(From JAT via ICAN)
SUBJECT:
The former Moderator of the Presbytery of Santa Barbara has published a letter in a Presbyterian Magazine charging that "the Zionists were in bed with the Nazis both in Palestine and in Germany for years during WWII," and citing a fake Ben Gurion quote widely used by antiSemites to "prove" that Jews favor attacking Arabs.
ACTION:
Write to the Executive Presbyter of Santa Barbara demanding that the Presbytery immediately issue a statement disassociating itself form the views of their former Moderator and condemning him for making untrue and anti-Semitic statements.
Rev. Ken Working
SAMPLE LETTER
Rev. Ken Working
Executive Presbyter
Presbytery of Santa Barbara
Dear Rev. Working,
I am writing to express my outrage over the untruthful and anti-Semitic statement made by the former Moderator of the Santa Barbara Presbytery, David Neunuebel.
I have every expectation that you will immediately issue a press release condemning Mr. Neunuebel for issuing a statement that is both anti-Semitic and demonstrably untrue.
Mr. Neunuebel's letter, in addition contains a large number of outright untruths. He writes that "the Zionists were in bed with the Nazis both in Palestine and in Germany for years during WWII." He writes that the Jews "didn't...accept... the partition of Palestine" in 1948," and asserts that the Jews aim to "drive (the Arabs) into the sea."
Obviously, the Jews accepted the 1948 partition and the UN allotment of a tiny sliver of Palestine, it was the Arabs who refused to accept partition, and Arab Armies that invaded in an attempt to extinguish the Jewish State. The phrased ambition to "drive the Jews into the Sea" was President Nassar's war aim in 1956. Israel harbors no parallel ambition. If it did have such an ambition, Israel has long had the armed might to carry it out, and refained from doing so. Moderator Neunuebel's demonization of Israel is repugnant.
As to the assertion that Zionists collaborated with the Nazis, this canard is a frequent recourse of anti-Semites and of Arab propagandists trying to draw attention away from the very real collaboration of many Arabs with the Nazi power. The Mufti of Jerusalem was a particularly active Nazi. In North Africa, enthusiastic Arabs cooperated in herding Jews into concentration camps (these Jews were saved not by the governments of the states of which they were citizens, but by General Montgomery who drove the Nazis out of North Africa before they 'final solution' got fully underway.) At present, Hamas expresses its solidarity with Nazism by giving the Nazi salute at its rallies.
What is true is that during the war, some Zionist officials in Romania agreed to keep their knowledge of the death camps quiet, and the victims quiescent, in exchange for the opportunity to move some tens of thousands of Jewish out of the country, thus saving their lives. Whether this deal, made at a time when all Jews in Romania lived under Nazi death sentences, was morally defensible or not I cannot say. I think none of us not living under a Nazi death sentence is entitled to judge. But of a certainty, this was not the collaboration with Nazis that Mr. Neunuebel calls it. Mr. Neunuebel's statement is a hateful, anti-Semitic canard. It is, moreover, a notorious canard that any well-intentioned person would easily identify as anti-Semitic propaganda.
All of this is capped by Neunuebel citation of another notorious piece of anti-Semitic propaganda, a bogus "quotation" purportedly from David Ban-Gurion that is one of several such fictional "quotations" falsely attributed to prominent Israelis that enjoy a wide circulation among anti-Semities. (for an explication of this bogus "quote," see: Colin Rubenstein's review of Peter Rodgers, HERZL'S NIGHTMARE: ONE LAND, TWO PEOPLE, Scribe, in the Australian Book Review - Dec. 2004 - Jan. 2005 - http://www.aijac.org.au/resources/aijac-media/cr_abr_1204.htm)
Here is the bogus, anti-Semitic quote, as cited by Neunuebel, "We will expel the Arabs and take their place. In each attack, a decisive blow should be struck, resulting in the destruction of homes and the expulsion of the population."
David Ben Gurion, Israel's First Prime Minister
Letters to his son, 1937"
I trust that you will take immediate action to dissociate the Presbytery from men like Mr. Neunuebel who blacken its name by repeating anti-Semitic canards and propaganda.
Sincerely yours,
BACKGROUND:
David Neunuebel of Santa Barbara, California was Moderator (2000-2001) of Santa Barbara Presbytery in 2001-2004. He is an anti-Israel activist with Americans for a Just Peace in the Middle East, a group that, like Neunuebel, demonizes Israel and insists on
placing all blame for the situation in the Middle East on Israel alone.
On April 7, 2005 Neunuebel published a letter in the Presbyterian Layman that went beyond his habitual demonization blind hatred of Israel to stray into overt anti-Semitism. Neuneubel wrote that::
"the Zionists were in bed with the Nazis both in Palestine and in Germany for years during WWII."
Neunuebel then cites a well-known canard, a bogus "quotation" purportedly from David Ban-Gurion, that is one of several such fictional "quotations" attributed to prominent Israelis that enjoy a wide circulation among anti-Semities. (for an explication of this bogus "quote," see: Colin Rubenstein's review of Peter Rodgers, HERZL'S NIGHTMARE: ONE LAND, TWO PEOPLE, Scribe, in the Australian Book Review - Dec. 2004 - Jan. 2005 - http://www.aijac.org.au/resources/aijac-media/cr_abr_1204.htm)
Here is the bogus, anti-Semitic quote, as cited by Neunuebel, "We will expel the Arabs and take their place. In each attack, a decisive blow should be struck, resulting in the destruction of homes and the expulsion of the population."
David Ben Gurion, Israel's First Prime Minister
Letters to his son, 1937
Perhaps the saddest aspect of these overtly anti-Semitic statements on the part of a former Moderator of a Presbytery of the PCUSA is that it is so far from unique. Sadly, it is only one of a series of anti-Semitic statements and actions by prominent Presbyterian officials.
Here are just a few incidents in which Presbyterian officials have slid into overt anti-Semitism:
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/005428.shtml
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/066084.htm
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/005444.shtml
http://home.comcast.net/~jat.action/PCUSA_Somerville_Protest.htm
http://home.comcast.net/~jat.action/PCUSA_Louisville1.htm
Here is Neunuebel's letter. The Presbyterian Layman website is extensive, and lacks links to individual letters. The best way to locate the original letter is to google a phrase from it.
Writer says PCUSA divestment focus is on illegal occupation, not Israel
April 7, 2005
After the letter to the editor by Susan Pentlin, Ph.D from Warrensburg, Mo. [posted February 15, 2005], I think she may not understand what the G.A. has actually suggested. The G.A. passed an overture to research the idea of divesting our multi-billion dollar investment portfolio of companies who facilitate the illegal Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. It's a study. If the study determines that there would be efficacy in bringing a just peace to this conflict, the next step would be to identify those companies who facilitate the occupation. Then we would confront these companies to share our concerns and try to get them to cease their activities in this area. If the companies decline, we would work on organizing a shareholder resolution to force the company to end its work in the occupied territories. The focus is on the illegal occupation, not on the state of Israel. We have consistently supported Israel's right to exist and right to live in security.
Dr. Pentlin's suggestion that we've disregarded the history of the establishment of Israel is uninformed at best. To suggest that the assembly failed to understand that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was an "avid supporter of Adolf Hitler, even visiting him in Berlin," is a bit silly. What does that have to do with the current consistent violation of human rights perpetrated on the Palestinians by Israel? Besides, the Zionists were in bed with the Nazis both in Palestine and in Germany for years during WWII; what would we do with that fact?
Furthermore, I doubt that the assembly doesn't understand that the State of Israel was a decision by the United Nations, nor that Jews "have lived in Palestine since Biblical times" and that they're not all living "in the Diaspora." Dr. Pentlin should know, however, that more Jews live in the Diaspora than live in Israel and most Jews are not Zionists. Additionally, what Dr. Pentlin seems to forget is that more Palestinians have lived in this same region since Biblical times. Many can trace their family lineage back to Christ himself. In fact, today there are more Christians in the Middle East than there are Jews in the whole world. Dr. Pentlin seems to want to exclude these people from our concerns, if not from the historic demography of the region. This has always been the Zionist dream from the beginning, as espoused by David Ben Gurion:
"We will expel the Arabs and take their place. In each attack, a decisive blow should be struck, resulting in the destruction of homes and the expulsion of the population."
David Ben Gurion, Israel's First Prime Minister
Letters to his son, 1937
Dr. Pentlin's suggestion that the Arab nations did not accept the partition of Palestine belies the fact that no Jew in his or her right mind would have accepted the same deal either. If fact, they didn't even accept it in 1948 as acknowledged by Menachem Begin himself.
"The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for Ever."
Menachem Begin
Iron Wall, p.25, after the UN vote to partition Palestine.
If anyone wants to drive anyone into the sea, it's the Zionists, and in fact, they've pretty much succeeded. There is now no hope for a two-state solution with the way Israel, with help from the United States, has carved up the West Bank with Jewish-only roads and Jewish-only housing (settlements) leaving only Bantustans for a remnant of Palestinians.
The General Assembly has consistently supported Israel and her right to exist and prosper within secure borders. Palestinians have that same right.
The assembly's actions are directed toward the illegal occupation, not toward the state of Israel. It is surprising to me that Dr. Pentlin doesn't get this. If she is anti-Palestinian, then she may be anti-Christian because "Jesus loves all the little children of the world," no matter how old they are. Peace rests on justice, not tired old propaganda, ideologies and ethnic cleansing.
To suggest that because a Mufti had meetings with the Nazis we should exclude Arabs and Palestinians would be to suggest that because the chancellor of Central Missouri State kicked me out of school after I returned from military duty in 1968 during the Vietnam era to go to school simply because I was living off campus (a clear injustice), we should shut down the school, if not the entire town of Warrensburg.
David Neunuebel
Santa Barbara, Calif.
Moderator (2000-2001) of Santa Barbara Presbytery
and president, Americans for a Just Peace in the Middle East