Anti-Israel stance a misfire by Methodists

Thursday, June 25, 2009 | by

Someone once said life is a constant shoring up. For a Jewish community shoring up Israel and her reputation in this country, the effort sometimes falters.

The latest erosion came last week at a regional conference of the United Methodist Church. As our story this week details, attendees at the California-Nevada conference approved two anti-Israel resolutions.

The first calls for California and Nevada Methodist churches to divest from companies doing business with Israel — at least those companies that have something to do with Israel’s settlement activity in the West Bank. The other endorses a Palestinian right of return; if such a plan were ever carried out, it would mean the demographic destruction of the Jewish state.

We strongly condemn the United Methodist Church representatives for passing these two resolutions.

Both are toothless. The United Methodist Church already rejected five similar resolutions at its national conference last year in Texas. Moreover, local churches do not have the authority to divest.

The second measure was nullified by an amendment affirming the right of return must be negotiated by the parties themselves, including Israel.

But while the measures may have little real-world effect, their passage was extremely hurtful to the Jewish community and harmful to Jewish-Methodist relations.

It’s not as if the Jewish community has no friends in the myriad Christian denominations.

Many ministers and lay people have pushed back against the anti-Israel crowd, aligning themselves squarely on the side of fairness.

Unfortunately, activists in the United Methodist Church and other denominations, such as the Presbyterian Church, have pushed their agendas toward similar anti-Israel pronouncements, with varying degrees of success.

In some cases, pro-Palestinians have achieved disproportionate representation on key committees, ramming through anti-Israel resolutions and bringing them to the floor at the conclaves.

Usually, general assemblies reject the resolutions. This time, however, whether misinformed or underinformed, the Methodists gathered in Sacramento voted “aye.”

Fortunately, groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Community Relations Council have been on the ground arguing passionately against such anti-Israel resolutions.

They will continue to fight the good fight, working with our Christian friends to quash anti-Israel resolutions before they pass, and to speak out when they do.

Meanwhile, we urge local Methodist congregations to take a look in the mirror and ask themselves if staking an anti-Israel position is really what they want. We hope the answer will be no.