11/27/2004: "Presbyterians keep digging, trying to find bottom"

Ronald Stone, the Presbyterian elder and retired professor of social ethics who thought meeting with Hezbollah was an ethical thing to do, breaks out his shovel again:

Ronald H. Stone, a Presbyterian elder from Pittsburgh whose laudatory comments about a Lebanon-based terrorist group have sparked a storm of interdenominational protest, said yesterday his comments had been taken out of context.

Actually, the context was pretty well reported, but this is the standard excuse these days when someone says something outrageous.

Reached at his hotel in Jerusalem, where he was staying with a delegation representing the Presbyterian Church (USA), Stone said he was against all forms of terrorism, including that advocated by Hezbollah, the Shiite group he and 23 other Presbyterians met with Sunday in southern Lebanon.

Nice to know.

He said his comments at the meeting had been "blown out of proportion" and characterized them as "off-the-cuff remarks" extracted from the nearly 15 minutes he spoke.

Aren't you just dying to know what he said during the other 14 1/2 minutes?

An 83-second videotaped excerpt of the meeting, which first appeared on Hezbollah's television network, Al Manar, was translated later by the Middle East Media Research Institute and posted on its Web site. Sheik Nabil Qauq, the Hezbollah leader in southern Lebanon, speaks first, comparing American foreign policy to "an owl bringing bad tidings."

"All we hear from Bush are words of war, evil, destruction, killing, siege and threat," Nabil Qauq is translated as saying.

You know, the kind of stuff we hear from Hezbollah about Israel all the time. Not to mention that pigs and monkeys thing.

The videotape then shows Stone behind a microphone.

"We treasure the precious words of Hezbollah and your expression of goodwill toward the American people," Stone says. "Also we praise your initiative for dialogue and mutual understanding. We cherish these statements that bring us closer to you. As an elder of our church, I'd like to say that according to my recent experience, relations and conversations with Islamic leaders are a lot easier than dealings and dialogue with Jewish leaders."

Hezbollah's stated purpose since its founding has been the destruction of Israel, and it works in tandem with Iran to make life difficult for the "Great Satan." Where the "initiative for dialogue and mutual understanding" is, nobody except perhaps Ronald Stone knows. As for the last sentence, you wonder what Stone's experience is�if he goes around telling Jewish leaders that Israel should give terrorists anything their hearts desire, I imagine it would make it easier to deal with Islamic leaders than Jewish ones. (I don't know that he has said anything like that, but what else might he mean?)

Stone, an elder at East Liberty Presbyterian Church, said the meeting with Hezbollah was arranged through Presbyterian churches in southern Lebanon and the Middle East Council of Churches.

He had not been asked to speak, Stone said, but after Qauq's comments "somebody had to respond," he said.

Why did someone have to speak? Why did someone have to say anything more than, "thanks for talking to us"? Why did Stone, who wasn't leading the trip, feel the need to talk for 15 minutes on the spur of the moment? Why did they have to accept the arrangement of the meeting? And what in God's name is the Middle East Council of Churches doing consorting with terrorists?

"Our policy is we are seeking out lots of different voices," on the mission, Stone said. "I did not agree with the sheik's social and political analysis. I condemn terrorism and the [Presbyterian] Church condemns terrorism.

Different voices, eh? You wonder when the last time was that a Presbyterian delegation sought out the Klan's opinion on racial issues, or the NRA's on gun control, or Jerry Falwell's on homosexuality, or an Israeli settler's on just about anything. You also wonder if they are meeting with anyone in the Israeli government (anyone Jewish, that is) while they're in Israel.

"When you meet Hezbollah on a Sunday afternoon, they're not running around with guns. There are things that Hezbollah does that are a social service, such as health, education and social welfare."

And Hitler made the trains run on time and lifted Germany out of the Great Depression. Isn't that special?