Presbyterian Moderator who blames Palestinian suffering on "the Jewish Lobbies" says "I quite love the Jewish community"

Orwell couldn't have done a better job if he had invented Rev. Rick Horst.

Good ol' fashioned Jew-hate from the Presbyterian Church of Canada

The Canadian Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center reported today about a one-sided, anti-Israel presentation by representatives of the Presbyterian Church of Canada that occurred at St. Andrews Church in Toronto on Thursday December 15, 2011. It was the account of a few Presbyterian representatives who responded to the anti-Semitic KAIROS Palestine document  that dismisses violence against Israel and includes terminology such as “The West sought to make amends for what Jews had endured in the countries of Europe, but it made amends on our account and in our land. They tried to correct an injustice and the result was a new injustice.”

The KAIROS Palestine document seeks to delegitimize any biblical attachment between Jews and the land of Israel and explicitly calls for “resistance” against Israel while ignoring the causes of the middle east conflict, Israel’s need for security due to the many and ongoing acts of terror by Palestinians and Arabs against Israelis.  

The document is a disgrace, which wrong-headedly attempts to lend the ideology of Christianity to support Palestinian renunciation of the peace process.  

Rick Horst, the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, reported on his impressions of the Israel Palestine conflict after a trip there and seems to have taken the idiot's guided tour, which features complaints about Israeli "injustice" but neglects to mention the suicide bombings, the Palestinian state TV shows that call for the murder of Jews, and the Palestinians' government-sponsored incitement to violence in their schools and mosques .

Horst, who is also Minster of the Barrie, Ontario`s St. Andrews`s Church, decided to  utilize a common  anti-Semitic canard in his report and said (see from 8:16 in linked video), "Palestinians are daily harassed and abused and treated with indignities that are simply not allowable under international law,  yet it continues to persist  because of frankly the power of the Jewish and Zionist lobbies both in America and frankly all around the world including Canada`.  

You get that? According to the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, the plight of the Palestinians isn't due to their ongoing attempts at terror, or their failure to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. The fact that Palestinians impose the death penalty on anyone who sells land to a Jew doesn't make them an Apartheid state. It's because of an evil Jewish plot. And our politicians' support for Israel, like that of the Prime Minister of Canada, or federal Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney, or Liberal Party leader Bob Rae isn't because they have sided with a free, liberal democracy that provides equal voting rights to all its citizens over an undemocratic entity devoted to terrorism. Horst's implication is that it's because Canada's political leaders are under the influence of the Jews and Zionists.

What Horst is reporting is not a very accurate reflection of the situation in Israel and Palestine. But it is a sad reflection of the deplorable infusion of classic anti-Semitism at the highest reaches of Canada's Presbyterian Church.

UPDATE: Some interesting background on Rev. Horst. It seems the fellow ran for a federal Liberal nomination a few years back while still a member of the NDP. After that was exposed, he was defeated for the nomination in a special re-vote.

UPDATE 2: Here is the document produced by the "Bethlehem Call" to which Rev. Horst responded so enthusiastically.

It produced idiotic, morally reprehensible statements such as:

"Today, the illegal regime and illegal forms of the Israeli occupation of Palestine assumes

dimensions of systemic injustice whereby the unthinkable and unimaginable becomes globally accepted, supported and normalized. This is an example of Empire (global domination) at work."

"The brutality in the “violence of silence” internationally provides an almost impenetrable shield for the Israeli government to implement its evil designs in blatant disregard for human rights and international law. Silence is an opinion. Inaction is an action. We witness decidedly spineless cowardice in failure to resist the Israeli government by the majority of governments, political parties, media outlets, businesses, most of organized religion including Christianity and the silence of  prophets worldwide."

"The deligitimization and criminalization of the Israeli government and its local and international support base is gaining unstoppable momentum."

There's plenty more, all equally stupid.