German State head gives BDS Bethlehem Lutheran hate preacher $32,000

Via The Jerusalem Post (Benjamin Weinthal):

The Green Party president of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, personally delivered in late March a check for €30,000 ($32,000) to a Lutheran pastor in the West Bank who advocates the destruction of Israel. 

“Mitri Raheb [the Bethlehem pastor] authored the ‘Kairos Palestine document of Christians in Palestine’... the German- Israel Friendship Society already criticized the paper at the time of its publication in 2010, because it calls for economic sanctions against Israel... and speaks out against its right to exist,” the friendship society’s Stuttgart chapter wrote in a public letter to Kretschmann on April 9. 

The Stuttgart chapter said the Kairos paper “engages in propaganda against Israel using bogus theological arguments.” (...)  

Prof. Gerald Steinberg of the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor organization said: “We welcome the letter from the German-Israel Friendship Society in the Stuttgart region, and join in condemning the transfer of public money by state Gov. Kretschmann to Mitri Raheb. Raheb has a long history of immoral incitement against Israel and against the peace process, including his role as co-author of the infamous Kairos Palestine document, which promotes BDS and also glorifies violence against Israeli citizens. This document asserts that ‘Resistance is a right and a duty for Christians and all Palestinians.” 

Steinberg continued, “Raheb participates in events such as ‘Christ at the Checkpoint,’ promoting themes that echo theological antisemitism, including references to the DNA of Israeli Jews as coming from an ‘East European tribe who converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages.’ We join in urging Mr. Kretschmann to rescind his support for hate and violence.”

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