Leaders of the Louisville-based Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are distancing themselves from a church-funded delegation's visit to the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon, calling it "misguided, at best."

And they denounced the comments of one member of the delegation, who told Arab television that "relations and conversations with Islamic leaders are a lot easier than dealings and dialogue with Jewish leaders."

In an open letter to Jewish leaders who protested the trip, three top leaders of the denomination called the comments "reprehensible" and said they tried to persuade the delegation not to visit Hezbollah, which the U.S. State Department has designated a terrorist organization.

But the chairman of the delegation that visited Hezbollah, the Rev. Nile Harper of Michigan, defended the visit.

He said local Presbyterians in Lebanon recommend the visit as part of the delegation's wider fact-finding mission to the Middle East.

Harper said the delegation is seeking to listen to "voices that are not usually heard by Presbyterians and by people in our country."

The episode is further straining relations between Jewish leaders and the denomination, already chilled by the church's vote in July to pull some investments from companies doing business in Israel in protest of its military occupation of Palestinian territories and its construction of a barrier along and through those territories.

Reports from meeting

Excerpts of an Arab television broadcast of the meeting between the Presbyterians and Hezbollah representatives were translated by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute and placed on its Web site.

Sheik Nabil Qauq of Hezbollah is shown as saying: "The American policy today is similar to an owl bringing bad tidings. All we hear from (President) Bush are words of war, evil, destruction, killing, siege and threat. This aggressive inclination is a real danger to all monotheistic religions and it harms Christianity."

The report then showed one member of the Presbyterian delegation, retired Pittsburgh seminary professor Ronald Stone, thanking Hezbollah's "expression of goodwill towards the American people. 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."

The U.S. State Department has placed Hezbollah, a Shiite Islamic group, on its list of foreign terrorist organizations, linking it to such attacks as the 1983 truck bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut.

Originally founded as a guerrilla movement in the early 1980s to resist Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory, Hezbollah is strongly anti-American and has called for the destruction of Israel.

The group has also branched out into other activities, becoming a political party with members in the Lebanese parliament providing a range of social services in impoverished southern Lebanon.

Visit defended

Stone, reached by phone at the delegation's hotel in Jerusalem yesterday, declined to comment and referred a reporter to Harper. Harper did not dispute or confirm the accuracy of the quotation attributed to Stone.

But Harper defended the visit with Hezbollah, which is part of a wider, 18-day fact-finding trip to several Middle East lands, including Israel and the Palestinian territories.

"We understand they have a history of terrorism," Harper said of Hezbollah. What is less well known, he said, is its political and social-welfare roles, which have made its leadership "respected and influential" in southern Lebanon.

He added that his committee does not set church policy but only provides advice.

The visit and the comments by Stone prompted protests from many Jewish organizations, which were followed by a letter signed by the Presbyterians' three top officials: Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase, Executive Director John Detterick and Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick.

"The group's specific itinerary was not authorized by any of us; in fact, once we learned of it, we asked the group to drop this visit from their plans," the letter said.

"Furthermore, the comments attributed to Presbyterians there, as we understand them, are reprehensible."

The letter included a pledge to use what influence the church has in the Middle East against terrorism — answering Jewish charges that the church unfairly blames the regional crisis only on the Israeli occupation.

Trip's reverberations

Rabbi Joe Rooks Rapport of The Temple synagogue in Louisville, who has been active in Presbyterian-Jewish discussions, said the "timing couldn't be worse" for the news because the two groups had made progress in their discussions.

And Rapport said the comment may harden the stance of Israeli members of parliament shortly before next week's scheduled vote on a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

He said Stone's comment "doesn't really intend to bear any relevance to the facts."

"Clearly no one in rational mind would say people who have attacked and killed American civilians, Israeli civilians and continue to aggressively pursue acts of terrorism against civilians for whatever cause are more pleasant to speak with than people just like yourself who live in the same country with you and are only about greater understanding," he said.

"I don't think there was anybody who didn't cringe, in the Jewish community or the Presbyterian community, when they read those words."

But Rapport sees a "silver lining" from the episode, saying the letter from Presbyterian leaders showed greater "balance" than previous statements denouncing the Israeli occupation.