The Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation

David Blewett
July 2004

This past spring, the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF) held its third annual Symposium and Banquet on the Christians of the Holy Land in the Detroit area. Initially, it might seem natural that Christians would want to support an ecumenical Christian organization whose stated purpose is to “increase awareness among American Christians of the urgent needs of Christians in the Holy Land, to enrich the lives of American Christians through contacts with Christians in the Holy Land, and to raise and distribute money for programs which will encourage and assist Christians to remain in the Holy Land.”[1]

Generally speaking, it is true that Christians who live in the Middle East are in desperate need of outside help and that American Christians can be enriched through contact with “the indigenous Christians of the Holy Land.”[2] However, NCLCI has serious problems with the details that the HCEF presents in support of their mission.

In order to understand the HCEF better, I have attended parts of the symposiums in Detroit and have met staff people and volunteer leaders of HCEF projects. The clear message that I hear at the symposiums is that Palestinians live under a cruel Israeli occupation that has destroyed the Palestinian economy and society. Therefore, the HCEF says that it needs to raise money to help Palestinians do what the Israeli occupation seeks to prevent them from doing, i.e., buying groceries, paying rent, going to school, etc.

what is said … and not said

At symposiums I hear that Christians are leaving “the Holy Land” because the occupation makes life unlivable. A repeated theme is that Israel is driving native Palestinian Christians off of their ancestral homeland, land on which they have lived since the days of Jesus, so they say.

However, I have not heard anyone from the HCEF speak of, let alone condemn, the terrorism and the homicide bombings that have led to the need for checkpoints and Israeli soldiers in the Palestinian areas.

At symposiums I hear that the occupation and checkpoints prevent Palestinian students from going to school on a regular basis and that curfews keep children locked in their homes preventing teachers from meeting with their students even in local neighborhoods, away from the schools.

However, I hear no reference to the Palestinian shooters who use schools, churches and hospitals as weapon depots and who station themselves on those buildings, usually the tallest buildings in a neighborhood, where they can overlook the streets and shoot at anything that moves.

At symposiums I hear that there is no money to pay teachers, to print textbooks or to buy the needed supplies for schools because the occupation has destroyed the Palestinian economy.

However, I have not heard anyone criticize Arafat’s embezzlement of millions of dollars from the Pales-tinian treasury. Even after the Israeli army made public the PA financial records that document how Arafat took money given by international aid organ-izations for the Palestinian people to pay terrorists and families of homicide bombers, HCEF speakers continue to blame the Israeli occupation for the hopeless Palestinian economy.

The Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation says that it seeks to “increase awareness among American Christians of the urgent needs of Chris-tians in the Holy Land.”[3] But they ignore the PA’s intimidation of Palestinian Christians, the seizure of Christians’ private property and businesses or the PA occupation of churches, such as Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity.

The HCEF would have us believe that Christians are in danger throughout the Middle East and are fleeing the entire area. This is not true! In Israel, Christians enjoy freedoms unimagined in the Arab world. As a result, instead of falling, the Christian population in Israel has grown every year since independence.[4] Population figures indicate that the exodus of Christians is a problem associated with Islamic fundamentalism, which is unchallenged in the Palestinian territories and much of the Muslim world.

It is shameful to condemn Israel for the situation in the Middle East and ignore the terrorism, homicide bombings, persecution of Christians, the ruined economy and easy access to weapons stored in the midst of civilian neighborhoods. Such a biased, one-sided presentation can only serve to mislead and obstruct truth.

the child sponsorship program
One of the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foun-dation’s programs caught my eye immediately – the Child Sponsorship Program. The goal of the program is to raise money to equip schools, pay Palestinian teachers and educate Palestinian children. The program generates a significant amount of money from churches, synods and dioceses all over the world. However, NCLCI has some reservations about this program.

Besides being concerned that all the money raised actually goes to the education of children rather than to Arafat and his cronies, NCLCI is very concerned about what is being taught in those classrooms and textbooks that the HCEF is raising money for. Everything that I have heard at HCEF symposiums indicates to me that revisionist history is accepted as truth in the Palestinian territories and among HCEF supporters. That is why NCLCI continues to ask about what is being taught – are Christian supporters of the HCEF supporting the teaching of a factual history that will lead to peace and coexistence or are they supporting a revised history that continues to promote the hate and murder of the status quo?

When the NCLCI Executive Committee was in Israel this past January we met with Dr. Arnon Groiss, director of the Arabic News Service for Israel Radio. For many years, Dr. Groiss has been translating Palestinian textbooks to find out what is being taught to children in Palestinian schools. He told us that prior to 1967, all Palestinian textbooks had “venomous antisemitic material.” Following the

Six-Day War, when Israel took control of the West Bank territories, those antisemitic sections were removed, but as soon as the Palestinian Authority regained authority over the area, they reverted to those old pre-1967 textbooks.

Dr. Groiss told us that the Palestinian Authority has recently begun to update their textbooks. In 2000, new textbooks for grades 1 and 6 were published, grades 2 and 7 got new books in 2001. In 2002 the Palestinian Authority published new textbooks for grades 3 and 8, books that Dr. Groiss had just finished working with.

Dr. Groiss pointed out eight specific themes in all the new Palestinian textbooks that do not conform to international (UNESCO) standards and do not move towards peace:

Non-recognition of Jews as a people, with historical, spiritual and national links to the Land of Israel
Non-recognition of the legitimacy of the State of Israel
Stereotyping of Jews
Stereotyping of Israel and an increase in the demonization of it
No mention of the content of the Oslo Agreements
Intensification of the glorification of martyrdom
The right of return for every refugee is the red line that cannot be ignored or compromised
Numerous factual and historical inaccuracies

what must be done

Before another dollar is donated to the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation several things need to happen. First, there needs to be a public accounting of how the money raised is spent. How much of that money is going to the education of Christian children in the Palestinian territories and how much is going to Arafat? Second, there must be a commitment to bring Palestinian textbooks up to UNESCO standards and to ensure that teachers are trained to teach the new material. The critical question for the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation and its donors should be – Are Pales-tinian children being prepared for a peaceful future with Israelis or are they being taught to continue the hatred and terror?

These things must be done to ensure that those churches and individuals who have condemned antisemitism and have been working to build new relations between Christians and Jews will not be found to be unknowingly financing and teaching a revised form of antisemitism, such as that which has been documented in the new Palestinian textbooks.