New York, NY, February 11, 2014 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today voiced “outrage and anger” over the publication of “Zionism Unsettled” by the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The document, intended as a “study guide” for congregations, may be the most anti-Semitic document to come out of a mainline American church in recent memory.
Among the stridently anti-Israel perspectives in “Zionism Unsettled:”
- It is only Israel that is responsible for the plight of the Palestinians;
- The Jewish people’s desire for a homeland is abhorrent;
- Zionism is the source of evil; it leads to ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide;
- American Jewish organizations, in their support of Israel, share in the responsibility for the evil deeds of Zionism.
Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:
It does not get any worse than the document issued by the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA) titled "Zionism Unsettled.” This so-called “study guide” for congregations has within it the most egregious anti-Israel perspectives that Israel's enemies have been peddling for decades.
In its perpetuating a distorted view of Israel’s history and denying the fundamental justice of a Jewish state in Israel, “Zionism Unsettled” is an anti-Semitic document that needs to be repudiated by the Presbyterian Church.
The fact that the Israel/Palestine Mission Network purports to “speak to the Church and not for it” does not absolve the Presbyterian Church (USA) of its moral responsibility and its complicity in the promulgation of hatred and misinformation. We call upon the Presbyterian Church (USA) unequivocally to repudiate “Zionism Unsettled” and to remove it from circulation.
Updated: January 01, 1970
ADL welcomed the “long overdue” announcement by the Presbyterian Church (USA) that it would remove the egregiously anti-Israel and anti-Semitic publication “Zionism Unsettled” from sale on its website.