The president of Harvard University, in a speech delivered in Harvard's Memorial Church in 2002, included the singling out of Israel for divestment as the sort of "actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect, if not in their intent." The one-sided actions of the Presbyterian Church fit into this category.
Divestment also encourages the continued use of terrorism by Palestinian leaders, who see that when Israel responds to their terrorism, it causes an important church to punish Israel.
I do not believe that a majority of the 2.5 million Presbyterians in the U.S. want their church used to support terrorism. But they are now on notice that their church has been hijacked and its name misused in the service of an immoral tactic.
Balanced criticism of Israel and of specific policies of its government is proper and essential to democratic governance. But the Presbyterian resolution is so one-sided, so anti-Zionist in its rhetoric and so ignorant of the realities on the ground that it can only be explained by the kind of bigotry that the Presbyterian Church itself condemned in 1987 when it promised "never again to participate in, to contribute to, or (insofar as we are able) to allow the persecution or denigration of Jews."
Unless the church rescinds this immoral, sinful and bigoted denigration of the Jewish state, it will be "participating in" and "contributing to" anti-Jewish bigotry and the encouragement of terrorism.
