...As a Presbyterian clergywoman with missionary roots in the Middle East, a strong commitment to human rights and peace, and a deep love of interfaith dialogue, I am dismayed and heartbroken by my denomination's actions regarding divestment. Not only has divestment, even ``selective divestment,'' contradicted and undermined a half-century of the church's commitment to a two-state solution, it has seriously eroded a much-valued relationship with the Jewish community.

For over 50 years, the Presbyterian Church has affirmed the rights of Israel and the Palestinians to exist within their own safe and secure borders. Church leaders cannot point backward to past ``even-handed'' commitments while we now place our political weight solely upon the Israeli side of the Middle East teeter-totter and call it balanced.

How can we speak about ``selective divestment'' from corporations like Caterpillar, because of a connection with the Israeli government and occupation, while failing to investigate selective divestment from oil companies in Saudi Arabia and their connection with funding Palestinian terrorism? After years of commitment not to take sides in the Israeli-Palestine conflict, what pitched us off course?

Our sense of timing is off. Just when Israel is departing from Gaza, our denomination announced which companies it has targeted for possible divestment. How ironic: Israel is leaving one of the occupied territories lock, stock and barrel, and we reward it with threats of punishment...

...This does not deny Christians the right to speak out or to challenge the behavior of any nation that acts unjustly. However, demonization of Israel is a form of anti-Semitism. When we paint Israel as the ``root of evil,'' which we did in our General Assembly's resolution, this is demonization. When Christian denominations shine the spotlight of human rights on Israel while paying scant attention to the gender caste system in Saudi Arabia, for instance, this is demonization...