PCUSA not only ignorant, but mercifully out of step with the American mainstream *UPDATED*

Brutally Honest brought to my attention the fact that the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUSA) has released a statement denouncing Israel in terms that a Hamas member or Ahmadinejad could easily love:

The Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUSA) is about to release a report which denounces Israel as a “racist” nation which has absolutely no historical, covenantal, or theological right to the Holy Land. The report calls for the United States to withhold financial and military aid to Israel and for boycotts and sanctions against Israel. That’s not all. The report also endorses a Palestinian “right of return” and “apologizes to Palestinians for even conceding that Israel has a right to exist.” According to the press release, it also states that Israel’s history begins only with the Holocaust and that Israel is “a nation mistakenly created by Western powers at the expense of the Palestinian people to solve the ‘Jewish problem’.”

You can read more of PCUSA’s gibbering nonsense, along with Rick’s appropriate outrage, here.

I don’t have to inform you, my dear readers, of the many things wrong with PCUSA’s viewpoint, whether “historical,” “covenantal,” or “theological,” but I find the timing of the statement almost amusing.  You see, with exquisite ignorance and the timing that only a fool could achieve, PCUSA released that statement two days after archeologists made a major find, tying the archeological record in Israel ever closer to the Old Testament.  That would be the same Old Testament that describes a thousand years of Jewish life in Israel.  This OT record, of course, precedes a New Testament, a Roman record, a medieval European record, an Ottoman record, a British record, a League of Nations Record, a UN record, and a State of Israel record, all tying Jews to that same spot of land for another 2,500 years or so.

So about that most recent archeological find:

The greatest threat to the hopes of those who think parts of Jerusalem should be off-limits to Jews comes not when Jewish-owned buildings go up in the city, but rather when Jews start digging into the ground of East Jerusalem. Because the more the history of the city is uncovered, the less credible becomes the charge that Jews are alien colonists in what the media sometimes wrongly refer to as “traditionally Palestinian” or “Arab” Jerusalem.

That’s the upshot from the release of an amazing archeological dig conducted just outside Jerusalem’s Old City. The excavations conducted by archeologist Eilat Mazar in the Ophel area revealed a section of an ancient city wall of Jerusalem. According to the press release from the Hebrew University, under whose auspices the project was carried out, the dig uncovered the wall as well as an inner gatehouse for entry into the royal quarter of the ancient city and an additional royal structure adjacent to the gatehouse as well as a corner tower. While ancient buildings are not uncommon in the city, the significance of this discovery is the fact that these edifices can be dated to the 10th century before the Common Era — the time of King Solomon, credited by the Bible for the construction of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem. Pottery found at the lowest levels of the dig is dated to this era.

Even more telling is the fact that bullae — seal impressions — with Hebrew names were found, as well as seal impressions on jar handles inscribed with the words “to the king,” which means they were employed by the Israelite state in that time. Inscriptions on the jars, which Mazar says are the largest ever found in Jerusalem, showed them to be the property of a royal official.

Read more about this wondrous peek through time into ancient history here.

Fortunately, PCUSA’s poison, though virulent, doesn’t seem to be spreading too far or too fast when it comes to ordinary Americans and their respect for the only truly free democracy in the Middle East — and one that, like America, finds herself in the crosshairs of radical Islam.  Thus, even as the Left, including the Left appearing in the guise of faith, becomes more deeply enmeshed with purveyors of antisemitism, misogyny, anti-Christianity, and anti-Americanism, ordinary Americans are increasingly more supportive of Israel.  Indeed, according to Gallup, your neighbors and mine have reached almost new heights in their respect for this beleaguered bastion of freedom:

For the first time since 1991, more than 6 in 10 Americans — 63% — say their sympathies in the Middle East situation lie more with the Israelis than with the Palestinians. Fifteen percent side more with the Palestinians, down slightly from recent years, while a combined 23% favor both sides, favor neither side, or have no opinion.

You can see more data here.

Public opinion is fickle, but I think Americans’ basic goodness remains true.  Despite pressure from the media and from our American educational systems to view the Palestinians as the underdog, I think Americans are slowly beginning to see that the group that glories in washing its hands in Israeli blood, that gleefully treats its children as cannon fodder, and that stridently rejects every peace-making offer on the table, even as it loudly repeats its genocidal desires regarding its neighbors, might not be deserving of sympathy or support.

UPDATEHere’s the invaluable Phyllis Chesler on the subject.

UPDATE IIRusty’s unimpressed too, and that despite considering himself a less than rigorous Christian.  I have to agree, speaking from the Jewish perspective, I have no words for how bad PCUSA is, and what a disgrace I believe it to be to American Christianity.  It no longer represents religion; it represents Leftism and antisemitism draped in a vaguely religious mantel.