c. 1997 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ The National Council of Churches has quietly shelved a promised review of its Middle East policy statement, saying it did so to avoid confusion over the purpose of a recent visit to the region by an NCC delegation.

However, a spokesman for an American Jewish group that expected to be consulted during the review process said he had been led to believe the NCC was still in the process of updating its position paper on sensitive and contentious Middle East issues.

New York Rabbi Joel Meyers said Wednesday (Sept. 24) that officials with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations expected the review on the basis of repeated spoken and written NCC communications with the Jewish agency.

NCC Middle East policy is a consistent thorn in the ecumenical church group’s delicate relationship with Jewish organizations, who generally view the NCC as biased toward the Arab side of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute while they tend to be defensive of Israel.

Those tensions boiled over last December when the NCC signed a New York Times ad calling for”a shared”Jerusalem. Israel claims the city as its undivided capital and Palestinians want it as their future capital. Jewish leaders said they should have been advised of the ad by the NCC in advance of its publication.

In January, the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, NCC general secretary, wrote to Leon Levy, then chairman of the Conference of Presidents, saying her group”has committed itself to a wholesale review of the Middle East policy which has guided our work for over a decade. While this statement has served us well, it is time for us to review it.” At the time, Campbell said the NCC’s decision to review the policy had been taken”some years ago”as part of its regular process of re-evaluating position papers. She also said she expected no change in the NCC’s overall Middle East policy, which calls for”safe and secure”borders for Israel and recognition of the Palestinians”as a people”entitled to a”homeland.” Campbell also told Religion News Service in January that”one of the weaknesses of the (Times) ad was that there was not sufficient consultation with the Jewish community”prior to its publication.

She also called the NCC Middle East statement outdated in view of recent Israeli and Palestinian efforts _ currently stalemated _ to negotiate a lasting peace.

Nonetheless, Campbell said Wednesday that the NCC _ an organization of 33 Orthodox Christian and Protestant church groups _ never intended a full-scale review of its Middle East policy, which was adopted in 1980. All that was ever planned, she said, was”a modest look”at updating some of the statement’s”facts.” Media and public misunderstanding, Campbell said, interpreted the review plan”as something much greater than we had intended.”Of all the (NCC’s) policy statements, this is one of them that has best stood the test of time,”she said of her organization’s 18-page Middle East statement.

In a brief written statement Thursday (Sept. 25), Campbell added:”As general secretary, in consultation with the NCC’s member churches and with our partners in the region, I determined that a major rewrite of the Middle East policy was not necessary.” The NCC approved a separate statement limited to Jerusalem in November 1996. Strongly critical of such Israeli actions as limiting Palestinian access to the city, it also noted that”Israel has suffered grievously from the senseless violence of terrorism,”which was attributed to Palestinian”frustration.” A nine-member NCC delegation led by Campbell recently spent 16-days visiting Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The trip, which ended Sept. 8, was the first by an official NCC delegation to the Middle East in a decade, and was billed as an effort”to renew ties with church partners in that region.” Meyers, who represents the Conference of Presidents’ on this issue, said he was surprised when told the NCC had dropped its review.

Meyers, executive vice president of Conservative Judaism’s Rabbinical Assembly, said frequent and recent contacts with Campbell and other NCC officials had left him”under the assumption that a policy review … would be done and is certainly in order.”Our view is that we would always like to see policy that is more level in its understanding of the tensions in the Middle East and Israel’s relations with its neighbors,”he said.

The Conference of Presidents, which speaks on Middle East issues for some 50 national Jewish groups, has long claimed the New York-based NCC is inherently biased toward the Palestinian side. The bias, it alleges, stems from the close association the NCC and many of its member denominations have with various Arab Christian churches.

Campbell dismisses such criticism as unfair, saying the NCC strives to be evenhanded. But she said the NCC is bound to come into conflict with some Jewish groups because of its criticism of Israeli government policies it sees as oppressing Palestinians.

Meyers said he understood the”difficult position”Campbell was in as head of an organization”pushing and pulling her in different directions”on volatile Middle East issues.

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Campbell said the Middle East policy review was shelved prior to the NCC delegation’s recent trip to the region.”We made a decision to unhook (the review) from this trip so there would be no confusion … We wanted this trip focused only on relations with the (Middle East) churches,”she said.”We’re not reviewing the (policy) statement at this time.” While in the region, the NCC met more than 50 times with Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant church representatives associated with the Middle East Council of Churches. NCC officials also met with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Israeli government representatives _ including David Bar-Illan, a top aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu _ and other regional political figures.

Despite meeting with those political leaders, Campbell said Wednesday”this was not a trip to reassess the peace process or assess political realities in the Middle East. This was a trip to meet with our church partners.” Meyers said the Conference of Presidents had been told in advance that focus of the NCC visit was to re-establish church ties.

MJP END RIFKIN