Episcopalians, lurid lies, blood libels and Israel - by Dexter Van Zile

The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is tragic enough; it does not need to be made worse by unfounded and lurid stories that can’t be substantiated. Would-be peacemakers need to deal in verifiable facts, not demonizing propaganda.

Dexter Van Zile..
Algemeiner..
03 August '18..

“What was the boy’s name, William of Norwich?”

That’s the question that Suffragan Bishop Gayle E. Harris, from the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, needs to answer. At a recent meeting of the church — of which she is a prominent leader — Harris offered a narrative that can only be described as a blood libel against Israel. The goal of her narrative was to whip up her fellow Episcopalians into a hostile frenzy against Israel, so that they would be willing to conduct a theo-political lynching of the Jewish state at their church’s General Convention, which took place in Austin, Texas in July.

At a July 13, 2018 meeting of the denomination’s House of Bishops — the upper house of the General Convention — Harris testified in favor of a resolution that called on Israel to safeguard the rights of Palestinian children. Predictably, the resolution, which was approved, failed to condemn Hamas and the Palestinian Authority for teaching young Palestinians to hate Israelis and using children’s television programming to promote violence against Jews.

During the proceedings, Harris told her fellow bishops that during a recent visit to Israel “a teenager, I think he was 15, was walking down the street and asked a military vehicle … a question.” Harris didn’t say when or where this confrontation took place, but did report that the Israeli soldiers got angry at the question that was asked.

“He began to run as they threatened him, and they shot him in the back four times,” Harris said. “He fell on the ground and they shot him again another six.” In other words, a boy was shot in the back 10 times for asking Israeli soldiers a question that they didn’t like.

And yet the first that the world heard of this atrocity was from Harris herself speaking at a church meeting a few years after the alleged incident happened. That doesn’t make any sense. Since when would Palestinian leaders fail to broadcast such an atrocity to the world?

Prior to telling this story, Harris offered her fellow Episcopal Bishops yet another narrative of Jewish villainy.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.