Moriel Ministries

MORIEL MINISTRIES - February 25, 2010

Note: The following was received in response to Moriel's public posting of an article titled "Presbyterian Church USA Ready to Declare War Against Israel: Take Action Now". This was transmitted to us by Linda Valentine and Rev. Grady Parsons of the Presbyterian Church of the USA. Please continue reading for our response to this message found at the end of this post.

February 23, 2010

A statement from the Reverend Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) regarding the work of the General Assembly Middle East Study Team.

A human rights organization within the Jewish community has issued a statement about the report to the 219th General Assembly (2010) from the General Assembly committee to prepare a comprehensive study focused on Israel/Palestine. The statement says, "...we are deeply troubled that current moves underway in the Church radically depart from its 2008 commitment that its review of Middle East policies would be balanced and fair."

The Middle East Study Team's report, which will be released by Friday, March 5, 2010, contains a letter to the American Jewish community. The study team begins the letter by saying:

We want to be sure to say to you in no uncertain terms: We support the existence of Israel as a sovereign nation within secure and recognized borders. No "but," no "let's get this out of the way so we can say what we really want to say." We support Israel's existence as granted by the U.N. General Assembly. We support Israel's existence as a home for the Jewish people. We have said this before, and we say this again. We say it because we believe it; we say it because we want it to continue to be true.

The team, which engaged in intensive study, meetings, and travel to the Middle East since their appointment following the 218th General Assembly (2008), continues:

And, at the same time, we are distressed by the continued policies that surround the Occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights, in particular. Many of us come to this work out of a love for Israel. And it is because of this love that we continue to say the things we say about the excesses of Occupation, the settlement infrastructure, and the absolute death knell it is sounding for the hopes of a two-state solution, a solution that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has supported for more than sixty years.

Several previous General Assemblies of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have adopted statements about Israel/Palestine. Two excerpts:

In 2004: The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has approved numerous resolutions on Israel and Palestine, repeatedly affirming, clearly and unequivocally, Israel's right to exist within permanent, recognized, and "secure" borders (for example: 1969, 1974, 1977, 1983, 1989, etc.). It has deplored the cycle of escalating violence-carried out by both Palestinians and Israelis-which is rooted in Israel's continued occupation of Palestinian territories (cf. statements of successive assemblies since 1967). Presbyterians have continued to be concerned about the loss of so many innocent lives of Israelis and Palestinians (see "Resolution on the Middle East," approved in 1997, and "Resolution on Israel and Palestine: End the Occupation Now," approved in 2003)." GA Minutes, 2004, p. 66.

In 2006: We call upon the church..."To work through peaceful means with American and Israeli Jewish, American and Palestinian Muslim, and Palestinian Christian communities and their affiliated organizations towards the creation of a socially, economically, geographically, and politically viable and secure Palestinian state, alongside an equally viable and secure Israeli state, both of which have a right to exist." GA Minutes, 2006, p. 945.

I join the Middle East Study Team that will be reporting to this summer's General Assembly in asking all people to continue to pray, and work, for the peace of Jerusalem.

A Statement from Moriel and Jacob Prasch

Dear Rev. Parsons & Mrs. Valentine

I direct a Christian ministry operating orphanages for AIDS orphan babies in Africa and active in the human rights of Christians persecuted in various countries.

Your not so cordial response is frankly the usual kind of nonsense of a declining denomination with declining numbers reflecting its spiritual, doctrinal, and moral decline. As PCA declines it tries to remain relevant by a biased political activism.

1: If PCA supports Israel's right to exist, why did it endorse an Islamic oriented document affirming the right to work for Israel's destruction?

2:  How can an archaeologically verified indigenous people be called an 'occupier'; can Apaches occupy Arizona? Neither can Jews occupy biblical Israel.

3: The notion that the presence of the indigenous people is responsible for Islamic terror is a hideous lie. Prior to Israel's 1967 war of self-defense, Islamic belligerents were already applying the instruments of terror.

If there was no Israel we would still have 80,000 Christians murdered by Islam in The Southern Philippines, 300,000 murdered Christians in East Timor, 3.3 million Christians murdered in Sudan by Islam, 1 million murdered Christians in Nigeria, the martyrdom of 98% of Iranian pastors, the capital execution of converts to Christianity in Saudi Arabia, the terror attacks in New York & Washington, Spain, London, Mumbai, Beslan, Moscow and elsewhere. We would still have the Islamic riots in Paris, Sydney, and Bradford, England if Israel did not exist as well as the Hamas persecution of Christians in Gaza.

If there were no Israel, you would still have over 1,000 instances of Islamic honor killings of women in Jordan alone. As a Christian, I thank God that Israel absorbed the Christian refugees from Lebanon driven out of their land and homes by Hizbollah. I also thank God that at least one Middle Eastern country protects the human rights of women, secularists, homosexuals & lesbians, and women and that country is Israel - the one PCA hypocritically singles out.

Prior to the Intifadas, the UN World Health Organization admitted that the standard of living in everything from longevity, employment, and reduced infant mortality improved 370% in Gaza and 320% in The West Bank after 1967 under the Israelis compared to what it had been.

From May 1948 until June 1967 The West Bank, East Jerusalem, The Golan, and Gaza were all in Arab Moslem hands. If they wanted a second a second Palestinian Arab state in addition to the demographic & geographic one already existing in Jordan (according to Yassir Arafat in 1970 and King Hussein of Jordan in 1967) why didn't the Moslems create one when they had nearly 20 years to do so. These are the facts.

It is little wonder church attendance and membership of the PCA is rapidly heading towards a free fall. I pray to God that your hypocritical excuse for Christianity falls so far and so fast that it can never get up and recover if you continue on your present path oblivious to the true abuses of human rights in The Middle East - the persecuted church. And it is not Israel persecuting the Arab, Asian, African, & Iranian Christians

Sincerely,

JJ Prasch (Rev)

Moriel Ministries

• the report calls for the US to withhold financial and military aid to Israel
• it apologizes to Palestinians for even conceding that Israel has a right to exist
• it declares that Israel, if defined as a Jewish State, must be inherently racist
• it embraces the Kairos Palestine Document, produced by Palestinian Christians, calling for boycott and sanctions against Israel and endorses full Palestinian 'right of return' to Israel which would lead to the demise of the Jewish democratic state
• it denies any connection between biblical covenants and the Jewish people. Israel's history, it claims, begins only with the Holocaust, a nation mistakenly created by Western powers at the expense of the Palestinian people to solve the 'Jewish problem'

In our previous article, we looked at the question of the "who" of Psalm 83. Who are these nations who make a tumult against the people of God, taking counsel together to "cut them off from being a nation, that the nation of Israel be remembered no more"? The modern day names for this confederacy are those nations which surround the present day state of Israel - Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, Palestinians, and some from Iraq also "have helped the children of Lot".

This is the situation we find ourselves in geopolitically today. Israel's conflict with her immediate Arab, and largely Muslim, neighbors has successfully engulfed the whole world into a "tumult". They have formed a very real confederacy, The Organization of Islamic States, and pooled their influence in world bodies such as the UN, as well as having successfully leveraged their considerable oil influence, in order to successfully isolate Israel, the only legitimate democracy in the Middle East.

Our purpose in this article is to explore the question, why? Why do they make such a "tumult"? How is it that they cannot simply make peace with Israel, accept them as a trading partner, and share in the "blooming of the desert" miracle that Israel has been experiencing for sixty plus years? Why hasn't the ceding of land brought any peace?

The Psalmist, being a prophet, agrees with the other Hebrew prophets about the reasons for this hostility of Edom towards his brother Israel. Ezekiel calls it "everlasting hatred" ...

"Moreover the Word of the Lord came to me saying, Son of man, set your face against Mt Seir (Edom) and prophesy against it, saying to it, Thus says the Lord God: 'Behold O mount Seir, I am against you, and make you a desolation and a waste; I shall lay your cities waste, and you shall be desolate. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. Because You have had an everlasting hatred and have shed the blood of the children of Israel by the power of the sword at the time of their calamity when their iniquity came to an end." (Ezekiel 35:1-5)

This "everlasting hatred" is currently embodied in Islam but is older than Islam. It goes back to Ishmael, Abraham's eldest son, who was disenfranchised of his inheritance (in his own and his mother Hagar's mind) by the birth and election of Isaac. "In Isaac shall thy seed be called...". Far from a mere Sunday school lesson, this division between the child of the handmaid and the chosen seed of Abraham is directly relevant to at least a third of everyone now living!

Muslims (one out of seven people in the world) believe that Ishmael was the chosen seed of Abraham, and celebrate the feast of EID to commemorate their version of the Abraham story, the sacrifice of Ishmael. As Ishmael was supposedly disenfranchised by Sarai and Abraham, being evicted from Abraham's tent, so the Arab Muslim world nurtures that same sense of resentful disenfranchisement, focusing their resentment on Jews and Christians.

The story of Esau and Jacob also feeds into the very real "everlasting hatred". God chose Jacob, not Esau to be the carrier of the Abrahamic blessing. But Isaac chose Esau, his favorite of the twins. Esau burned with rage when he perceived that Jacob had tricked Isaac into blessing him with Esau's birthright! To this day Esau's descendants seethe at the Jews, believing that they are cheating supplanters, usurping Edom's birthright! Isaac did bless Esau with a very dubious blessing that is prophetic.

"Behold your dwelling shall be of the fertility of the land, and of the dew of heaven above. By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother; And it will come to pass, when you become restless that you shall break his yoke from your neck." (Gen 27:39-40)

Esau would indeed live off of the land. He would also be 'blessed' by having to 'live by the sword'. Furthermore, by God's election, proud Esau would have to serve his brother, Jacob. As Rebecca, Isaac's wife found out, "the elder would serve the younger..."(Genesis 25:23). Isaac prophesied also that in the last days Esau would become restless and throw off the yoke of his brother. Is this part of what we are seeing here?

For Ishmael, Esau and their seed, salvation would be dependent upon being 'yoked', taking on the religion of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The emergence of Islam, in the seventh century, amounted to a "shaking off" of the yoke of any Judeo Christianity ever accepted by the seed of Ishmael and Esau, ie: the Arab Middle East. Islam is the current custodian of the everlasting hatred of Israel, inflaming the passions of the already miserable masses of repressed, unemployed and frustrated of the so called 'Arab street'.

Time and again at critical periods of Jewish history, the Edomites have handed their Jewish brothers over to be enslaved. They cheered when the temples were destroyed, they aided and abetted those who enslaved, raped, and slaughtered the Jewish people.

"Because you have had an everlasting hatred and have shed the blood of the children of Israel by the power of the sword at the time of their calamity....therefore as I live says the Lord God, I will prepare you for blood, and blood shall pursue you since you have not hated blood, therefore blood shall pursue you..." (Ezekiel 35 :5-6)

I am reminded of the constant taunt that modern Edomites make to those affected by the Judeo Christian reverence for life, "You love life but we love death!". I am also reminded of a Time magazine cover a few years back, in which a so called "Palestinian" leans out of an upper floor window showing off his blood soaked hands to a raving, cheering mob of Edomites, having just participated in a double murder of two unfortunate newly immigrated Russian Jews who had made a wrong turn into a "Palestinian" section of the city.

"Therefore as I live saith the Lord God, I will do according to the envy which you have showed in your hatred against them; and I will make myself known among them when I judge you. Then you will know that I am the Lord. I have heard all your blasphemies which you have spoken against the mountains of Israel (Judea, the west bank), saying they are desolate; they are given to us to consume thus with your mouth you have boasted against Me and multiplied your words against Me, I have heard them." (Ezekiel 35:11-13)

Right up to modern times, the children of Esau, Ishmael, and Lot - long since intermarried and dissolved into one another culturally and religiously by Islam - have sought to destroy the Jews. Hitler was an admirer of Islam, and modern Islam repays the adulation.

This comes to a head in the last days, this "everlasting hatred" has to be expressed, it seeks to be sated in the utter destruction of the Jewish state. Esau has a birthright that is 40 times the land area of that allotted to Israel, but is unsatisfied, craving Jacob's birthright. This is what leads us to the next great disastrous Arab war with Israel.

Photo by 'Sultan Knish'

The manifold organs of the ObamaMedia are abuzz with outrage over what they are calling Israel's "insult" to the United States. But what was the nature of this awful and outrageous insult? Did Israeli officials pull off V.P. Biden's rug to show off his bald head underneath. Did they ask him why the suit of his pants is so shiny. Did they make him sit at the kiddie table?

More to the point did Israeli TV air calls for a Jihad against America, as Palestinian Arab TV did? Did Israel name a square after the murderer of an American photographer, as the Palestinian Authority did? Did an Israeli Anchorman do a skit in blackface during Obama's visit, as a Turkish anchorman did during Obama's visit to Turkey? Are Israeli religious institutions issuing Fatwahs against America, as Al Azhar University, which Obama visited and spoke at, has done? Are Israeli leaders funding terrorism against America, as the Saudi King, before whom Obama bowed, does?

No, none of those incidents were described as insults. Nothing that Muslim countries did to mock, humiliate and murder Americans were even noticed at all. None of them produced furious condemnations from the White House or two hours of Hillary Clinton screeching on the phone at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. So what did Israel do that was so awful, so horrible and terrible? It built houses. Yes, civilian houses. Not army bases or nuclear missiles or walls. Houses.

Israel approved a construction project to build housing for its own people, in its own capitol city, Jerusalem. Some of the housing will be built in the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood, situated around the grave of Shimon the Righteous, a Jewish religious figure famed for rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. A neighborhood where Jews have lived for over a century. As well as Ramat Shlomo, a thriving neighborhood with thousands of Jewish families living in it.

The Obama Administration's objections to Jews living in Jerusalem are purely racial and religious. If Israel were approving a construction project to build housing for Arab Muslim citizens of Israel, Biden, Hillary and their media troupe wouldn't be screeching about it to the high heavens. It is only because Jews are to live there, that they have a problem with it. Their objections therefore are purely based on race and religion-- and completely racist.

But this is hardly the first time that Muslims and their Western appeasers have tried to drive the Jews out of Jerusalem, or the Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood in particular.

In 1876 the land was purchased by the Jewish community in order to build homes for poor Jews. In 1936, after the death of Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam (one of the inspirations for Hamas) and the Mufti of Jerusalem (who would go on to collaborate on the Holocaust with Adolf Hitler), Arab rioters drove the Jews out of the neighborhood with cries of Ibtach Al Yahood (kill the Jews). Over 500 Jews were murdered during this time. Many more fled their homes ahead of the enraged Islamic mobs.

The following was a sample of some of the Arab Muslim brutality toward the Jews at the time.

Alex Morrison, a British truck driver sympathetic to the Arab cause wrote, "They left behind them one of the worst sights I ever saw in my life... The naked bodies of the women exposed the evidence that the knives had been used in the most ghastly fashion." The bodies of children, apparently set alight with gasoline in a nursery, were still smoldering."

The Arab Muslim atrocities were successful not at intimidating the Jews, who slowly began to return, but at intimidating the British who enacted the White Paper, and closed the doors to Jewish immigration resulting in countless numbers of Jews dead during the Holocaust. A Holocaust which involved the participation of the same Mufti of Jerusalem who organized the riots. Which in turn had been partially funded by Nazi Germany.

In 1947 the Arab Muslim forces again came for the Jews. The Jewish residents of the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood, accompanied by militia, fought them back with the few weapons they had. And then came the British colonial authorities and disarmed the Jews. And when the Arab forces came again, they had no weapons to fight with. And they fled.

The fall of the area cut off Hadassah Hospital from the rest of Jerusalem. A convoy of 79 doctors, nurses and patients to the hospital were massacred by Arab forces. They included a world renowned ophthalmologist, Chaim Yassky and his wife Fanny. Esther Fassman, the American director of social services at the hospital's Cancer Institute, carrying candy and magazines for her patients. And a man who had been riding along to reach his wife who had just given a birth. He never reached her.

The Jordanian Legion seized all of East Jerusalem, and drove out the remaining Jews living there. Synagogues were destroyed, others were turned into latrines. The tombstones from Jewish cemeteries were used as paving stones for the Arab Muslim occupation forces. The Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood though held the tragic distinction of being the first part of Jerusalem to have its Jewish population driven out.

The houses that the Jews had been driven out of were occupied by Arab Settlers in an East Jerusalem rendered empty of Jews. The great dream of the Mufti of Jerusalem, and every Islamic cleric and terrorist, who had urged the murder of Jews in order to build a pure Islamic Arab Palestine was fulfilled. The Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood was seemingly no more. Only the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood remained. Half of the historic Jewish capital was Judenrein.

In 1967, Jerusalem was liberated and reunited once again. But the victorious Jewish army did not drive out the Arab squatters. Instead in 1972 it restored the land in the Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood to the communal organizations which had owned it allowed them to remain on the condition that they paid rent. Those who refused, were evicted. Slowly Jews began to return to their old neighborhood again. A school opened and a normal semblance of life with it. However the US State Department and European government have continued fighting the Jewish presence in Jerusalem, demanding that it be restored to its former Judenrein status.

Over and over again, the diplomats have taken the side of the Arab squatters who stole the homes of the Jewish families living there, until Arab mobs and armies drove them out. Even when Jewish residents bought the land from those squatters, insuring the absolute legality of their ownership from any and every angle, their rights to live there have been denied. And those demanding an Apartheid Jerusalem, reserved for Arabs alone, have continued spewing lies and distorting the truth by claiming that Jews never lived in the Shimon HaTzaddik neighborhood. That the only reason Jews live there now is out of spite (this in a city where spiraling real estate prices and crowded conditions have made apartments incredibly difficult to find.) And finally that the only reason that a housing project that has been in the works for over a decade was approved-- was in order to insult Joseph Robinette Biden... and through him America.

And then there was the Ramat Shlomo construction project. Supposedly the straw that broke the "camel's" back. Ramat Shlomo is and has been a Jewish neighborhood for some time now. There are thousands of families living in it. The 1600 additional units are not being built on inhabited land. Nor was the land ever supposed to be turned over to the Palestinian Authority in any conceivable settlement. In fact during the previous round of negotiations, even the PA had conceded Ramat Shlomo.

Let me be very clear then. The building of houses for Jewish families in a neighborhood where Jews have lived for 134 years is not an insult. A housing project that has been in the works for over a decade was not a secret conspiracy to humiliate the idiot Vice President on his visit there. It is of course an insult, but not to America. Only to Islam.

American diplomats have not usually described Israeli policies they dislike as an "insult"-- that is a term much more commonly used by Muslims, who are obsessed with perceived slights to their honor. Complaints over an "insult" is a common feature of Honor-Shame societies. America is not an honor-shame society. However the White House is currently occupied by a man bred in an honor-shame society. It is Obama that feels "insulted" by Israel, both out of the sensitivity of his Muslim heritage and his own egotism, which regularly motivates him to humiliate Republicans, while triumphantly celebrating his own greatness.

It is natural enough for Barack Hussein Obama to rely on such cheap honor-shame gambits. They are what he grew up with. And it is natural enough for him to keenly feel the loss of face of Muslims. After all his father's family was Muslim. And Muslims are keenly "insulted" when they conquer territory and then cannot hold it. Whether that territory is in Jerusalem, Israel or Spain or India. They cannot stand to suffer the loss of face. And neither can Obama.

Had there been a Jewish or part-Jewish President in the White House, the media would be raising the question of whether he is showing favoritism toward Israel. A question that has been repeatedly raised regarding Joseph Lieberman. A question that was raised regarding Goldwater, who was a practicing Christian. But the media refuses to allow the question to be raised of whether Obama is favoring Muslims because of his own Muslim background and family ties. Instead the media brands any such questions as racist, and instead spearheads the administration's campaign against Israel.

So directed out of the White House, a media firestorm howls enraged at Israel for presuming to allow Jews to live in a neighborhood where they had lived for a 134 years. The outrage. The offense. Heads must roll for this. Panicked, Netanyahu has already rushed to appease Der Fuhrer, suspending all home development anywhere in Jerusalem. Netanyahu has already apologized for building homes for his own citizens in his own country, but that of course is not enough. It's never enough.

David Axelrod huffed, "This was an affront, it was an insult." Hillary Clinton, Suha Arafat's former kissyface partner, called Netanyahu to berate him. And then did it again in the round of interviews, proclaiming, "It was insulting. And-- it was insulting not just to the vice president, who-- certainly didn't deserve that-- But it was an insult to the United States." Biden added his own voice. So did a bevy of underlines. Israel's ambassador was summoned to be yelled at by the Deputy Secretary of State.

In his visit Biden had repeatedly insulted his Israeli hosts. First he brought along Chris Matthews who accused Israelis of disliking Obama because they're racists. He arrived an hour and a half late to a ceremonial dinner. In other words he acted like every bit of the predictable buffoon that he is. Which is also not surprising given his history of hostility to Israel going back decades.

But none of that really matters. The bottom line is that the Obama Administration has been wanting to pick a fight with Israel for some time now... while pretending to be the victims. Much like the way Germany faked a Polish attack as a pretext for invading Poland, Barack Hussein Obama needed a pretext for waging his own political Jihad against Israel. All the while whining about how badly the Israelis have insulted him.

If it hadn't been Shimon HaTzaddik or Ramat Shlomo, some other pretext would have been found. Sooner or later, some visiting dignitary would have been offended by Israelis going on with their lives. Resulting in just this kind of cynical tantrum designed to win over Muslims and further degrade Israel's abilities to defend itself. The entire incident staged in keeping with the Honor-Shame background of the man in the White House.

Meanwhile in Jerusalem, Jews were celebrating the rebuilding of the Hurva Synagogue. Built in the 1700's, the synagogue had been demolished twice by Arab Muslims. The second time in 1948 by the Jordanian Legion, in order to insure that Jews would never return to East Jerusalem. They were wrong then, as Obama is wrong now. The plans of Muslims to banish Jews from their historic capitol are both immoral and racist.

Meanwhile the PA's Jerusalem minister, Khatem Abd el-Kader, condemned the renovation of the Hurva Synagogue, warning Israel that it was "playing with fire" and urged Muslim Arabs to "protect" the Al Aqsa Mosque. Naturally of course the riots are of course already on the way. An echo of the riots that drove Jews out of Jerusalem in the 1930's. Then the rioters had shouted, "Itbach-al Yahud" and "Addowlah ma'anah". Kill the Jews, and The Government is With Us. Except the government they mean now is not the British colonial authorities, but the administration of Barack Hussein Obama.