UCC report is a shambles

Reader comment on: Canada: Anti-Semitic Church Attack on Israel

Submitted by Richard Mather, Jun 26, 2012 09:19

The United Church of Canada (UCC) report blames Israel's presence in the West Bank as the "primary contributor of injustice that underlies the violence of the region," yet twice in the past twelve years (2000, 2008) Israel offered the Palestinians the opportunity to establish their own state, with East Jerusalem as the capital. On both occasions, the Palestinian Authority refused to cooperate. It was only a couple of weeks ago that Ehud Barak suggested a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank in the absence of negotiations with the Palestinians. Nabil Abu Rudineh, chief aide to Mahmoud Abbas, said the Palestinians "object" to any unilateral action that will lead to "the formation of a Palestinian state in temporary borders." The UCC report essentially contends that deepest meaning of the Holocaust is the denial and/or loss of human dignity. Surely, the deepest meaning of the Holocaust is the systematic mass murder of two-thirds of European Jewry. To compare the Palestinian crisis to the Holocaust is offensive and historically unjustifiable. A political and religious dispute over a small piece of land on the west side of the Jordan river is hardly comparable to the to the degradation and slaughter of six million Jews. The Jews were victims of the Nazis, whereas the Palestinians are largely to blame for their own plight by refusing to share the land with Jews and rejecting the 1947 UN partition plan. This was after they had been given Transjordan in 1923. Finally, the report advocates a boycott of settlement produce. Such boycotts are always problematic as they tend to affect the Palestinians who are employed by the settlers. At least 22,000 Palestinians have permits to work in settlements or in their industrial zones. Boycotting settler goods means more unemployed Palestinians, which means more disenchantment and anger. Moreover, by boycotting settlement produce, the UCC puts all the responsibility and blame on the Israelis and acquits the Palestinians.

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Other reader comments on this item

Title By Date
Wexy: High Five [109 words]LORRAINE WEXLER ISAACAug 5, 2012 15:55
Accountability for Israel but not for the Palestinian Authority? [85 words]Deborah TomlinJun 26, 2012 12:42
⇒ UCC report is a shambles [318 words]Richard MatherJun 26, 2012 09:19
Send this to the United Church of Canada [15 words]AlexandreJun 24, 2012 08:45

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