I'm going to guess that Israel won't be financially crippled if some stock is sold. That's a bit of melodrama.
http://www.pcusa.org/israelandjewishrelations/moderator.htm
Yours is a shockingly utilitarian view for a Christian, and, I presume, a presbyterian pastor, to take.
To be sure, the Presbyterian Church and the U of W can sell their stock and Israel will survive. That will not, however, make the actions of either the PCUSA or the UW faculty senate morally defensible.
Israel is opposed by enemies, Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the PA-sponsored Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade that take the position that the Arabs have the right to sovereignty but the Jews do not. In response, Israel has used measured, moderate, trageted responses. It has not gone in as the government of , say, Syria, does, to wipe out entire villages. No. The IDF carefully targets identified terrorists. And, yes, sometimes when you shoot at a terrorist you hit a child. This is not the same as targeting children, which is what Hamas is doing.
Nor is the Israeli position, which can be summed up as: let us have our little state and you can have your 23 great, big Arab Muslim states. At all the same as the Arab position , which is, we get all 23 Arab Muslim states plus we get to destroy and steal your little Jewish State.
Only people lacking moral judgement fail to see the injustice of the Presbyterian Church in divesting from Israel, while failing to criticize the Arab Muslim states and organizations that seek to destroy the world's only Jewish state.
So your answer is, go ahead and screw with Israel, our Middle Eastern ally facing Palestinian Arab terrorism, because it won't hurt them anyway?
You are twisted. Would a protest march of activists in front of your church each Sunday holding signs calling you "Jew Haters" be ok because it is just symbolic?
Even if it were symbolic action, symbolic actions can hurt. A protest march is symbolic. A flag burning is symbolic. The pie tossed in Bill Gates' face was symbolic. Symbolic actions can have great effect. Your movement's boycott of Israel already has served to validate a University of Wisconsin campus' decision to do the same.
Why do you persist in defending your church's craven actions by infantilizing them? Saying things like they won't have any effect anyway, or suggesting that we boycott the Palestinian Arabs too, don't provide a defense to your church's decision to turn its back on our ally Israel, in its time of need.
You should be ashamed.