PRESBYTERIANS vs. ISRAEL? Go Figure.

According to the Jerusalem Post, the Presbyterian Church USA has

• approved a divestment campaign against Israel
• condemned the security barrier
• approved funding for converting Jews
• disavowed Christian Zionism

Dennis Prager: Presbyterians defame Christianity

Townhall.com: Incredibly, The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) joins the list of religious groups committing evil. In the name of Jesus, it has called for the economic strangulation of Israel. They have equated the Jewish state with South Africa during apartheid and called for a universal divestment from it.

The Presbyterians are the first Christian church to do this, and, ironically, the divestment campaign came the very week that the Roman Catholic Church signed a document equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

 It takes a particularly virulent strain of moral idiocy and meanness to single out Israel, not Arafat's Palestinian Authority, or terror-supporting, death-fatwa-issuing Iran, or women-subjugating Saudi Arabia, for condemnation and economic ruin. One of the most decent societies, one of the most liberal democracies in the world, is fighting for its life against Islamic fascists who praise the Holocaust and publicly call for the annihilation of Israel -- and the Presbyterian Church calls for strangling Israel!

Apartheid state? This Goebbels-like Big Lie, concocted by the world's anti-Israel and anti-American Left and by those who want Israel destroyed, is now an official doctrine of the Presbyterian Church. Israel is a nation whose population is one-quarter non-Jewish Arab, with the same rights, including voting and its own political parties, as Jewish citizens; a nation whose second official language is Arabic, the language of those who wish to annihilate the Jewish country; a nation that occupies a tiny sliver of land known as the West Bank only because Jordan, overwhelmingly composed of Palestinians, invaded Israel in 1967 in order to destroy it and thereby lost its ownership of the West Bank.

 

The Thot Plickens

I took a look at the News webpage on the PC(USA) website, where the headline is

"Assembly endorses Israel divestment:

 Palestinian says merely issuing another statement is not enough"

When a handful of commissioners expressed reservations about the action, the Rev. Mitri Raheb, a Lutheran pastor from Bethlehem, an ecumenical guest at the Assembly, said divestment is important because it is a way for the churches to take direct action. For too long, he said, the churches have simply issued statements — and that is not enough.

“We have to send strong messages to such companies,” Raheb said, referring specifically to Caterpillar Inc., the American builder of the armored tractors and bulldozers the Israeli army uses to demolish Palestinian homes.

“Sisters and brothers, this is a moment of truth,” Raheb said.

Interesting, yes? A Palestinian Lutheran pastor at the 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America?  I suppose it's something that there was at least a "handful of commissioners" who "expressed reservations,"  but the vote was 431 to 62. Ouch.
 
Rev. Raheb is a busy man.  He also addressed the General Synod of the Reformed Church in America (whatever that is).  Click on his photo to read that presentation.

 

 

Raheb  is pastor of the Evangelical Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem and holds a degree from Marburg University in Germany.  He is also Director of The International Center of Bethlehem.

 

According to Yasser Arafat, the Center will ''play a great role in the cultural, scientific and intellectual life not only of Bethlehem, but also of all of Palestine."

 

I'm ready for a moment of truth . . .  but are the Presbyterians?