As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has worsened, the divide between the Jewish people and many Christian leaders has grown and effective Jewish-Christian communication on the Middle East has decreased. Many churches in the United States have taken official positions that are openly pro-Palestinian, paying insufficient attention to legitimate Israeli rights and interests. Due to the lack of ongoing dialogue, Jewish communities are sometimes surprised by these positions and are unprepared to respond effectively. The nuances of the various church positions make successful response on a local level even more difficult.

Meeting the Challenge offers a systematic overview of the Middle East positions of mainline U.S. churches, and provides historically accurate and morally cogent responses that give proper consideration to Israeli and Jewish interests. This document is best used in conjunction with another ADL publication, Advocating for Israel: An Activist's Guide.

In summarizing each major church's position, Meeting the Challenge identifies the public statements of each church and lists its leading spokespersons on the Middle East conflict.

There is no one "Christian" position on the Middle East conflict. Essentially there are three "clusters" of opinion:

1. The Christian "right" or Evangelical Protestant position, which is strongly pro-Israel and activist.
2. Mainline Protestant (Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ) position, which is more sympathetic to Palestinian interests than to Israel.
3. The Roman Catholic Church, whose official statements strive to be diplomatically balanced and defend the interests of both parties in the conflict.

Meeting the Challenge primarily addresses the positions of the mainline Protestant denominations, and secondarily some voices in the Roman Catholic Church. Mainline Protestant churches have a long history of relations with Palestinian communities, having done social, medical and missionary work in Bethlehem, Ramallah, Jerusalem and Palestinian communities since the end of the 19th century. Their U.S. churches see the humanitarian dimension of the conflict first hand from the Palestinian side. For the most part, Protestant Christians in Jerusalem and the territories see their destinies as tied to that of Palestinian Moslems and are thus hesitant to criticize or deviate from Palestinian views of the conflict. Many of the leading bishops of these churches in the Middle East are Palestinian, and often U.S. church leaders rely almost exclusively on these Palestinian church leaders for information and interpretation of the conflict.

It should be stressed that in nearly every church there are minorities who dissent from the "official" position of their church. Indeed, there are Lutheran, Episcopalian, Methodist and Presbyterian clerics and lay leaders in the U.S. who support a more balanced position and are more sympathetic to Israel. Identifying these leaders in local communities is an important task for local Jewish leaders and the ADL. Conversely, while the Vatican statements on the Middle East are more balanced, there are a number of Catholic spokesmen and journalists who argue for a more "liberal" view of the conflict that is pro-Palestinian and similar to mainline Protestant views. These voices cannot be ignored.

The challenge for those defending the legitimate Israeli and Jewish interests lies primarily in constructively responding to the common arguments around occupation, the peace process, settlements, security, terrorism, history and theology. In its latter chapters Meeting the Challenge offers analyses, responses, and reflections to these arguments.

Related Materials:

•   Meeting the Challenge: Table of Contents
•   Meeting the Challenge Full Text 333 kb .pdf format
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