David Hallam: A Voice against hatred fights the UK Methodist Church resolution of support for a boycott of Israel.
Methodist preacher David Hallam has fought strenuously against his own church’s Boycott of Israel and considered suing his own church over its use of charitable donations to pursue a campaign of discrimination against Israeli Jews.
The Methodist Church of Great Britain is the United Kingdom's fourth largest Christian denomination, with around 300,000 members and 6,000 churches. The Methodist Conference on June 30, 2010 approved resolutions associated with the report “Justice for Palestine and Israel”. The conference called on Methodists to boycott Israeli goods produced in the West Bank.
The 50-plus page report “Justice for Palestine and Israel” was created by a working group established at the 2009 meeting of the Methodist Conference. This group was charged with creating a report that outlined the British Methodist Church's understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
A comprehensive analysis of the document was made by Camera: Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America.
The report takes the anti-Zionist narrative put forth by Israel's adversaries in the Middle East, repackages it a bit, and then offers it to Methodists in England in the guise of fair-minded analysis and peacemaking.
Camera describes the document as a series of one-sided condemnations of Israeli policies regarding the settlements, the security barrier and the blockade of the Gaza Strip. By way of comparison, the working group offers little, if any criticism of Hamas' mistreatment of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, it's theft of humanitarian aid and its refusal to accept Israel's right to exist.
The document subjects Israeli policy and Jewish self-understanding to intense scrutiny but offers nary a word of criticism of the anti-Semitic ideologies used to justify violence against Israel and to deny its right to exist. The report also puts forth a narrative in which Israel can bring a unilateral end to the conflict through concessions and withdrawals without acknowledging that such actions have not worked in the past.
In particular, the document reveals its authors are obsessed with Israeli use of force and indifferent to the ideologically and theologically motivated hostility toward Jews and Israel that afflicts many quarters of the Middle East.
The central theme of the Methodist document: The Arab-Israeli conflict is the consequence of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. It states this premise as follows: "For this report, the key hindrance to security and a lasting peace for all in the region is the Occupation of Palestinian territory by the State of Israel, now in its fifth decade.“ (Page 180)
This fails to take into account an enduring and troubling reality of the Arab-Israeli conflict – that Israeli withdrawals have often been a precursor to increased violence. By arguing that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is the cause of the conflict and then asserting that this conflict undermines the prospects for peace in “the whole Middle East, not to say the peace of the world” the working group has lent legitimacy to the anti-Semitic trope of the Jews being the cause of the world's wars.
It invokes teachings regarding the Holy Land to impose a utopian standard of conduct on Israel while remaining virtually silent about what the Holy Land demands of Israel's adversaries. The document asserts Israeli Jews have an obligation to behave as a “paradigm nation” where justice and wisdom are seen to be done so it will be revealed to the rest of humanity how the divine will is to be fulfilled. Hence, Israel's vocation is as the paradigm nation without acknowledging the genocidal hostility directed at them by offshoots of the Muslim brotherhood, namely Hamas and Hezbollah.
David Hallam understood the biased nature of the report and the conference decision and accused his church of wasting funds to pursue a vendetta against Israel. There are no Methodist churches in either Israel or the Occupied Territories.
He said: "What I object to is money which I am putting on the collection plate on a Sunday being used to fund a political campaign against the Jewish state. This is both discriminatory and a misuse of a charity's funds.
"The Methodist Church seems to think it has a God given right to tell Jews how to run their affairs. It is very disturbing we are getting involved in a territory where we don't have any members or churches."
Mr. Hallam recruited Paul Diamond, a barrister with expertise in human rights law and religious law, to bring the case. Mr. Diamond will argue that the Methodist resolution passed in the summer is in breach of European human rights law and a wide-ranging European Union directive on racism.
By singling out Israel, rather than other countries with often worse human rights records, Mr. Diamond will claim the church is being deliberately prejudiced against the Jewish state.
Mr. Hallam said: "I tried to handle this internally and wrote to the Church to say I'm not certain we have the power to use donations from the collection to run a discriminatory campaign against Israeli Jews.
"I object to the one-sided and bigoted approach.
David Hallam has continued to fight the hatred against Jews as expressed at meetings held at Methodist churches. In his blog, http://www.methodistpreacher.co.uk/, he fights against Methodist Church decisions to support the Palestine Solidarity Campaign because of the risk that the church would be reduced to being tarred with the same brush as some very undesirable elements. He has called for a realization that a large motivation for the anti-Israel activity comes from old fashioned anti-Semitism both within Christianity and Islam.
On 7 October 2011, he reported on anti-Semitism openly expressed at a Methodist church in Hammersmith.
One person was recorded as saying when asked about the Holocaust: "I don't know, I wasn't there" in response to our question "Were there gas chambers in the concentration camps?" We also recorded her saying "a few hundred thousand" Jews died in the Holocaust. "How did they die?" we asked. "They had their foreskins chopped off ...."
We also recorded her saying "You are using the fuc*ing Holocaust to kill the Palestinians."
On 12 October 2011, he reported on anti-Semitic views expressed by people attending a meeting on Methodist church premises at the Rivercourt Methodist Church in West London earlier in the month.
A woman supporter of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) was recorded saying that a "few hundred thousand" Jews died in the Holocaust when "they had their foreskins chopped off". She also told Jews present "You are using the fu*king Holocaust to kill the Palestinians." According to those present she made the comments in the church and then repeated them outside where they were recorded.
David Hallam found that Methodist Connexional officials at the highest level, who are responsible for the Church’s vision of unity, mission, evangelism and worship, actually gave the go ahead for the meeting to take place, despite the PSC holding views that are directly contrary to Methodist Conference policy supporting the right of Israel to live within secure borders. The PSC logo, on display in the Methodist Church during the meeting, clearly envisages the destruction of Israel.
The Reverend Doctor Peter Phillips, secretary of the powerful Methodist Church Faith and Order Committee claimed on the Hallam blog that "Nothing in the meeting itself contravened SO 921 and the minister was present to ensure this.
Hallam feels that It beggars belief that Connexional officers saw this as a legitimate meeting to be held on Methodist premises and then have their agreement endorsed by the Secretary of the Faith and Order Committee. The relevant standing order SO 921 makes it clear that political meetings should be held in very specific circumstances including a provision that such a meeting should not have a detrimental effect on the peace and unity of the church and its witness. Meetings should also be held within the context of specifically Christian theology and ethics.
David Hallam comes from Hackney in East London. He went to Sussex University where he was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Afterwards he completed postgraduate diplomas in management studies (DMS) and marketing (DipM). He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (MCIM) and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (MCIPR). David has recently completed a PRINCE2 Foundation course. He founded his interim management company, Horizon Glen Ltd, in 2003.
David Hallam served as an elected British Labour PartyMember of the European Parliament for the Herefordshire and Shropshire constituency in England between 1994 and 1999. He specialized in agriculture, rural affairs, food processing and the drinks industry as an active member of the Agricultural and Rural Affairs Committee.
He played an important part in the European Union's response to the mad-cow disease crisis which affected British farming during his term of office. He also took a keen interest in e-commerce, telemedics and economic development. In addition he was very skeptical about the benefits of bio-technology, especially its patenting, and expressed his opposition to religious intolerance.
David was a member of the EU/ACP Joint Parliamentary Assembly, the Joint Committee of the European Parliament and the Slovak National Council, and the standing delegation to the Israeli Knesset. He was the President of the Parliament's monthly Prayer Breakfast.
Since leaving the European Parliament David Hallam has continued with his work as an unpaid Methodist preacher. He has earned his living in public relations and in 2003 published his first book "Eliza Asbury" which chronicled the life of the mother of Francis Asbury, the first Bishop of the Methodist Church in the United States.
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