JAT Action Alert: 27 July 2004

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The leadership of the Presbyterian Church USA at its most recent General Assembly passed a resolution calling for divestiture from Israel. We call on JAT members to protest this action with church officials and in the media.

At the same meeting, the Presbyterian Chruch USA voted to condemn construction of the security fence, to demand that the US cooperate with French/European 'peacemaking' efforts in the Middle East, and to continue to support single-purpose Presbyterian Churches founded to convert Jews.

The Presbyterians have long been one of the most aggressively anti-Israel churches. They do issue statements about Israel's right to exist in secure borders, but in the context of a flow of Presbyterian condemnations of actions that Israel takes in self-defense without corresponding condemnations of Palestinian terrorism, this is mere hypocrisy. The ADL has condemned the Presbyterian Church for its aggressive anti-Israel stance. By contrast, the Catholic Church has just officially equated anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism.

This article has more information about this issue

The Presbyterian Church has issued a press release that tries to defend their actions.

ACTION

1. Write or phone to Reverend Clifton Kirkpatrick, leader ("Stated Clerk") of the Presbyterian Church USA. Information about him can be found here.
2. Write or phone to Rev. William Somplatsky-Jarman, Chairman of the "Mission Responsibility Through Investment" (MRTI), the committee responsible for carrying out the divestment.

CONTACT INFO

SAMPLE LETTER

Dear Rev. Kirkpatrick,

I write in sadness regarding the decision to begin a divestment campaign from Israel.

Israel is a nation of refugees from anti-Semitism. The people of Israel fled European anti-Semitism, and, in even larger numbers, Muslim anti-Semitism. The Muslim nations that recently drove out Jewish communities that had lived in peace for 2,600 years, now call for the destruction of the world's lone Jewish State. Anti-Zionism, singling out the Jewish State for vilification, is, as the Catholic Church has said, a modern version of anti-Semitism.

In equating Israel with apartheid South Africa, the Presbyterian Church is allying itself to the world's Jew-haters.

The Church has not called for the restoration of the property of the 900,000 Jews who were driven from their ancestral homes beside the Euphrates and the Nile. I do not hear the Church calling for international bodies to stop funding the UNESCO schools where jihad and the mandate to murder Jews is taught. It has not called for Iran to stop the funding of Hezbollah or for Saudi Arabia to stop funding Hamas.

To condemn Israel for defending itself by building a fence, without condemning the Muslim societies that have refused to make peace with a Jewish state, is rank hypocrisy if not overt anti-Semitism.

Sincerely yours,