Presbyterian Church (USA) Declares Israel to be an ‘Apartheid State’
It’s not the first time the PCUSA has swung at Israel
During the denomination’s 225th General Assembly, by a blowout vote of 28-3, the PCUSA’s Committee on International Engagement passed a resolution proclaiming Israel to be an apartheid state. They declared May 15 to be “Palestinian Nakba Remembrance Day,” a day when progressive Presbyterians ought to engage in “lifting prayer for peace, giving solidarity for those suffering under occupation.”
It’s familiar territory for the USA’s largest Presbyterian denomination, who is in embroiled in an eternal battle with the the ELCA and United Methodist Church to see who hates Jesus more and who can make the wokest statements possible.
The text reads:
(The PCUSA) Recognize(s) that the government of Israel’s laws, policies, and practices regarding the Palestinian people fulfill the international legal definition of apartheid. Apartheid is legally defined as inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.
Specifically, the document draws a comparison to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to Apartheid in South Africa between the 1950s-1990s, when non-white South Africans were denied many fundamental human rights and where there was:
“serious injustice, widespread suffering, and major human rights abuses … because of apartheid laws, practices, and policies that established a preferential legal status and material privileges to one group of people based on their identity while discriminating against another group based on their inferior status.”
In a comment made by the Anti-Defamation League, they “condemn the PCUSA’s International Engagement Committee passage of a resolution that falsely labels Israel as an apartheid state and compares Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the Holocaust.” Furthermore, they suggest that “the resolution’s demonizing language only serves to drive a wedge between PCUSA and the Jewish community, and does nothing constructive to bring about peace between Israelis and Palestinians. We strongly urge PCUSA commissioners to reject this resolution.”
It’s not the first time the PCUSA has swung at Israel. Earlier in the year, the head of the damned denomination, J. Herbert Nelson II, released a statement saying that “continued occupation in Palestine/Israel is 21st-century slavery and should be abolished immediately.”