Presbyterians advance conflicting measures on Israel

By · June 24, 2008

The Presbyterian Church moved ahead with several contradictory motions on the Middle East at its General Assembly.

In a sign of deep schisms among Presbyterians, members of the Committee on Peacemaking and International Issues, meeting Tuesday during the church’s biennial General Assembly in San Jose, Calif., approved several motions that appeared to contradict one another.

One motion prohibited the church from adopting positions that would identify too much with one party to conflict. But the committee also approved a motion endorsing the Amman Call, a document adopted at a 2007 church gathering in Jordan that calls for the right of return of all refugees.

The committee also struck down language that would have permitted the church to move ahead with divestment from Israel without further approval from the General Assembly.

According to a report on the church’s Web site, more than 100 people spoke during hours of debate before the committee, whose recommendations must be approved by the General Assembly.

Dennis Ross, a former American Middle East negotiator, in a video message to the committe said a divestment resolution was “divorced from reality,” according to the New York Sun.

The Presbyterian Church became the first mainline Protestant denomination to recommend divestment from Israel in 2004, though it backed away from that decision somewhat two years later.

Concern mounted over the the church’s attitude toward the Middle East earlier this month when it released a statement on anti-Semitism that Jewish leaders denounced as embodying the very bias it purported to oppose.