Maybe the divestment movement will recede among America’s churches, having failed to achieve a single major sustained success. But bias against Israel almost certainly will persist in many denominational policy stances.
By MARK TOOLEY
For much of the last decade, int’l anti-Israel activists have targeted U.S. mainline Protestant denominations with pleas for divesting from firms doing business with Israel. There was reason: Official mainline Protestantism, pro-Israel during Israel’s early decades, became sharply anti-Israel starting in the 1970s. Influenced by liberation theology, liberal church elites understood Palestinians as oppressed Third World victims, and Israel as the Western imperialists, backed by America.
And although losing members since the 1960s, mainline Protestant denominations still have billions of dollars in endowments and pension funds.
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