Presbyterians Attacking Israel Again

September 15, 2011 By 25 Comments

In 2004, the Presbyterian Church (USA) touted solidarity with Palestinians by endorsing a “phased, selective divestment” from firms doing business with Israel.  Church elites had underestimated the negative public response, both from American Jews and from more temperate Presbyterians.  After a campaign to revoke divestment, including a feisty luncheon appearance by former CIA Director James Woolsey, the denomination’s 2006 General Assembly revoked divestment.

But the church’s anti-Israel boll weevils won’t accept “no” for an answer.  A PCUSA so-called Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) committee is now recommending a new, more selective anti-Israel divestment targeting Hewlett-Packard, Caterpillar, and Motorola.  Next year’s General Assembly will vote up or down on behalf of the about 2 million member denomination, which has already lost over a million members thanks to clueless church elites.

Naturally, PCUSA elites are not advocating any special sanctions aimed at Iran, North Korea, Sudan or any truly loathsome regimes whose crimes include persecution of Christians.  Israel remains the only serious target of their chronic ire.

“It has been seven years since the General Assembly named [Caterpillar] as a company for possible divestment,” rejoiced the Israel Palestine Mission Network, an anti-Israel caucus group within the PCUSA seeking a “just peace in Palestine.”  The Network’s spokesperson declared:  “I think it is tremendous, and high time that this action be taken. I am proud and happy that MRTI has finally taken this important step.”  This Network thinks Presbyterian divestment from Caterpillar and 2 other firms will help remedy “injustices being routinely inflicted upon Palestinians as collective punishment in the West Bank and Gaza” by Israel.  A beaten down Israel supposedly will fulfill prophesy promising that “swords will be beaten into plowshares in Israel and Palestine so that all God’s people may dwell together as brothers and sisters in peace.”

More likely, enhanced international pressure on Israel, if effective, would only embolden further Palestinian radicalism and accelerate demands for even greater concessions.  The ultimate end-game for anti-Israel diehards is the deconstruction of Israel as a meaningful Jewish democracy.   Whether all anti-Israel, PCUSA “peace” activists fully understand this ultimate goal is an open question.  Radical church activists who undermine pro-Western regimes have a decades-long tradition of facilitating even greater conflict and the enthronement of tyranny. In these sad scenarios, such “swords,” rather than becoming “plowshares,” often weaponize into even wide instruments of mass destruction.

Pages: 1 2

Filed Under: Daily Mailer, FrontPage
About

Mark Tooley is President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (www.theird.org) and author of Methodism and Politics in the Twentieth Century. Follow him on Twitter: @markdtooley.

  • mikidiki

    Anti Semitism runs deep in the fringes of the Christian community, but leftist theology is all the rage and gets full support.

  • Fearless

    How can a Gentile call themselves a Christian and say they look a Jewish Rabbi and hate the Jews with the passion shown by many Church leaders?

    • PhillipGaley

      "How can a Gentile call themselves a Christian, and yet, . . ."?

      Well, . . . most easily; for, of such, in one place JESUS said: "Many shall there be in that day, who will come before Me, telling Me: 'Lord, Lord, we have cast out demons and done many wonderful works in thy great Name, . . .', and I will profess unto them: 'You workers of iniquity, get away from Me—we were never even acquainted!' "; so, . . . you know, . . . sure, when all of this is sorted out, there are going to be some surprises; but just be sure of your own salvation, . . . with deep concern, even trembling, . . .

  • Fearless

    I should have sais "Love a Jewish RabbI"

  • http://www.facebook.com/al-kidya al Kidya

    If the church is anti-Israel, they are anti-Jewish. If they are anti-Jewish then they must be anti-Christian because Christ is, after all, a Jew.

  • Chezwick_mac

    The hypocrisy is palpable. When 2 million Sudanese Christians were killed via war and man-made famine over the last 3 decades, the Presbyterians had absolutely nothing to say about it. Meanwhile, how many Palestinians have died via conflict with Israel in the same period? Around 10,000.

    So why the focus on Israel? Because the Presbyterian church is a mirror image of the international Islamo-Left. Their concerns and world-view are identical.

  • http://www.contextflexed.com Flipside

    Never Forget the most notorious anti-Semitic Presbyterian: Abraham Lincoln. He drove one of the greatest Jewish statesmen of all time, Judah P. Benjamin out of the Americas.

    • effemall

      Better re-read your history, Flipppy. Benjamin was a high ranking politician in the
      Confederacy and fled to England after the war to avoid possible trial for Treason. Lincoln was neither Presbyterian nor an antisemite. He never formally joined any church and respected the beliefs of all others. Your attempts at making snide remarks fall flat on their face.

      • http://www.contextflexed.com Flipside

        Nonsense! Think of how great an Israel stretching from Texas to Panama would have been!

  • Laurence

    To the very Anti-semitic Presbyterian Church:
    Our Lord and Savior Jesus died for our sins. Yet every day and in every way you sin against the Jews completely forgetting that Jesus lived and died a Jew. During the Crusades every time the Jews were killed by Christian knights Jesus was killed along with his fellow Jews, again.
    During the Inquisition when Jews were tortured and burnt at the stake Jesus was with them and died, again. During the Holocaust when Jews were forced into gas chambers and murdered Jesus was there with them being killed yet again. As you go about your Anti-Semitic diatribe you deny Jesus and kill him over and over again. When will you learn that you cannot separate Jesus from his Jewish brethren. To voice out against the Jews is to deny the living Christ.

  • Jim

    So separation of church and state is a no no.
    Perhaps the die hard anti Zionists have decided it is o.k. meddle in some one else's state.

  • Gary Moore

    Perhaps the Christian leaders should go back and read the Bible, the part that says, the Jews are Gods chosen people. It wasn't the Jews who crusified Jesus. It was ignorance, hypocrisy and jealousy, by the leaders of that day. My Savior was Jewish,

    • Brad

      Why do you say Christian Leaders instead of the truth which is, some… christians, misguided, obviously! Many christian leaders and lay people alike, give 100s of millions each year in support of israel and Jewish people around the world. Yeshua loves and died for all of us. Jew and Gentile alike. Shalom Jerusalem!

  • Marty

    Please consider purchasing shares of Caterpillar. It's a growth stock and pays a reasonable dividend. It's a strong part of my spite the presbyterian church portfolio.

    • ebonystone

      Yes, I'm willing to take a few thousand shares of Caterpillar off the Presbyterians' hands. I'll pay $1.00 per share; I wouldn't want the Presbyterians to dirty their hands with any filthy profit.

  • http://ruvysroost.blogspot.com Ruvy Kossover

    We should ban these trash from owning ANYTHING in this country. They do not deserve to own anything here. It is time for us to start setting out qualifications for whom WE want to own property in this country.

    Owning property here should be a privilege granted only to those most qualified – not an investment for some idiot with a fat wallet laden with dollars/euros/shekels/pounds or yen to spare. Our government should seize their holdings WITHOUT compensation to teach them what real divestiture means. The same should be done with all Christian churches who support our enemies and would-be killers, including the Vatican, the Anglicans, Methodists, the Russian Orthodox, and various butt-kissing practitioners of avodá zará in Israel. Such contamination should be erased from our land permanently.

  • Jim

    The Presbyterian USA church is the part of the Presbyterian Church hijacked by the left. Do not confuse the two. These are the same people putting gay pastors in pulpits and spitting in the face of Christ. These are people posing as believers of Christ and denying His word.

  • http://www.contextflexed.com Flipside

    I think that since Israel has shown a proclivity toward beating Americans to death even with plowshares, it makes good sense to punish their American plowshare provider.

    • Ghostwriter

      Where do you get such idiotic nonsense,Flipside?

      • http://www.contextflexed.com Flipside

        From Israeli art students.

  • Ghostwriter

    Flipside,you're anti-semitic garbage is getting old. Please stop it.

  • FrankLEE

    I want to see Israel wiped off the map however not until my deal with the Jews in Israel concludes. AHAHAHA

  • 9-11 Infidel

    "A beaten down Israel supposedly will fulfill prophesy promising that “swords
    will be beaten into plowshares in Israel and Palestine so that all God’s people
    may dwell together as brothers and sisters in peace."
    Yeah sure bunky, in a pig's eye.
    "I will gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will enter into judgment against them concerning my inheritance, my people Israel, for they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land." Joel 3:2

  • M.J.

    I emailed the pcusa twice about this article. I am waiting for their response for the second email. l suggest that everyone here email them and they will send you a review of their "manifesto" concerning Israel. What an arrogant piece of work the pcusa elites are!

  • Guest

    Things are just as bad in the UCC, which some are now calling "Unitarians Considering Christ".