UM Agency Chiefs Defend Anti-Israel Bias in Missions Study

Rebekah Sharpe
February 27, 2008

Interim General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) chief Felton May, a retired bishop, and Women’s Division chief Harriet Jane Olson are defending a problematic regional mission study entitled Israel-Palestine published by GBGM’s Women’s Division.

On February 19, these United Methodist officials claimed that “charges” leveled against their mission study “are untrue.”  The charges came from several different groups.

One group critical of the study was Christians for a Fair Witness in the Middle East, a New York-based group that challenges anti-Israel bias among church groups. In a February 5 letter, it warned United Methodist General Conference delegates about the mission study’s unbalanced perspective. The letter also declared that “this ‘Mission Study’ may be symptomatic of a strong bias to the point of antipathy against Israel and perhaps against Jews.”

According to Fair Witness, “The ‘Mission Study’…makes no attempt to present the facts and the history of the conflict in an honest or balanced way. It is replete with factual errors, misrepresentations, material omissions and distortions that serve to portray Israel as the sole villain in the Middle East.” The letter called on delegates to postpone any votes on divestment, citing the distortion in Methodist attitudes that the flawed mission study may have created.

“This is too serious an issue, with too many significant and potentially far reaching consequences, for the UMC to make a strong public statement without having a solid grasp of the facts,” Fair Witness wrote. “We ask instead that the General Conference commit to taking a long and serious, but most of all balanced and unbiased look, at this conflict.” 

The Jewish community added its protests on February 20, when the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) “called for the UnitedMethodistChurch to give serious consideration to retracting several troublesome publications.” Said JCPA’s Executive Director, Steve Gutow, “I was particularly distressed to see the conditions created by the birth of Israel called “original sin” and to see Israelis characterized as ‘hysterical’ and ‘paranoiac.’ The quest for peace is not helped by those who demonize and distort.”

Ethan Felson, JCPA’s Associate Executive Director, warned that the “outrageous” mission study’s insensitivity “threatens to turn the clock back on Christian-Jewish relations.” (JCPA’s analysis of the missions study can be found here.)

Replying to this criticism, May and Olson insisted the charges are not true but did not rebut the specific grievances raised by Fair Witness and JCPA. Instead, the two agency executives generically argued that the “mission study’s perspective is in keeping with the thoughtful, informed, and consistent position of The United Methodist Church.” May and Olson defended the “phrases and concepts challenged by ‘Fair Witness’” on the grounds that the terms are “common in current…discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” They stated that “The study analyzes political actions and aspirations. It seeks to expand the dialogue regarding this matter by including viewpoints rarely heard in public discourse.”

The perplexed agency heads puzzled, “We were surprised when, in late January 2008, the mission study became embroiled in a public debate triggered by an informational session at a briefing for delegates to the forthcoming 2008 General Conference.” They argued that “The guide was used without controversy in scores of regional and annual conference Schools of Christian Mission in the summer of 2007.”  

While the agency executives expressed astonishment at this most recent criticism, the Women Division’s Middle East activism has repeatedly embroiled the agency in conflict over the past year. In June, United Methodist Women’s Division President Kyung Za Yim spoke at an Anti-Israel rally outside the U.S. Capitol. And in September, the Women’s Division hosted Iran’s apocalyptic and anti-Israel president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the Women’s Division’s offices at the United Nations, where he met with various church officials and defended his policies.

Neither May nor Olson mentioned the Iranian president. Instead, they noted that the Israel divestment resolution was not from GBGM. (It comes from the General Board of Church and Society.) They also observed that there was no reference to divestment in the mission study.  However, they reminded United Methodists that the UnitedMethodistChurch is “not neutral on the question of military occupations,”  insisting that the GBGM and the Women’s Divison “will continue to be guided by the policies and actions of General Conference on issues related to Israel and Palestine.”