Jewish Self-Criticism A Weapon in the Hands of Israel Hater, Noushin Framke

Noushin Framke, above, encouraged Hamas to keep Gilad Shalit as a bargaining chip. (Screenshot from PC(USA) video feed of General Assembly.)

By a two-vote margin (333-331), the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) denied anti-Israel activists a trophy – the passage of an overture that calls upon the denomination to sell its stock in companies that manufacture products used by the Israeli military.

The passage of a divestment overture by the PC(USA) might have reinvigorated anti-Israel activism in liberal Protestant churches in the U.S., which in the past few years, have been somewhat quiescent in their attacks on Israel.

The defeat of the overture in question, which called for the denomination to sell its stock in Motorola, Caterpillar and Hewlett-Packard, is a good thing.

Still, there are reasons to be concerned about what is going on inside the PC(USA) because anti-Israel activists did win a consolation prize – the passage of another overture, this one calling on the denomination to boycott Israeli products produced in the West Bank.

This overture, which passed with a vote of 457 to 180, was approved after Noushin Framke, a prominent anti-Israel activist in the PC(USA) was asked to speak to the assembly by the people moderating the event. Framke told the assembly that Peter Beinart, an American Zionist Jew who is offended by Israeli policies in the West Bank, supports such boycotts.

Framke’s invocation of Beinart’s support for a boycott of products is emblematic of a process by which anti-Zionists use Jewish self-criticism to isolate the Jewish state in the arena of public opinion. Framke (pictured above) thinks the Jewish state should not exist.

Framke expressed her anti-Zionism through her involvement with the Israel Palestine Mission Network of the PC(USA), (also known as IPMN), which has trafficked in anti-Zionist and in some instances, anti-Semitic imagery. This imagery is detailed in an article published on CAMERA’s website in February 2012.

This article reveals that when the IPMN displayed a picture of President Obama with Jewish stars hanging from his ears, Framke clicked “like” on this image. She also clicked “like” on a comment on Facebook that said Hamas should keep Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit hostage until the Palestinians achieve right of return. In another comment, Framke wrote that “the only *just* solution is ONE binational states, with equal rights for all the citizens.” She continued:

YES, this means NOT a Jewish state, whose idea is an anachronism, anyway. The world has gone to pluralistic societies that are inclusive, and Israel going in the other direction, getting more an more exclusionary, which results in extreme racist nationalism.

And in another comment, Framke wrote that Israeli soldiers in the West Bank “are not human beings.”

Once the Jewish Council for Public Affairs went public with its concerns about these and other postings on the IPMN’s Facebook page, it was deleted.

Why is Noushin Framke speaking to the PC(USA)’s General Assembly, from the podium no less? Do the leaders of the PC(USA) honestly think the presence of someone who demonizes Israel on the dais adds to the credibility of the GA’s proceedings?