References to the Old Testament triggered Ateek’s harshest words against “Christian Zionists,” identified as people who “take the Bible literally. They read every part of the Bible as authoritative. We don’t see the Bible that way,” he said.

Waiving a copy of “Kairos Palestine,” an anti-Israel manifesto that accuses the Jewish state of “apartheid,” the Rev. Naim Ateek (an Episcopalian priest) urged a gathering of North Carolina Presbyterians and Episcopalians to boycott Caterpillar, Inc. and refuse to purchase Israeli goods and services.

Ateek’s Nov. 3 presentation in Calvin Hall at Burlington’s First Presbyterian Church was hosted by the church’s minister, the Rev. Ron Shive, a member the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Middle East Monitoring Group.

Ateek’s visit to Shive’s church was a whistle stop in a cross-country itinerary, a trip planned by “Friends of Sabeel” to promote the Palestinian cause among grassroots Presbyterians and Episcopalians. Lamenting the fact that neither denomination’s highest governing body has agreed to divest its portfolios of companies that help “the Zionists,” Ateek said, “We now take this to the grassroots.”…

Ateek’s tale, similar to accounts recited by former PCUSA Moderator Fahed Abu Akel, was heart rending, and it evoked a sympathetic response from members of his North Carolina audience. Building on that sympathy, Ateek quickly called forth the Palestinian’s public policy agenda: force Israel to abandon its settlements, tear down the wall that Israel built to protect itself from suicide bombers and retreat from “occupied territory” to its 1947 borders.

Only one person in the audience voiced skepticism regarding Ateek’s instant transition from tragic personal experience to the proposed re-drawing of territorial borders.

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