The Role of Antisemitism in the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s Decision to Support Divestment
Click here to read the full report.
Key Points
- The Israel Palestine Mission Network (IPMN) of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (PCUSA) is a main advocate within the church on behalf of the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign (BDS), whose goal is to delegitimize the State of Israel leading to that country’s dissolution. The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship is also an advocate for BDS.
- This report produces clear evidence of a strong undercurrent of overt anti-Jewish bigotry within the IPMN as expressed on the group’s Facebook page.
- Numerous postings uploaded to this site by IPMN members over a period of two years demonstrate an ongoing pattern of expressions of antisemitism, including:
- a “Zionist controlled America [has a] desperate lust” for war with Iran
- “Jewish interests” are “corrupting” the US government, and the media is “owned” and “operated” by these same “Jewish interests.”
- the “Christian Holy Land” is “occupied” by the “zionist (sic) instigator”
- Racial theories of Jewish origins claiming Ashkenazi Jews are not racially “Semitic,” are actually “Khazars,” and therefore should not be in the Middle East.
- Israeli Jews should be ethnically cleansed: “Helen Thomas was right, ‘Go back to Russia, Germany…’ Just leave.”
- “IRAN! Thank God for them! The only Zionist-free land left on earth.”
- The site is administered by five IPMN leaders. Members include senior staff of the PCUSA, theologians, clergy, laity, and non-Presbyterian anti-Israel non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
- At no point did any of these site administrators or any of the PCUSA staff take any overt action such as speaking out against the blatant antisemitism, rebuking members for their intolerant statements, or removing them from the site’s membership.
- At no point did any of the members from non-Presbyterian NGOs speak out against this antisemitism, including members of the fringe group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).
- This overt antisemitism is the backdrop to the IPMN’s advocacy campaign within the PCUSA for divestment and boycotts against Israel, culminating in votes at the June 2014 PCUSA’s General Assembly in support of divestment and other anti-Israel resolutions.
- In 2013 both IPMN and JVP were recipients of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship’s “top award” the “Peaceseeker Award.”
- The bigotry expressed by IPMN members and tolerated by IPMN leaders and PCUSA staff is a moral failing of the church. Serious steps must be taken by the church to remedy this situation, including an apology to the Jewish community, for the church to be able to claim any moral standing on the Middle East.