After 37 years of boasting of "inalienable solidarity" with the people of Israel, the Netherlands' second largest church plans to reexamine its stance this fall. A group of notables from the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PCN) warned last week that the organization, which has over two million members, is in danger of being "hijacked" by pro-Palestinian activists.

The warning - coauthored by Dr. Jan van der Graaf, who served for 35 years as general secretary within one of the three churches that make up the PCN, and three other prominent church figures - was an open letter against changing the reference to Israel. It was addressed to Minister Henri Veldhuis, a General Synod member who said the clause made the church adopt a biased view that ignored Israeli actions against Palestinians.

At a speech last month in Utrecht for Friends of Sabeel (a Jerusalem-based Palestinian organization), Veldhuis said the church should commit to a bond with Israel "as people of the Torah" instead of the "Jewish people as an ethnic group." Veldhuis also complained that currently, "the church has a stronger bond with a non-believing Alaskan Jewish person than a Palestinian Christian."