When the United Methodist Church kicks off its general assembly this month, one of the notable items on its agenda will be a vote on economic sanctions against Israel

When the United Methodist Church kicks off its general assembly this month, one of the notable items on its agenda will be a vote on economic sanctions against Israel. Notwithstanding the abundance of cruel despots who have come and gone during the lifetime of their church, Methodists have not found an opportunity to mete out similar punishment against any other government: not Castro's Cuba, the embargo against which they have lobbied to end, nor the prison-state of North Korea, where the lunatic regime of Kim Jong Il is succored by Methodist "humanitarian aid." The Methodists never even found time for a boycott of those states where it was a capital offense to be a Methodist: the Soviet Union, for example, or Pol Pot's Cambodia.

One Methodist publication goes so far as to make a grotesque and unconscionable comparison between democratic Israel and Nazi Germany. Methodist literature has also referred to Israel's founding as "original sin." This rhetorical gambit concentrates the Methodists' objections to Israel, which are: 1) that it exists; 2) that it intends to continue existing.

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