US Presbyterian Church calls for sanctions on Israel

From the www.monabaker.com archive (legacy material)

Melissa Radler | Jerusalem Post | 17 July 2004

Leaders of the Presbyterian Church in the US approved a divestment campaign against Israel in a series of annual resolutions that included a condemnation of Israel’s security fence, a decision to continue funding churches aimed at converting Jews to Christianity and a disavowal of Christian Zionism as a legitimate theological stance.
In a vote of 431 to 62, the 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA compared Israel’s policies to those of South Africa and approved gathering data to support a selective divestment of holdings in multinational corporations doing business in Israel/ Palestine, a July 2 church release noted. The church’s liaison to the Middle East, Rev. Victor Makari, noted after the vote that if nothing else seems to have changed the policy of Israel toward Palestinians, we need to send a clear and strong message.
In a letter to the church’s leader Clifton Kirkpatrick, Anti-Defamation League interfaith affairs director Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor called the resolutions offensive and distressing.
To assert that there is a moral equivalency between the racist policy of apartheid and the efforts to protect the citizenry of Israel is unconscionable, Bretton-Granatoor wrote.