Israeli MP publically tore out NT

The fuller story is here: Israel MPs sent Bibles as gifts, one official publically tore out the New Testament. Apparently the Bible Society sent Hebrew Bibles with NT to all the members of the Israeli Knesset (that's the parliament, in case the word's new to you). One of the MK's, Ben-Ari, reportedly tore out the NT section and spoke about it in a way that even had the Anti-Defamation League backing away.

While Bible Society officials reportedly said they did not distribute the Bibles as a way to evangelize, Ben-Ari and other Knesset Members think they did.
"This horrible book caused the murder of millions of Jews in the Inquisition and the auto-da-fe's," said Ben-Ari, according to INN. He also said sending the book was "ugly, provocative missionizing," and while most of his government colleagues agree, they don't like the way he expressed his disapproval.

To be honest, I feel that he's way over-stated it and is arguably guilty of what in many parts of the world might be regarded as a hate crime. Fortunately he's dealing with Christians who -ironically because of the teachings of the book he maligned- are mostly likely to do some version of turning the other cheek. I'm not sure that some other faith communities would be quite so tolerant of their scriptures being treated in this way and spoken of thus. And even if Christians don't 'turn the other cheek', then they would be failing to live by the teaching of the NT. Teaching which, recall, includes 'Love your neighbour as yourself' and 'love is patient ... kind ... is not arrogant ... rude ... does not rejoice over wrong ...' and 'do not return evil for evil' etc. I find it perverse that the NT should be written off so glibly and referred to as 'horrible' (that's not to say it doesn't contain disturbing imagery and some passages that are difficult and needing glossing by reference to more mainstream themes and threads).

Doubly ironic is that the book concerned is a book about a Rabbi much of it by another rabbi, written by Jews for Jews, mostly.

I do take the point that the book concerned, does lie somewhere in the genealogy of the Inquisition and pogroms. However, we should recall that in order for those things to have happened, some quite vital pieces of its message were forgotten or ignored or casuistically circumvented for extrinsic political or inter-communal purposes. The reaction of Ben-Ari, in a further irony, is an additional reason why he should actually read it: it would provide him with a critique of sub-Christian behaviour and enable him to hold Christians accountable to their best lights.

But there is another issue lurking here: even if the Bible Society did have an evangelistic hope for their action, is that so terrible? Surely, provided people have a choice, can say 'no' and are not being harassed or bullied or pressured by extrinsic inducements why can Christians or any other group, not give up time, money and/or effort to encourage understanding and perhaps a change of heart and mind? I really cannot see, in principle, why that is wrong. I can understand that there may be sensitivities involved, but that is hardly the same thing.