing on this blog. They have been posted, copies have been sent to my email box but they haven't actually been published. I've now looked into this and found that several comments have been posted to a "spam" box requiring moderation. How blogger make this decision I do not know. I will keep and eye on this and release comments as and when I see them but I do not work full time on the blog so there may be a delay. Apologies to all concerned. I'm happy for this blog to provide a basis for a robust debate.

Church launches Japan appeal

The Methodist Church’s World Mission Fund has launched an appeal on behalf of its partner church in Japan following the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that struck on Friday.

 People can donate to the World Mission Fund appeal via the Methodist Church Just Giving page or by sending a cheque payable to the World Mission Fund to Steve Pearce, World Church Relationships, at Methodist Church House, 25 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5JR. Postal donations should be labelled ‘Japan Appeal’. If you are a UK taxpayer, you can Gift Aid your donation, which allows us to reclaim the tax you have already paid. Just include a completed Gift Aid form with your donation.

The Quakers and anti-Semitism

A few months ago I had a call from a Jew who described his experience of talking to the local  Quakers. His synagogue used to meet in the Quaker meeting  house but gradually they were made to feel unwelcome.

Recent posts on Harry's blog seem to show that the Quakers are anything but the respectable pacifists of a previous era. They are now content to let their prestige meeting hall at Friends House London be used for meetings of anti-Semitic organisations. Once again the cover story appears to be the best liberal values and a hatred for Israel. There is a familiar pattern emerging.

The Church must condemn the Itamar killings

A couple of weeks ago the President of the Methodist Conference Revd Alison Tomlin and Vice President Deacon Eunice Attwood were on an all expenses paid visit to the Holy Land. On their blog they made a number of disparaging remarks about the Jewish settler families in Hebron.

These included references to the number of Israeli troops needed to protect the families in Hebron who were occupying property that had been Jewish owned since well before the mandate. They also repeated as new a hoary old urban myth that has been used by anti-Semites about Jews in the Holy Land for several generations. No one told them that in August four Jews had been murdered in Hebron

Our President and Vice President met many Palestinians but despite their interest in the "settlers", and despite passing within a few yards of their houses, they made no attempt to speak with them or any representatives of the many shades of mainstream Israeli opinion.

Sadly they won't be able to speak with the Fogel family. On Friday night a group of Palestinians from the  Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades infiltrated the settlement and killed five family members including the three year old child pictured above. Other victims included the parents, and two girls aged 11 and four months. The bodies were discovered by another child, a 12 year old daughter, who was returning from a youth camp.

Those of us who have been involved in the politics of the Holy Land would advise an ill-informed organisation like the Methodist Church to steer clear. We really do not have the resources to be able to make reasoned judgments. The report to Methodist Conference in 2010 and subsequent debate showed the depth of our ignorance. The recent visit of the President and Vice President merely confirmed it.

But having got ourselves involved and being so judgmental about Jews who Methodists have never met for allegedly pouring urine out of windows, how do we now respond to these murders?

In official Methodist eyes these people were "illegal", including this three year old child. Was this killing justified? Were they "asking for it"? Should the Israelis withdraw the protection they currently offer to Jewish families living on Jewish owned land?

Having made so much noise in recent months, and setting ourselves up as arbiters of the rights and wrongs of the situation, it will be interesting to see whether our leadership now  goes to the trouble to issue an unequivocal condemnation of these killings.

If the alleged throwing of urine is worthy of comment, so to is the murder of the Fogel family.

Update: We are getting a very high number of visitors from Israel. May I make it clear that right thinking Christians (including rank and file Methodists) are horrified by this atrocity. As always the people of the Holy Land are in our prayers. At this difficult time you have our deepest sympathy. 09:00 14/03/2011

Photographs used by permission

Something to learn from the President of East Timor

Several people have been in touch in recent days and suggested that Methodists ought to read an article by the President of one of the smaller and newest nations on earth, East Timor. You may remember that this country suffered many  years of a vicious military occupation. He recently made a visit to both Israel and the West Bank. He seems to have been eager to listen and learn from all sides.

I do not agree with every word that Jose Ramas-Harta writes but I do recognise a maturity that was sadly missing in the recent blog post made by our President and Vice President after their rather sad visit.

Japan

My visit to Japan was fleeting. I met many people and was overwhelmed by their hospitality. My prayer this evening is with those who mourn and with those who must now recover. My belief is that the only country on earth ever to have suffered a nuclear attack will be able to emerge with a new energy and a new hope.

So much for Cameron's "Big Society"

David Cameron wants us all to be involved in the "Big Society".

Why then is his government cutting funding to the excellent Timebank initiative which seeks to link potential volunteers with projects needing support?

Beware of what is left out, and when

We had a wonderful evening last night at the Warley Labour Party annual fundraiser. Yvette Cooper gave a good hard hitting speech and was a real encouragement.

How times have changed. We were eating an excellent three course meal in the Richardson Suite at the West Bromwich Albion ground. It wasn't always like this.

When I first joined our local Labour Party here we used to struggle for money. We had a colourful, though not always effective MP called Andrew Faulds, who I have mentioned on this blog before.

Andrew could have made a sizable donation to the party after winning substantial damages from the publishers of Richard Crossman's diaries.

The story of how Andrew realised he had been defamed is a warning to publishers everywhere, not least us  bloggers. 

The Sunday Times serialised  the diaries prior to publication. There was a reference to Crossman coming to Smethwick to speak at a fundraising do for Andrew's local party. When the book was published Andrew looked up the full entry. It said something like "I visited Andrew Faulds in Smethwick and he was drunk as usual".

The book had been passed by the publisher's lawyer's but the Sunday Times night lawyers immediately spotted the dangers of the reference to Andrew and pulled the  phrase "drunk as usual". Andrew was then in a very strong position to sue the publishers of the book. They settled out of court for a sizable sum. Andrew's file on the case is now at the LSE and makes fascinating reading. He was certainly a character

Earlier this week I drew attention to the blog of the President and Vice President of the Methodist Conference. They repeated as  true, what I now understand, is a very common defamatory "urban myth" about Jews in Hebron. This defamation first started circulating during the time of the British mandate in the 1940s  and long before the Jews had returned to Hebron.

These Presidential and Vice Presidential blogs often become the basis of articles in the connexional newspaper the  Methodist Recorder.

Our President and Vice President now face a dilemma that they should share with the Connexional media team and the publishers of the Methodist Recorder.

Do they stick by this dubious story that they may be asked to produce credible  evidence to support, if, for example, a formal complaint is laid of incitement to racial hatred? Or do they now drop it and risk the suggestion that they know the story to be unsustainable? They can be assured that someone, somewhere, will be hanging on every word.

Anti-Semitic? Not us gov

In recent days  I have  mentioned the blogpost by the President of the Methodist Conference Revd Alison Tomlin and Vice President Deacon Eunice Attwood  following their recent all expenses paid visit to Israel and Palestine.

I was particularly concerned about one section of their post in which they accepted at face value a story that Jews throw urine and acid at their Arab neighbours.

I immediately faced a challenge, as I have on other occasions, along the lines of "are you saying Methodists are anti-Semitic". The  semi-official lead blogger at  Connexions has got a fixation about this.

The constitutional position is that Methodists by definition cannot be anti-Semitic. Standing orders 013B and 050(1) say in bold type "The Methodist Church believes that racism is a denial of the gospel". Standing order 050(1) is particularly pertinent because that is in the context of admission to the church.

Definitions of racism vary. I remember, as a teenager in Hackney, being told  many things about the newly arrived West Indian neighbours. We often took these stories at face value which I now realise was a reflection of our own racism.

One popular story  that came to mind this very week was that West Indians used to empty their chamber pots (this was at a time when few houses had internal lavatories) out of the window onto their English neighbours. No one actually knew where this happened, I never met anyone who had actually been assaulted in this way, but it was "apparently" true and widely believed. Retelling that sort of story, in my view, is clearly racist. No Methodist would dream of saying that sort of thing these days about any of our ethnic minority neighbours.

Methodist Conference has, in the past taken a strong line on anti-Semitism.   In 1983 the Methodist Church passed a notice of motion on antisemitism which said “The Conference records its distress in recent times of antisemitic actions against the homes and places of worship of Jewish people in Britain and elsewhere, notably Western Europe and the Soviet Union. It confesses that Christian history and belief have been gravely disfigured by sinful prejudice against Jews and urges Methodists and local Methodist churches to resist and condemn expressions of antisemitism, and encourage relations of love, respect and dialogue with Judaism and Jewish people.”

How do these noble sentiments work out in practice?

Earlier this week someone signing themselves "offended Jew" made a protest at the tone and content of the President and Vice President's blog post on their visit to Israel. Initially published, it was taken down last night, as was another antagonistic comment. My  comment and that of two other Methodists (one anonymous)  remained. I understand that Jews have also tried to post comments. Apparently our President and Vice president exercise one editorial rule for Christians but  entirely different rules for Jews.

There seems to be a bit of a pattern. Earlier this year the President of Conference told the British Jewish community that she "encourages relations of respect and dialogue with Judaism and the Jewish people."

Just a few weeks later our President goes to Israel and Palestine. She doesn't bother to meet any mainstream representatives of the Jewish people living there. She repeats defamatory stories that are "apparently" true and generally acts in a manner that does not indicate "respect" for Jews. There seems to be one rule for relations with Palestinian Christians and an entirely different rule for relations with Jews.

At the last Methodist Conference speaker after speaker got up to support the resolution attacking Israel. Virtually everyone one of them prefaced their remarks with a comment along the lines of "some of my best friends are Jews" - always a giveaway.

What they didn't say, until we found out the following Thursday in the Methodist Recroder,  is that a few days earlier they had heard a virulent anti-Semitic speech from a Palestinian clergyman in silence. In fact many applauded him when he said that Jews used the Holocaust as a way to make money and that he appreciated the terrorist organisation Hamas who sent suicide bombers and rockets into Jewish communities.

No Israeli Christian was invited to speak to conference, nor the Jewish community in the UK or a representative of the Israeli government. One rule for an anti-Semitic Christian, another for Jews.

None of these incidents are ancient history. They happened on the watch of our current President and Vice President. I can well understand why many Jews tell me they simply don't trust the Methodist Church. Not something to be proud of. But of course our Jewish neighbours can be absolutely certain that we are not anti-Semitic. Apparently.

Significant break though in Satanic sex cases

The story broken this morning in several newspapers about the Kidwelly cult abuse is quite significant.

This sort of abuse has been going on for years. Alaistair Crowley advocated it, and far worse, in his work Magick. Copies are easily available at "new age" bookshops.

Police and social workers have brought prosecutions for abuse but have often been reluctant to mention the occult aspects because it would all seem a bit too far fetched for the juries. They were normally content to let the prosecution rest on  "passing round of children for sex".

This should be a bit of a wake up call to those Methodists who seek "new age" styles of spirituality. Seek discernment.

Methodism's new best friends - No 3 BTselem

Last week the The President of the Methodist Conference Revd Alison Tomlin and Vice President Deacon Eunice Attwood were wondering round the Holy Land looking for material to justify the increasingly anti-Jewish position being promoted by some in the connexion.


Their itinerary had been carefully constructed to ensure that they only met people who would reinforce their preconceptions. They didn't meet any mainstream Jews, any "settlers" and they certainly didn't go to Gaza where they may have come face to face with the human rights agenda of Hamas.


One organisation they visited was  BTselem which "documents and educates the Israeli public and policymakers about human rights violations in the Occupied Territories, combats the phenomenon of denial prevalent among the Israeli public helping to create a human rights culture in Israel."

Apparently (note my use of the word "apparently") from a look at their website BTselem seem completely uninterested in any non-Israeli violations of human rights.

Whilst our President and Vice President were visiting BTselem their hosts were the centre of an unholy storm.

Basically they had been caught out promoting some rigged some video footage  designed to depict the Israeli police in a bad light. You can read the full story here.

Methodists need to be a little more careful about the company we keep. Do we really want to be associated with liars? 

Methodists are not anti-Semitic......apparently

The President and Vice President have recently returned from an all expenses paid visit to the Holy Land. Their blog provides ample proof that this was not a visit designed to encourage peace and reconciliation. It was clearly intended to generate yet more anti-Jewish sentiment within the Connexion.

Yesterday I referred to the ancient Jewish community of Hebron and pointed out that Jews and Arabs lived together in peace for many years until the Jews were massacred and driven out.

The President of the Methodist Conference Revd Alison Tomlin and Vice President Deacon Eunice Attwood are probably the last people on earth who would think of themselves as anti-Semitic which makes some comments in their blog all the more surprising.

Note the picture above. The President and Vice President are standing with a Palestinian guide in an empty street. Each side of them are lock ups, possibly shops, possibly garages.

Our President and Vice President  have been told that these are Arab shops, though conveniently none are open. It must be early closing day.


They repeat what they have been told  "Below is a street of shops, the metal grids are to prevent the objects which are thrown down by Jewish settlers from hurting Palestinians". So the "Jewish settlers" actually live above Arab shops? They share the same building? Is this likely in a town which they also describe as  a "very much a divided community"?

Note the metal grid. Look carefully. Where are the objects which apparently rain down on the shoppers and shop keepers along the empty street? Enlarging the picture  reveals no debris either on the grill or on the floor around our leading duo.

Then comes the next point. It tells us a lot about what some Palestinians think of Jews and what leading Methodists are prepared to repeat without question.

"Apparently urine used to be poured out of windows but currently bleach is preferred thus destroying the goods for sale below." The use of the word "apparently" is instructive. What they are saying is that they have no evidence. They saw no evidence. There was no evidence.  Had they seen it we could be sure they would have mentioned it. Isn't it surprising that they aren't  photographed  with a throng of  local people ready to tell the story?

No, this is what they had been told by  their guide. Conveniently the shops were closed so there was no one to verify the libel. Nor did they have the courage to ask the "Jewish settlers". So it was "apparently" true. And as an added bonus its disgusting. 

I was at a conference last year when Richard Vautrey our former Vice President told a similar story, with pictures from the same street. Curiously he didn't mention the urine and the acid. That aspect of the story "apparently" hadn't been invented then

Jews have put up with Christians believing  things about Jews which are "apparently" true for generations. The blood libel was "apparently" true. It led to the massacre of Jews in Norwich, London and York.

In the early part of the twentieth century many European Christians believed that the Protocols of Zion were "apparently" true. This belief in the "apparent" provided some of the intellectual justification for the Holocaust.

And now the great denomination of John Wesley is reduced to being led by two gullible people who, without question, investigation or and skepticism, are reduced to repeating a vile story about Jews because it is "apparently" true.

Of course let us be clear. We Methodists are certainly not anti-Semitic. Nor would our President or Vice President  repeat a vile and disgusting story without a thorough investigation.....apparently.

Update: Some one signing themselves "offended Jew" commented on the President and Vice President's website. The comment has now been removed. Is there some sort of official policy to stop Jews commenting on official Methodist blogsites? If anyone has any information about this please contact me. Confidences will be respected.

Methodism's new best friends - No 2 selected people in Hebron

Our President, Vice President and a member of the Church House public affairs team have been on an all expenses paid visit to the Holy Land. One wonders if this is now going to become a regular perk of the office.

As last year they followed a familiar itinerary: they met Palestinian Christians, but no Israeli Christians, they met some Jews, but only those selected in advance to be critical of main stream Israeli opinion.  They didn't meet those Jews they dismiss as "settlers", nor did they meet any one from a mainstream Israeli political party.

Their itinerary was   sanitised to ensure that nothing happened to challenge the new pre-conceptions that a minority are trying to impose on the denomintion.  I note that for all their "solidarity" they did not dare set foot in the mini-Islamic state now run by Hamas on the Gaza strip.

There is one particularly offensive visit recorded in the blogs of both the President and Vice President and the Church House  public affairs staffer who went with them. They decided to visit Hebron. Instead of trying to find out what has happened in the past and what is happening now they listened to just one part of the story.

Our supremely blinkered President and Vice President simply dismissed Hebron's Jewish population as "settlers". They took at face value any and every defamation that their Palestinian hosts offered them.

"Settlers". Now there's a word to conjure with. Hebron is of course one of the holiest places in Judaism. It is where Abraham was laid to rest. As in so many parts of the Middle East there has been a Jewish community there for centuries. Just as there was in Jerusalem, Cairo, Baghdad, Damascus. and other large cities. Sadly the new state of Israel and those Jews who were living in the pre-1948 British Mandate had to absorb 850,000 refugees from those ancient communities. We don't hear much about the pogroms that blighted the Middle East but they were in some respects every bit as nasty as those that blighted Europe.

The ancient Jewish community in Hebron suffered. Anyone walking round Hebron will see placards on buildings explaining that these has been brought by Jews in the nineteenth century. Many of the present day Jews in Hebron are reclaiming what is theirs and their forebears.

In 1929 there was an appalling massacre. Sixty seven Jews were killed, mutilated and others raped. Only the courage of a small number of Arab neighbours prevented the massacre being far worse. Eventually the Jews were forced to leave altogether and the area annexed by Jordan using force of arms. At a very early stage in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations it has always been a possibility that Hebron would be traded back into Israel.

In some ways it is good that Methodists find out for themselves what is happening in the world trouble spots. But sometimes it may be a little more sensible to ensure we have a holistic view rather than one dumped on us by a vociferous minority.

What is it we tell our children?  "fools rush in where angles fear to tread"

More later in the week.

The transfiguration - did Jesus know?

Our preacher this morning, Martin, asked a question that stumped us. He was speaking about the transfiguration as described in today's lectionary reading Matthew 17:1-9. He asked a question that led to an interesting discussion: when Jesus invited Peter, James and John to join him on the mountain, did he know what was going to happen?

Humanly speaking, probably not. Heavenly, possibly yes. If you were trying something new do you invite your mates? If something special is going to happen, surely you want to share it. The transfiguration was an event which showed Jesus as wholly human and wholly divine. That is what made him special.

Methodism's new best friends - No 1 Patricia Morrison

I do not know if Patricia Morrison of Lowther Court York is a Methodist, I suspect not

What I do know is that she has recently joined the write- in campaign to the anti-Israeli Methodist Recorder that has suddenly developed because the Methodist Church has recommenced a dialogue with the Jewish Board of Deputies.

In a letter which appeared under the heading "Speak the truth in love"  on 17 February 2011 she spews out the usual anti-Israeli propaganda. Apparently Israel - not just the settlements on the West Bank - "occurred in a land that belonged to another people".

Is this by any chance the same Patricia Morrison who, on 31 January 2006, wrote:

“The splendid victory for Hamas in the Palestinian elections will be welcomed by anti-imperialists everywhere. It offers the best hope for a real and lasting peace in Palestine.”?

Naturally, before publishing this I asked the Methodist Recorder to confirm or otherwise. Needless to say, a fortnight later I have heard nothing. Investigative journalism isn't their forte. Nor does the Recorder print letters which don't fit their editorial view. Don't trust the Recorder as a faithful reflection of our denomination.

Do we really need the encouragement of Hammas supporting correspondents to our denominational newspaper? I think not. This demonstrates the depths to which we have fallen as a denomination.

Attack on Smethwick cemetary

Many families in Smethwick are distressed by the news that people described as  vandals  attacked the local cemetary. It seems that it was a very lengthy and thorough piece of desecration.

One family member is reported as saying  "It’s just disgraceful, disgusting and disrespectful, and that’s without swearing. I cried when I saw it. It’s just mindless, senseless stupidity.”

Sadly cemetery attacks are not that rare. In the early nineties I carried out a small media survey and was surprised to find how regular they are. The attacks are usually dismissed as being a "one off".  It is quite normal for people to use the phrase "mindless" and "senseless" when describing their feelings to the local press.

That is exactly the point. Disturbing the dead and outraging feelings of the bereaved is part of the motivation for these attacks. Trashing cemeteries is one of the initiation rites to those who want to follow various forms of "black magick". To them it makes sense and it is far from mindless. It demonstrates to themselves and others just how far they are prepared to go to practice their new found "faith".

The trouble is that anyone who points that out is automatically dismissed as a nutter.

UPDATE: A forty year old man from Oxfordshire has been arrested in connection with this incident.
UPDATE 2:  Over 3000 people have joined a group  facebook expressing their disgust at this desecration.

Coming soon - British Methodism's new best friends

British Methodism has certainly excelled itself.

Since the ill-conceived  attack on the Jewish people of Israel at last year's Methodist conference we have certainly gained some exotic new "bed-fellows".

In the next few days we shall report of the Hamas supporting correspondent to the anti-Israel Methodist Recorder and describe how our  naive Connexional President and Vice President were seriously compromised on their recent visit to the Holy Land by a bunch of lying toads.

You won't read this on any other Methodist blog, the official Methodist website, and certainly not in the Methodist Recorder.

Stay tuned!

Up the O's!

Can't do much posting tonight - I'm working in north London and it is a very long commute.

Many of my colleagues are supporters of the football club Arsenal, one of only two teams in the football league to have a swear word in their names.

Anyway they are in a state of mourning at the moment following their disastrous loss against Birmingham City. I must admit its one of the few times in my life that I've ever emitted any squeak of appreciation for the Blues.

Tonight though is different. My own team from way back when, Leyton Orient, take on Arsenal following their quarter final draw.

The last time I really gambled I put £20 on Orient to win the FA cup at 150/1. I placed the bet right at the beginning of the season before the very first round. That was way back in the seventies. All my friends tried to persuade me to lay it off when Orient got into the semis. I probably would have been able to take  away £1000 - a lot of money in 1978. Once the ball was kicked the bookies offer would be off the table.

Alas Orient were drawn against Arsenal. And we lost badly. My sentiment - I'd like to think it was principles -meant that I was about £15000 worse off in today's money. I haven't gambled since.

I shan't be at the match because I have a previous dinner appointment. But I shall be willing Orient to avenge that semi final and my £20 stake. Up the O's!

Dydd Gwyl Dewi hapus

There aren't many people who can say that they once represented England's only Welsh speaking area in the European Parliament. I even attended a few Welsh classes.  So today a special message for all my Welsh friends on both sides of the border and especially those that live here in Lloegr