Christian leaders from around Massachusetts yesterday added their voices to those of three Episcopal bishops calling for greater concern for Palestinian rights, as Jewish leaders decried the Tuesday protest by the bishops outside the Israeli consulate in Boston as unfairly one-sided.
Following the most dramatic local expression of Christian concern over the conduct of the Israeli government, many Christians and Jews said they were worried that a growing divide over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might endanger a relationship Christians and Jews have worked hard to forge since World War II.
Christian anger over Israeli conduct increased sharply over the last two weeks, after Israel invaded Bethlehem, traditionally regarded as the birthplace of Jesus, and a young Palestinian died in gunfire in Manger Square.
Leaders of a number of denominations said they would work hard to prevent erosion of Jewish-Christian relations. But no Christian leader interviewed yesterday criticized the Episcopal bishops, although most went to greater pains to acknowledge the deaths of Jews as well as Palestinians.
''There is brokenheartedness for everyone who gets killed in the Middle East,'' said the Rev. Nancy S. Taylor, the top minister of the Massachusetts conference of the United Church of Christ. ''We have to cry as many tears over Jewish deaths as Palestinian deaths.''
But Taylor was among Christian leaders who said they are concerned about the plight of Palestinians since Israel invaded several West Bank towns after a Palestinian group murdered an Israeli Cabinet official.
''The bishops did a provocative thing because they were trying to get people to take seriously the urgent situation there, and while I'm sure it was difficult to do what they did, I think they've called attention to a very deep problem, and that is that there needs to be a Palestinian state within Palestine as well as a state of Israel,'' Taylor said.
Bishop Margaret G. Payne, the top official of the New England synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, agreed.
''We certainly have sympathy with the Israeli victims of the suicide bombers who seem adamantly opposed to seeking peace,'' Payne said. ''But recently there's been so much additional destruction of Palestinian homes and property, and we're seeking for the media to tell the whole story. It's true Israeli folks are getting killed by suicide bombers, but Palestinian children are being shot almost every day, and the story of all the oppression that the Palestinians are under doesn't get told.''
And the Rev. William G. Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, said, ''I am increasingly concerned and convinced that moving toward real justice in that part of the world is going to require the United States to understand that there is more than one image of justice in that part of the world, and to understand that we have been participating in the creation of a world where the violence of Sept. 11 is imaginable, and part of that is our support of Israel.''
Metropolitan Methodios, the presiding hierarch of the Greek Orthodox Diocese of Boston, was one of many clerics who said the need for a Palestinian state is becoming more urgent.
''I personally believe that unless a Palestinian state is founded or established very soon, that part of the world will have no peace,'' Methodios said. ''While I'm very supportive of the Jewish state, I believe Palestinians have to have a land of their own and a country of their own, or there'll never be peace.''
Cardinal Bernard F. Law, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston, was not available for comment yesterday, but he has led the US Catholic bishops to become increasingly vocal in support of a Palestinian state, and last week he authored a statement declaring that ''The indiscriminate violence in the streets of Bethlehem, including Manger Square, in a disturbing way appears to be further evidence of the Israeli government's apparent indifference to the concerns of the Christian community and other faith communities.''
But Law also complained of Palestinian actions, saying ''at the same time it must be clear that the violence perpetrated by Palestinians, including the recent murder of Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi, and the failure of the Palestinian Authority to control it are equally intolerable.''
Local Jewish leaders said they were open to differences of opinion about the Middle East, but that they were outraged that the Episcopal bishops who protested outside the Israeli consulate did not mention the deaths of Jews in Israel. The Episcopal bishops have agreed to meet with the Jewish Community Relations Council next week, and declined media interviews yesterday in an effort not to inflame the situation.
''I was really shocked,'' said Nancy Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council. ''There's never been any discussion about these issues of concern with these leaders, and now there's this public demonstration that just seemed very out of balance in terms of real concern for what might peacefully be done in terms of a resolution in the Middle East.''
Robert Leikind, executive director of the Anti-Defamation League, said of the bishops, ''It is painful to think that their moral concerns would not also extend to deliberate acts of terrorism which target teenagers at nightclubs, diners in restaurants, families travelling in their cars, and schoolchildren. This too seems to be a profound moral issue, and the relative silence is deeply troubling, especially since it is these very acts which prompt the military response about which they're complaining.''
The Episcopal denomination has become increasingly vocal in its concern for Palestinian rights in recent years, according to the Rev. Ian T. Douglas, a professor of global Christianity at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge. The Episcopal Church of the United States called in 1988 for a Palestinian state, in 1994 urged the United States to withhold foreign aid to Israel equivalent to the amount spent constructing settlements in the West Bank, and in 1997 said that Jerusalem should serve as the capital of both the Jewish and Palestinian nations.
Jews and Christians say they are aware that increasingly vocal expressions of Christian concern over the Middle East, as well as a new emphasis on Christian-Muslim dialogues in the wake of Sept. 11, have the potential to harm the positive relationship between Christians and Jews forged in the years since World War II.
''What I'm hearing from Jewish and Christian friends and colleagues is that a shifted focus on the rights of Palestinians may be emerging, and it's possible that that will lead to greater criticism of the present government of Israel, and that in turn may lead to significant strains between Jews and Christians in this country,'' said Padraic O'Hare, director of the Center for Study of Jewish-Christian Relations at Merrimack College. ''I do think there are more Christians taking a second look, or a first clear look, at the rights of Palestinians in the context of the present government of Israel.''
Boston, in part because of Law's leadership, has been a stronghold of interfaith dialogue, both before and after Sept. 11. The city's religious community has boasted unusually strong relationships, and since the terrorist attack Law has gathered together a collection of people with huge differences and occasionally dim views of one another's theology, including not only Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims but also Mormons, Christian Scientists, and Buddhists.
''Everyone is feeling more vulnerable and more fragile at this time, which may affect the articulation of concerns and the ways in which they get heard,'' said the Rev. Diane C. Kessler, executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches. ''But many of these concerns have been discussed over the years through formal Jewish-Christian dialogues and through informal conversations. I don't think the concerns today are different.''
Michael Paulson can be reached by e-mail at mpaulson@globe.com.