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News & Analysis Press Releases
Download the Christian Leaders' Letter to Congress on U.S. Military Aid to Israel, Oct. 2012
Read the powerful responses - pro and con - to the Letter to Congress »
UMKR Supports Review of Military Aid to Israel
For immediate release
October 16, 2012 - United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR) urges Congress to listen to the recent call from Christian leaders for a review of US military aid to Israel. It reflects decades of similar appeals from our denomination, which strenuously opposes the continued confiscation of Palestinian land by the Israeli government.
In 2001, the United Methodist Council of Bishops called for ending US aid to Israel until “all human rights violations cease, building of roads for the purpose of dividing the Palestinian lands …cease, no more Jewish settlements are built in occupied territories, and all home demolitions cease.” In 2004, 2008 and 2012, the church's global policy forum, the General Conference, reiterated its call for an end to Israel's occupation and urged the US government to end all military aid to the region. This year's General Conference put actions behind its words by endorsing a boycott of all products made by Israeli companies on occupied Palestinian land.
United Methodist clergy, laity, and mission staff have been visiting and living in Israel and Palestine for many years, and have seen the Israeli military's grave and systematic abuses of Palestinian human rights and international law with their own eyes. These witnesses, representing all the major constituencies within the church, have repeatedly asked us to stop pretending that this is a conflict between parties with equal power. It might well be easier to remain neutral, as critics urge, but this is no longer possible.
Since our government is in effect supporting Israel's human rights abuses through unrestricted funding of its military, we have a moral duty to speak out against these injustices that are being perpetrated with our tax dollars. United Methodists have repeatedly condemned racism, anti-Semitism, and all other abuses of basic human rights around the world, from Sudan to South Africa to the cucumber fields of North Carolina. If American Christians must be faulted for any kind of bias, it should be for not applying our ethical and moral standards uniformly to Israel's 45-year-old occupation and colonization of Palestinian land, and its denial of Palestinian human rights and freedom.
About UMKR: In 2009, thousands of Palestinian Christians signed an urgent plea to the churches of the world to help end the brutal occupation of their land. United Methodists for Kairos Response is a global grassroots group formed to answer that call.
Dec. 2016 – Please note that this press release has been updated with UMKR's new name: United Methodists for Kairos Response.
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