Another protestant denomination has declared it’s intention to divest from Israel following the release of a biased report on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict which accused Israel of war crimes while ignoring the near constant rocket attacks on Israel and the bloody take over of Gaza by Hamas. From the NY Sun:

A leading Jewish group said the United Methodist Church’s call to divest from 20 companies that do business with Israel “borders on anti-Semitism,” upping the pressure on President Bush and Senator Clinton — both Methodists — to distance themselves from the church’s statement.

The report, which drew criticism from the Anti-Defamation League yesterday, was written by the Divestment Task Force of the church’s New England Conference and targeted such companies as Blockbuster, General Dynamics, and General Electric.

“The urgency of the humanitarian crisis in the occupied Palestinian territories cannot be overstated,” the report stated. “Palestinians face soaring unemployment, malnutrition, restrictions on movement, denial of medical care, denial of access to their agricultural lands, humiliation at checkpoints and extended lockdowns called curfews.”

The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, said in a statement that the report “borders on anti-Semitism.”

He added: “The authors of the report must be living in a bubble to ignore ongoing attacks on Israel and Hamas’s violent takeover of Gaza to issue such an outrageous, biased report that focuses only on Israel.”

There is also criticism of the move coming those within the church who are scrambling to distance themselves from what’s seen as a far left fringe group using the church as cover for it’s anti-Semitic agenda:

The report also drew criticism from within the United Methodist Church. A senior minister at First United Methodist Church of Palo Alto, the Reverend Archer Summers, said he would work to get the next General Conference to reject a divestment move and to push the body to pass a resolution similar to the United Church of Christ’s recent measure calling for “a balanced study” of the Middle East conflict.

“They’re flat-out wrong. They went off the deep end this time,” Rev. Summers said of the New England Conference. “The powers that be in the New England Methodist Church are clueless about how to bring about a just peace. The report would make it appear that there’s some sort of animus on the part of the United Methodist Church toward the state of Israel, which undermines our credibility as an institution which preaches the good news of peace.

h/t Hot Air