Tear Fund and “the Justice of Jesus”
2012
Tear Fund and “the Justice of Jesus"
Transcript
In a recent interview of Tear Fund's Stephen Tollestrup, we were told that Tear Fund stands for the justice of Jesus. Tear Fund has long been controversial for its commitment to what many of us believe to be anti-Zionism, aberrant theology, and worse. Identifying Tear Fund's position as the justice of Jesus seems, at the very least, audacious.
So... what does Tollestrup mean when he claims that Tear Fund stands for the justice of Jesus?
In a book, published here in New Zealand,(1) Tollestrup makes this statement: "Most Palestinians seek a just and equitable settlement"
In the same book he presents what he calls myths that stand in the way of Christians being better informed. He boldly claims it is a “myth that Palestinian resistance is terrorist in character”.
As it happens, Arab polls were conducted in the same twelve month period in which Tollestrup made these claims. The polls were undertaken by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research -hardly a pro-Israel body. 1270 Arabs were polled in West Bank and Gaza. When questioned about the terrorist bombing of a religious school in West Jerusalem in which eight young Jewish students were murdered, 84% of those polled declared their support. Lest this result be dismissed as an anomaly, the same poll revealed that 62% supported the kidnapping of IDF soldiers to be held as hostages.
73% percent affirmed a portion of Article 7 in the Hamas Charter, advocating the murder of Jews: Quote 'The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.'"
Despite the overwhelming Arab support for terror and the murder of Israelis indicated in this poll, Mr Tollestrup insists it is merely a myth that Palestinian resistance is terrorist in character. And Tollestrup boldly makes the claim that Tear Fund stands for the justice of Jesus.
In a fifteen year period, 1557 Israelis were murdered by Arab terrorists. 17,000 were maimed or injured.
Perhaps this too is considered a myth by Mr Tollestrup.
Mr Tollestrup's Tear Fund colleague, Frank Ritchie, in a recent video,(2) told us he has a problem with the word terrorist. In a futile and somewhat perverse attempt to infer some kind of moral equivalence between Arab terror and defensive actions by the IDF, Ritchie tells us he would rather do away with the term terrorism.
Unfortunately for Israeli civilians, this is not a matter of semantics. For thousands of murdered and maimed Israeli civilians terrorism is more than just terminology. For those of us still willing to assign real meaning to language, it is terrorism itself, not the term, that is the problem.
In a recent video Tollestrup made the statement: "The Palestinian issue is really a defining justice issue of our time". Perhaps he is right. But not in the sense he intends. Tear Fund's approach to the Arab Israeli issue exposes the agency's moral inversion and distorted sense of justice.
Consider for example Tear Fund's financial support for the Arab group Holy Land Trust. Tear Fund's Frank Ritchie, in a recent interview with Rev Dr Stephen Sizer, was radiant in his praise of Holy Land Trust. He described them as catalysts for peace and reconciliation, and tells us that they are developing leaders for the next generation.(3)
And yet when we check the Holy Land Trust's website we find on their homepage an unmistakably positive reference to mass murderer and terrorist Yasser Arafat. HLT says that since Arafat's death there has been "a tangible absence of visionary leadership."
This is the group that TF is funding as they stand for the justice of Jesus.
HLT's executive director, Sami Awad has been widely reportedly as stating that non-violent demonstrations are “not a substitute for the armed struggle.”
HLT operates its own news service, PNN, and we hoped that the Christian spirit of the group would be evident.
Instead we find a vicious piece that describes the Israelis as:
... a nefarious, sadistic enemy that excels like nobody else in the arts of torture and oppression.
...the Nazis of our time, namely these Zionist beasts who have introduced into our region everything they had learned from their Nazi mentors -from mass starvation to genocidal killings.
The article goes on to refer to Israel's ...sadistic and cannibalistic urges to inflict pain and suffering...(4)
This 21st century version of the ancient blood libel is published by a group that Rev Dr Stephen Sizer refers to as a Christian ministry. It is a group that is supported financially by Tear Fund NZ. Furthermore, this group is said by Frank Ritchie to be Tear Fund's main project amongst the Palestinians.
So... this is how Tear Fund expresses its commitment to the justice of Jesus:
It financially supports a group that publishes vicious, libelous and shameful propaganda against Israelis whilst commending the group to Tear Fund donors for its development of leaders for the next generation. It claims that it is merely a myth that Palestinian resistance is terrorist in character while polls conducted by the Palestinians themselves demonstrate overwhelming support for the murder of Israeli Jews.
Tear Fund behaves this way while claiming to stand for the justice of Jesus.
That is not justice. Nor is it the justice of Jesus.
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Notes
1. Israel: 5 Views on People, Land and State (2009)
2. In a video conversation with Rev Dr Stephen Sizer published online. Video was apparently taken down shortly after Tear Fund and the “Justice of Jesus” was published.
3. Video on file.
4. We Must Not Betray Our Suspended Martyrs, Published Tuesday, 08 May 2012, by Khaled Amayreh. The offending material was taken down shortly after Tear Fund and the “Justice of Jesus” was published. On file.