Earlier this month, the U.S. Conference for the World Council of Churches held its annual meeting in Boston. Included in the meeting was a session titled, "Repairing the Breach; Restoring the Streets. Ending the Illegal Occupation of Palestine." Given the title of the program and the stature of the sponsoring organization - the council represents about 400 million Christians in 120 countries - I wanted to hear what they had to say. But I also had another reason to attend.

Early last November, three Episcopal bishops in full clerical dress joined a protest in front of Israel's Boston consulate to denounce Israel's "occupation" of Palestine. The action unleashed a major controversy between Jewish leaders and a broad coalition of Protestant religious leaders, who appeared to hold the view that injustices perpetrated by Israel are the cause of the current violence in the Middle East.

Given the wide divergence of views within the Jewish community, few of us were surprised that people of other faiths might have doubts or criticisms of Israeli policies. It was therefore remarkable to witness the extraordinarily one-sided view of events that these religious leaders brought to their protest.

Israel, in their judgment, was guilty of wanton and oppressive military occupation. Period. The fact that Israeli teenagers were being blown up at discotheques and that bombs were being deliberately set in crowded restaurants did not enter into the protesters' moral equations. Israeli actions to defend against terror were effectively viewed as morally reprehensible. Palestinian support for the murder of civilians was little more than an incident of Israeli policy.

After the protest, many of us asked our Christian colleagues how they could embrace such a one-sided narrative - especially given their support of a peaceful solution to the conflict. We understand that honest people can disagree about given Israeli policies. And, of course, there are profound humanitarian issues, on both sides, arising from the ongoing warfare. But how can anyone who is at all serious about reconciliation pretend that terrorism has not been a central ingredient in the unfolding tragedy in the Middle East?

In fact, the positions espoused by these religious leaders reflect what has been the official position of the World Council of Churches for many years. In September 2001, for example, the council called upon member churches and ecumenical partners to ''focus attention in 2002 on intensive efforts to end the illegal occupation of Palestine." To advance this initiative, the council created the Ecumenical Monitoring Program, which promotes non-violent resistance to Israel's military presence in the West Bank and Gaza.

I attended the March 1 World Council of Churches meeting to learn more about this program, but also to better understand the position on the Middle East of Boston-area Protestant leaders.

There were five speeches, all of which hammered home the same theme. The audience was repeatedly told that the only impediment to peace is the dehumanizing effect of Israel's military presence, the root cause of all the violence. A number of speakers analogized "Israeli occupation of Palestine" to South African apartheid. Scores of examples were given of Israeli brutality, including the uprooting of olive groves, the demolition of Palestinian homes, humiliations at Israeli checkpoints and expansion of Israel's settlement program. The speakers urged audience members to return to their congregations and encourage their fellow congregants to participate in the council's non-violent resistance efforts.

At no time during the more than one-and-a-half-hours of presentations did any of the speakers say a word about terrorism. In fact, with the exception of a single statement by the moderator, none of the speakers even recognized that Israel has security concerns. No one noted the repeated acts of terrorism that have killed hundreds of Israeli civilians. The names Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Hezbollah and Tanzim were never mentioned. Nor did anyone mention that just 21 months ago the Israelis had agreed to a Palestinian state and were prepared to make massive concessions to facilitate a final peace agreement.

What drives people who purport to be agents of peace to embrace such a partisan approach? Could it be they are ill informed? At least one speaker acknowledged she was, but that did not stop her from expressing outrage toward the actions of the Israeli government.

Toward the end of the program I had the opportunity to address a comment to the panelists. I told them about an Israeli mother I know who tells her children each day before she sends them off to school to run the other way if they see a bomb go off - a strategy to avoid the second bomb that is sometimes used to kill rescue workers. I contended that until this mother's fears were taken into account, their rhetoric made them "more like partisans than peacemakers." In response, one of the panelists contended that indeed she is a partisan - "a partisan for justice."

More than anything else, I have been troubled by the burning moral certainty implicit in this remark. We Jews have a lot of experience dealing with the consequences of other people's moral certainty. We know from first-hand experience the harm that can result when people self-righteously assume a moral mantel that they have not earned.

The search for justice requires a much higher bar than the World Council of Churches has set for itself. Morally serious people who purport to be agents of peace have a responsibility to strive for fairness and balance. Regrettably, balance and fairness had little to do with the views that were asserted by the representatives of the World Council of Churches.

Mr. Leikind is regional director of the New England ADL. This article originally appeared in The Forward newspaper on March 14, 2002.