The 1.4-million-member United Church of Christ will vote this summer on whether to divest from certain U.S. firms doing business with Israel, a protest against the Jewish state's occupation of Palestinian territories, church officials said Friday.

The measure would single out as possible divestment targets U.S. corporations "involved with Israel's illegal occupations of the West Bank and Gaza, the construction of the 'security fence,' and the continuation of...Israeli settlements within Palestinian territories...."

By Teresa Watanabe, LA Times Staff Writer

A large, two-story building built by Southern Baptists in the 1950s of beautiful, locally quarried limestone, with an incomparable view of the city of Nazareth, Israel, Jesus' boyhood home, is being put up for sale.

The spacious villa, owned by the International Mission Board (IMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention, has become the center of controversy between Baptists in Israel and IMB leadership in Richmond, Virginia. The upcoming sale is part of a series of world-wide property sales held in order to raise funds for IMB ministry projects around the world. Baptists in Israel do not dispute that the IMB is the legal owner of the property but they strongly oppose its sale. The facility is currently being used as center for ministry into the city of Nazareth as well as the Galilee.

Special For Come and See, May 5, 2005

Leaders of the Greek Orthodox Church in the Holy Land have announced that they are breaking off all contact with the embattled Patriarch Irineos I because of corruption suspicions and consider him dismissed.

Aljazeera.net, May 5, 2005

Christian communities actively courting Israelis, whose members are collectively known as Messianic Jews, have been considerably reinforced by recent immigration waves and now comprise some 10,000 Israelis, according to Messianic leaders and their Jewish opponents.

Eitan Shishkoff, who heads the Messianic community in Kiryat Yam outside Haifa, said there are 10,000 members in roughly 80 Messianic congregations across the country. This figure has approximately doubled since the wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union began in the late 1980s.

LARRY DERFNER and KSENIA SVETLOVA, THE JERUSALEM POST, April 28, 2005

The venerable Rep. Henry Hyde is a staunch supporter of Israel, but he is also a prominent Catholic layman known for telling the truth. He did so two weeks ago to Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres. He made clear how unhappy he was that Israel's government had ignored his previous protests about the destruction of the Christian community in the Holy Land.

At a closed-door session of the House International Relations Committee that he heads, Hyde told Peres that Israeli security practices ''in the center of Christianity's most holy places'' are "turning them into a military zone." Peres conceded to Hyde these are hard times for Christians in the Holy Land, but predictably blamed their troubles on the Palestinian Arabs.

BY ROBERT NOVAK, SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST, April 18, 2005

A bipartisan, congressionally appointed commission on religious freedom criticized the State Department yesterday for failing to punish Saudi Arabia after it censured the regime last fall for its restrictions on non-Muslim worship.

"These persistent delays in the process serve only to signal that the United States does not take seriously [the International Religious Freedom Act's] stated and mandated commitments to promote religious freedom and other human rights throughout the world," the chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Preeta Bansal, said in a public statement yesterday.

The New York Sun, April 19, 2005

The Baptist Village, a small conference center near Petah Tikva in the center of Israel is suing the Local Committee for Design and Construction in Petah Tikva for 60 Million NIS.
It claims that the committee's re-zoning plan for the area means changing the destination of their land and loosing any potential to build in the future - therefore lowering the value of their land to a very low price.

Special for Come and See, April 27, 2005

A group of Arab evangelicals in Israel held their first ever convention on April 16. One of the worship songs, "Salam, Salam - Peace to the people of the Lord, whereever they are" was a perfect setting for the celebration.

The convention, bringing together some 500 participants from churches and evangelical organizations, took place at a wedding hall near Shefa-Amr, a city between Nazareth and Haifa.

Special for "Come and See", April 17, 2005

An Amman court of Islamic law ruled in favor of Christian widow Siham Qandah today, revoking the legal guardianship of her children?s Muslim uncle and ordering him to repay misspent funds withdrawn from their orphan trust accounts.

I still can?t believe it!? Qandah told Compass today, laughing and crying. ?I am so happy, I am just speechless. I can?t even describe my emotions.? Although she had already called her children from Amman, she said she could not wait to travel back home to Husn and tell them in person.

Compass Direct, April 12, 2005