Jewish-Christian tensions
Some of America's most powerful Protestant leaders sat in a nondescript room in Washington last week, listening to witnesses testify on the Israeli-Palestine dispute. The atmosphere was calm, but the charges swirling around the work of this extraordinary Middle East Panel of the National Council of Churches (N.C.C.) are not. Sixteen national Jewish organizations that were invited to testify boycotted the Washington session and previous hearings, publicly accusing the N.C.C. panel of an anti-Israel bias.
The dispute is as convoluted as the Middle East situation. The major issue, however, is possible American recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.) as the...
