Established in the U.S. in 1957, but with roots going back to colonial New England, the United Church of Christ (UCC) is one of the major denominations that make up what is known as mainline Protestantism—long the socially dominant form of American Christianity. These churches have gone into a precipitous decline in recent decades, as Samuel Goldman explains, and the UCC is no exception. While, unlike so many Christian denominations, this particular church does not have a long and sordid history of anti-Semitism, that too appears to be changing, as seen from the latest meeting of its General Synod. Luke Moon writes:

[A] General Synod seemingly cannot conclude without passage of a resolution uniquely condemning Israel. This year’s resolution, “A Declaration of Just Peace between Palestine and Israel,” claims to be for peace and opposed to anti-Semitism—and yet singles out Israel for special rebuke and calls on local churches to partner with some of the most radical anti-Israel organizations in the U.S. It also claims to be against supersessionism, [the belief that the church has replaced the Jews as God’s chosen people], and yet urges churches to critically examine the “use and interpretations of Scripture as well as liturgies and hymns that equate ancient biblical Israel with the modern state.”

This type of antagonism against Israel is unsurprising. . . . Although the UCC boasts of its broadminded liberality, its statements and policies show an ongoing animus against the world’s only majority-Jewish country.

The UCC likes to “repent” for various historical misdeeds committed by other people often long ago. But perhaps it should repent for its own ongoing unfairness and double standards towards Jewish Israel. And perhaps it should reflect more on Christianity’s centuries of misdeeds against Jewish people and on why Israel was created as a special refuge for Jews after so much persecution, culminating with the Holocaust in majority-Christian Europe.

Israel will likely respond directly against Iran after yesterday’s attack, and has made known that it will calibrate its retaliation based not on the extent of the damage, but on the scale of the attack. The specifics are anyone’s guess, but Edward Luttwak has a suggestion, put forth in an article published just hours before the missile barrage: cut off Tehran’s ability to send money and arms to Shiite Arab militias.

In practice, most of this cash comes from a single source: oil. . . . In other words, the flow of dollars that sustains Israel’s enemies, and which has caused so much trouble to Western interests from the Syrian desert to the Red Sea, emanates almost entirely from the oil loaded onto tankers at the export terminal on Khark Island, a speck of land about 25 kilometers off Iran’s southern coast. Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly that Israel’s “long arm” can reach them too. Indeed, Khark’s location in the Persian Gulf is relatively close. At 1,516 kilometers from Israel’s main airbase, it’s far closer than the Houthis’ main oil import terminal at Hodeida in Yemen—a place that was destroyed by Israeli jets in July, and attacked again [on Sunday].