World

Clashing Over Israel

Pastor Plummer sees anti-Israel
group's angry outbursts as a sign
of its frustration.

Don Cohen
Special to the Jewish News

A

showed how deftly a pro-Israel
African American undermines the
campaign to paint Israel as an apart-
heid state.
"The ARA was rude and aggres-
sive, but it wasn't out of control;' said
Miller, who works with students on
Midwest campuses to develop strate-
gies for combating anti-Israel senti-
ment in and outside of the classroom.
He said such confrontations "go with
the territory."
Jonathan Schwartz, a third-year law
student from Farmington Hills who
has been active in Israel advocacy
and countering the ARA, also was
impressed with how Pastor Plummer
handled the group. He says that
following the program an African
American woman was confronting an
ARA member who had insulted Pastor
Plummer before storming out of the

pro-Israel program at Wayne
State University last week
went off without a hitch
though the campus group Anti-Racist
Action (ARA-WSU) had threatened to
disrupt the program and the speaker
it had branded as "racist:'
"It was my first time being accused
of being a racist. It was classic," said
a slightly bemused and completely
unbowed Glenn Plummer, the African
American senior pastor of Detroit's
Ambassadors For Christ Church and
co-chair of the Fellowship of Israel
and Black America (FIBA).
"All I can do is totally discount
it as an absolute absurdity;' Pastor
Plummer said.
ARA-WSU has made opposing
MOM.
Israel's right to exist the centerpiece
"She told [him] that he had some
of its efforts. A flyer members distrib-
nerve to use her people to make a
uted on campus prior to the Feb. 28
program called Pastor Plummer's
support of Israel a "shame-
ful blasphemy," condemns the
"American Empire charges local
Zionists with "white supremacist
politics" and dismisses both
Jewish and black supporters of
the civil rights movement as
"patronizing liberals."
Nonetheless, the program
went smoothly until the question
and answer period when Pastor
Plummer was interrupted while
responding to questions and
statements and a number of ARA
members mixed personal attacks
with political arguments.
Pastor Plummer chose to char-
acterize the anger and attention
given to his appearance as a pos-
itive sign. "It is very encourag-
ing," he said. "They are obviously
Pastor Glenn Plummer makes a strong
very frustrated. We are making
point.
serious inroads with our mes-
political point',' Schwartz said. "I
sage to Christian African Americans
was proud that she was rejecting his
and Jews:'
attempts to divide our communities."
The David Project's Erik Miller
The program was sponsored by
commended Pastor Plummer for how
Hillel of Metro Detroit, Students for
he handled the issues and the per-
sonal attacks. He said the pastor's cool, Israel, FIBA and the David Project.
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1227150

March 8 2007

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