At its general assembly this week, the Presbyterian Church (USA) sent mixed signals about its official stance toward Israel, leaving Jewish leaders nervously awaiting a final vote.
Representatives from various Jewish organizations attended the assembly held this week at San Jose’s Convention Center. They came to speak before the church’s Committee on Peacemaking and International Issues, which considered 32 resolutions, or overtures, on international policy.
Twelve of those 32 had to do Israel and the Palestinians. Nine were anti-Israel, three of which passed, according to Yitzhak Santis, director of the Middle East Project for the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council.
“The good news is they rejected all the radical ones,” Santis said.
Those included overtures calling for the U.S. to cut off military aid to Israel and condemning Israel as a violator of international law.
Santis was particularly alarmed by the passage June 24 of an overture that endorsed the Amman Call, a church declaration from 2007 that supports Palestinian “right of return” (though the current overture makes no direct mention of that).
The same overture, while not demanding divestment from Israel, criticizes specific companies that do business with Israel — e.g., Caterpillar and Motorola.
“Our main message is balance, balance, balance,” added Santis, who has worked with Bay Area presbyteries to foster interfaith dialogue. “The church in its policies has veered not just pro-Palestinian but outright anti-Israel.”
Nancy Appel, associate director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Central Pacific Region, addressed the committee as it contemplated the military aid resolution, which was defeated.
More than 100 people spoke before the committee, whose recommendations must be approved by the general assembly.
“What I’m finding is people here are really pushing their particular points of view,” Appel said, “but most respond to the call for balance, for being fair and hearing the other side. They get turned off being bludgeoned by one particular narrative.”
While the average Presbyterian-in-the-street may not harbor anti-Israel views, the church has a recent history of taking steps that many in the Jewish community view as provocative.
In 2004, the church passed several resolutions seen by many as anti-Israel. Two years ago, general assembly delegates overwhelmingly backed away from a call for church divestment from Israel, though activists brought the issue up again this week.
And most recently, a church statement on the subject of Jewish-Presbyterian relations, initially viewed favorably by the Jewish community, was abruptly withdrawn and rewritten to include language the ADL and others called “hurtful.”
One of the groups addressing the committee was Jewish Voice for Peace, a left-leaning organization that argued in favor of the overtures condemned by other Jewish organizations. A JVP spokesperson did not return j.’s calls by press time.
But the battle isn’t over, Jewish observers say. All 750 delegates to the general assembly will now vote on overtures passed by committee, with those relating to Israel up for vote on Friday, June 27.
Anything could happen, Jewish officials said, including a worst-case scenario in which all anti-Israel resolutions end up as official church policy.
“It would put the Presbyterian Church on a collision course with the Jewish community,” Santis said. “Tension, anger, a sense of betrayal. The church is trying to be a peacemaker, and in order to do that you have to be a bridge builder. The worst of these [overtures] burn bridges to the Jewish community.”
However, Santis also believes church leadership and individual activists have been driving all the anti-Israel sentiment, one not shared by a majority of Presbyterians.
“I’ve talked to average delegates a number of times, and they were very clear they felt their leadership was out of touch on so many issues,” Santis said, “and on Israel they felt it was being driven by a radical fringe minority.”