WorldNetDaily: Are mainline churches anti-Semitic?

You don't say?

For nearly 2000 years now, Christians have been told that the Jews killed Christ (Mel Gibson was only the latest celebrity to rehash the old deicide yarn).
They have been told that the Jews were the Chosen People, that is, until the Messiah came and they chose to ignore him. It is now the Christians who have replaced the Jews, just as the New Testament has replaced the Old Testament as the Bible.

Most Christians don't act upon the Church's old teachings anymore. But two millennia of indoctrination almost equals a genetic cell structure change. You can't just undo this by stating that things are now different, the Jews are really quite ok, etc.

The Institute on Religion and Democracy, a monitor of the mainline denominations, says that of the 197 human-rights criticisms issued by the churches between 2000 and 2003, only 31 percent were aimed at countries other than the United States or Israel.

About 37 percent of the statements criticized Israel while 31 percent were directed at the United States.

"Great attention to the United States may be expected from churches that find their homes there," the report says. "But the dramatic focus on Israel as opposed to many more repressive regimes, including other U.S. allies known for human rights abuses (such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt), must be challenged."

This score is a lot better than the UN, where just about all criticism and censure is directed at Israel, and none at all at countries like N-Korea, most Arab countries, China, etc, well, you know who they are.

But still.

Diane Knippers, president of the IRD, contends an "extreme focus on Israel, while ignoring major human rights violators, seriously distorts the churches' message on universal human rights."

"We cannot find a rational explanation for the imbalance," she said in a statement. "We are forced to ask: Is there an anti-Jewish animus, conscious or unconscious, that drives this drumbeat of criticism against the world's only Jewish state?"

The report says, "Given the dramatic unwillingness of the mainline churches to criticize states around Israel for their human rights abuses – not only the connections to worldwide terrorism, but also the oppression and brutality toward their own people – it is not unreasonable to ask whether anti-Jewish animus may play some role in the churches' skewed human rights advocacy."

Please read it all: Are mainline churches anti-Semitic?