Jewish liberals received a shock this week. The liberal Presbyterian Church USA [thanks to readers who corrected the earlier mistake on the name] declared war on Israel at is annual General Assembly meeting, approving a divestment campaign from Israel by an 87% vote, making the Holy Land into the new South Africa, in their minds.  The shock was doubly painful since liberal Jews believe that liberal churches are supposed to be their allies in all kinds of common fights.     

Jewish liberals frequently warn that Christian conservatives are not allies of the Jews and do not share Jewish values. There is a genuine fear by liberal Jews that other Jews might walk off the liberal plantation, and create bonds politically with Christian conservatives as a result of their support for Israel.  Some Jews might even vote Republican (imagine that!), as many Christian conservatives do. These criticisms have grown louder as Christian conservatives have become a very strong force supporting Israel in its war with Palestinian terrorism. Liberal Jews have even attacked that support, claiming it is based on Scripture, rather than on any real shared values, hence is not the kind of support Israel supposedly needs. According to this school of thought, liberal Christians who support Israel, presumably would do so for the right reasons, whatever those might be. Israel's socialist economy? Its imperial judiciary?

Of course, any liberal Jew who had an actual conversation with a Christian conservative supporter of Israel would be surprised to find out that the support for Israel is based on a variety of reasons, and not 'just Scripture'. It is ironic, of course, that among the 'People of the Book', support for Israel based 'on Scripture' is used as a metaphorical putdown. But for many Jews, secular humanism and liberalism has become their real religion of choice, whatever lip service they may pay to actual Judaism. The columns of Paul Krugman and Nicholas Kristof have become the modern Talmud.

Christian conservatives find it easy to provide many justifications for their support of Israel.  They include the common struggle the United States and Israel have with terrorism and Islamic radicalism; the fact that Israel is the single most reliable ally of the United States in the United Nations; and that Israel shares the democratic values of this country. All of these factors make Israel unique in a region of despotic authoritarian Arab regimes, that all routinely oppose the United States on virtually all international issues

The action of the Presbyterian Church dealt the long—held liberal pieties a serious body blow. The Presbyterian Church, with this action, became the first significant national group or body to agree to a divestment campaign against Israel. There does not appear to have been much controversy on the resolution, which passed by 431—62. Showing their strong interest in ecumenicism,  the Presbyterians also voted not to end any attempts to convert Jews. This conversion issue has always been a traditional bogeyman for liberals in their attacks on conservative Christian churches. But the Presbyterian Church, rather than turning the other cheek, chose to slap both Jewish cheeks —— on one cheek saying Israel is South Africa, and on the other saying we will convert your people.  Remember again that the liberal Jews believed (at least until yesterday) that the Presbyterians were their natural political allies with whom they shared common bonds,  rather than the conservative Christians who support Israel in many cases more ardently than many Jews do. 

The divestment campaign in colleges and universities has been a dismal failure, and until yesterday had gone nowhere.  Not a single school approved a divestment campaign. Part of this may be because college trustees tend to be more conservative and non—political, when it comes to investment decisions, than their radicalized faculty and their agitated leftist and Muslim students would like them to be. Whatever their politics, college trustees do not want to upset some of their large contributors. Liberal Christian churches do not have to worry about Jewish fundraising support drying up.  It is a certainty that the action of the Presbyterian Church will revive the divestment campaign on campuses.

The Presbyterian Church apparently thinks that now is the time to pile on Israel and force it to 'behave better' with the Palestinians. The Church strangely did not pass any resolutions at their General Assembly this year about the slaughter of black Muslims in the Sudan by Arabs, and they never passed any resolutions in prior years, when the Sudanese Arabs chose to slaughter black Christians. They were silent when the Rwanda genocide occurred as well.  But hey, what're a few million black African lives worth when olive trees are being cut down near the 'green line'? 

Needless to say, the Presbyterians' resolution against Israel is entirely silent on the subject of Palestinian terrorism or suicide bombing, or the incitement to martyrdom and Jew—killing in the Palestinian media, mosques, summer camps and official government statements. 

It is as if in their minds, Israel is evil incarnate, and is that way because it chooses to be that way. There are no extenuating circumstances. Like other liberal Christian churches (the Lutherans, the Episcopalians, the Unitarians, the Quakers) the hatred and condemnation of Israel has grown so strong that advocates for Israel are not permitted to even make presentations to these congregations any more. If Jews want to speak abut Israel, they have to be from the far left, and they must come to trash Israel (and help bury it).

On the other hand, any representative of the International Solidarity Movement is sure to draw a full house, and be warmly welcomed.  This 'openness' to different viewpoints by these Christian churches reminds one of the New York Times editorial board when the subject is President Bush, as it is every day.  Without question, the action by the Presbyterians will guarantee that other liberal Christian churches will seriously consider passing similar resolutions.

Even the liberal Anti—Defamation League was taken aback by the actions of the Presbyterian Church, and Abraham Foxman strongly condemned the actions taken.

The Church has a $7 billion investment fund, and many companies that do business with Israel will now be off the investment screens for their investment advisors (a good chunk of Nasdaq to begin with).  Hopefully, the Church's investment portfolio return will suffer from this.

There should be a price to pay for selective morality, stupidity and anti—Semitism. And make no mistake, anti—Semitism is at play here.  This is one of the cases in which the charge is appropriate. How else do you explain that of all the world's trouble spots, and all the noxious regimes which every day minimize the lives of their people, that only Israel is a pariah for the Church, and the selected punishment for its 'misbehavior' is economic strangulation?  

For years, the Israel—haters have tried to link Israel to South Africa, and even more outrageously, to the Nazis.  The Presbyterian Church has now legitimized this slander. For this, they should be shamed and shunned.