(RNS) Membership in the Presbyterian Church (USA) has dropped every year since the denomination was formed in 1983. The continuing decline and aging membership have resulted in reduced income, fewer congregations and staff layoffs at the denomination’s headquarters in Louisville, Ky.

So, why is it that the shrinking membership of the PCUSA is constantly forced to spend hundreds of precious hours debating appalling resolutions that always single out Israel for egregious condemnation?

Anti-Israel hostility — some might even call it hysteria — was on display again at the church’s General Assembly in Minneapolis earlier this month.

Six years ago, the PCUSA called for “selective divestment” in multinational corporations operating in Israel, but that plan was rescinded in 2006. This year saw a 173-page proposed resolution that was dripping with hostility towards Jews, Judaism and Israel.

Among the document’s many mistruths was the odious lie that Israeli treatment of Palestinians is akin to the Nazis’ campaign against Jews. Using that “N” word immediately and utterly destroys any rational discussion or chance for authentic dialogue.

Another ugly assertion was that the DNA of Israeli Jews is “European,” and not “Middle Eastern” (the idea being, I assume, to portray Israelis as foreigners in their homeland). In fact, the majority of Israeli Jews are from Muslim lands including Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Yemen, and Lebanon — countries where Jews have lived for hundreds, even thousands, of years.

Such a racist charge is reminiscent of the 1930s and 1940s when the real Nazis murdered millions of racially “inferior” groups like Jews, Gypsies and Slavs. During the Spanish Inquisition, Jews were attacked because they lacked “Limpieza de Sangre,” purity of blood. It is a disgrace the proposed PCUSA resolution contained such racist garbage.

The resolution was saturated with a malevolent double standard of judgment, lies, distortions and insults to Jews and Judaism, and even questioned Israel’s right to national sovereignty. The Rev. Susan Zencka of Stevens Point, Wisc., had it right when she said: “We have come to a position of Palestine good, Israel bad. Life is not that simple.”

Fortunately, Presbyterians for Middle East Peace (PMEP), a broad-based group of clergy and lay people, were able to revise most of the wretched anti-Israel resolution. The unfair and incendiary assertion that Israel is an “apartheid” state was deleted, along with many other toxic sections of the wildly inaccurate report. The revised resolution also acknowledged Israel’s need to block the flow of weapons into Hamas-controlled Gaza.

More than 100 nations have gained independence since the end of World War II, including Israel in 1948. But because of the current anti-Israel attacks, PMEP was compelled to add these words to the resolution: “(We reaffirm) Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign nation within secure and internationally recognized borders…” No other nation requires such wording.

There were many other improvements, but unfortunately, one mischievous Presbyterian position adopted years ago remains in the final resolution: a questioning of U.S. aid to Israel.

PMEP leaders expunged huge amounts of malignant language, but like some cancer surgeries, they didn’t get it all. After an intense week of struggle, the Presbyterians voted 558-119 to adopt a revised resolution that still has flaws.

Among PMEP leaders were the Rev. John Buchanan of Chicago (publisher of The Christian Century magazine); William Harter of Chambersburg, Pa.; Byron Shafter of New York City; and John Wimberley of Washington, D.C., along with Auburn Seminary president Katherine Henderson and Syracuse University professor Gustav Niebuhr. This group prevented the church from driving itself over the cliff of irrelevancy, racism, arrogance, and ignorance.

The real danger to the world, and to America’s national security, is not the Israel-Palestinian conflict, but rather Iran’s effort to produce nuclear weapons that threaten all of us, including Presbyterians.

At the next General Assembly in 2012, will there be yet another wasteful, divisive debate whether to verbally punish Israel? Angry and dismayed Presbyterians might ask: “How long must this wicked game go on? How long, O Lord?”

(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is the author of the forthcoming “Christians & Jews, Faith to Faith: Tragic History, Promising Present, Fragile Future.”)