IPMN Condemns Xenophobia and Racist Rhetoric

 July 19, 2019 — The rhetoric of racism and xenophobia continues to alarm Americans in a time of deteriorating social norms. When a crowd is encouraged to shout “send her back” at a political rally and echoes the narrative of white supremacy and xenophobic nationalism, we are in dangerous territory.

The Israel Palestine Mission Network (IPMN) of the Presbyterian Church (USA) strongly condemns any use of such language as well as the use of racist rhetoric such as “go back to where you came from”, which the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) identifies as textbook examples of unlawful bigoted harrasment. On its website, the federal agency, which enforces the government's employment discrimination laws, states that “ethnic slurs and other verbal or physical conduct because of nationality are illegal…” 

We stand with Rep. Ilhan Omar who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Somalia; as a member of Congress, she is a role model for…

IPMN Partners with JAI

Keep Hope Alive Trips

Launched in 2002, the JAI' Olive Tree Campaign distributes olive saplings among farmers, sponsored by individuals, YMCAs, YWCAs, churches, church related organizations, human rights organizations, as well as solidarity and advocacy groups around the world, as an act of solidarity and support to help 'Keep Hope Alive'. The farmers supported are these who suffer from the various Israeli policies that put their land and property under the threat of confiscation, and the sponsored olive trees get planted in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip areas where olive trees have been uprooted and destroyed by the Israelis, or where fields are threatened to be confiscated by the Israeli military Occupation, or where parts of the Israeli apartheid wall and settlements are constructed on part of the land.

"Security reasons" is the Israeli excuse given for the uprooting of trees, while in reality Palestinians' olive trees are destroyed for the…

The purpose of the seminars is to struggle with and to address the serious theological problems which arise when the traditions of a religious community and its way of reading the scriptures assert that its members are somehow chosen, set apart, called or covenanted to be in a unique and specially privileged relationship with God to the exclusion of all others. These assertions have profoundly affected the self understanding, the relationships to those outside the religious community and the attitudes and values of many within the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions across the centuries. And, secular nation-states, like the USA, Israel, and others sometimes make similar claims of divine election.  

It is one thing to affirm that every man, woman and child on earth is created in the image and likeness of God, is infinitely loved by God and therefore is of infinite value. It is quite another to claim that belonging to one or another of these religious or national communities…