Anti-Israel Divestment Campaign Stalls
by Mark D. Tooley, FrontPageMagazine
The campaign to divest in firms doing business with Israel largely failed to gain traction on U.S. university campuses. It then moved to U.S. mainline churches, gaining victory in 2004 when the 3 million member Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted to divest in corporations, like Caterpillar Tractor, that sell to or buy from Israel. For many years, the Religious Left, led by mainline officials, has targeted Israel for special condemnation.
But the campaign even within left-leaning church bureaucracies has stalled. The Episcopalians and Lutherans have declined to endorse divestment. There is little traction for the movement among the Methodists, though the concept was endorsed by their largest regional conference. The 1.2 million member United Church of Christ endorsed the concept of divestment at its General Synod last year. But it is not implementing divestment.
That leaves the Presbyterians, among whom the divestment action aroused tremendous controversy. The Presbyterian General Assembly is transpiring this week, and over 20 local presbyteries have asked the assembly to revoke the divestment action. Former CIA director Jim Woolsey, himself a lifelong Presbyterian, is going to the Birmingham gathering to speak at a luncheon for anti-divestment Presbyterian today (Friday, June 15).
In its 2004 action, the Presbyterians denounced Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land as the “root of evil acts committed against innocent people on both sides of the conflict.” A Palestinian Lutheran pastor, brought to the assembly by anti-Israel church bureaucrats, told the Presbyterians that, “the Israeli army destroyed so many Palestinian homes that if piled together would be higher than the Twin Towers … It is time to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine now and divestment is a way to do that.”
Responding the Lutheran Palestinian’s appeal, the Presbyterians resolved to start a “phased selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel.” A motion to delete the divestment measure from the overall resolution was defeated by a vote of 142-358.
A subsequent message from PCUSA Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick defended the divestment action, likening it to the struggles against South Africa’s apartheid. He wrote in a church newsletter: “…One effective strategy for bringing about positive change in the face of continued injustice is leveraging the economic power of the church through a responsible and deliberate process of phased, selective divestment. This strategy has been used successfully in South Africa, Sudan, Indonesia and elsewhere.” According to the PCUSA newsletter: “While the specific contexts and dynamics of South African apartheid were different from those in today’s Israel, where the issue is occupation, selective divestment has been a proven, responsible strategy to address injustice.”
Jewish groups responded with indignation to the Presbyterian action. The Anti-Defamation League’s Abraham H. Foxman complained that the PCUSA had accepted the “Palestinian narrative” uncritically. “But what galls us is that it’s based in morality,” he told a Presbyterian official who was addressing the League’s executive committee. “You wrap it into moral truth and it is moral hypocrisy. You’re entitled to your moral view, but say this is the Palestinian position which you have adopted and you give it morality.”
At least fourteen Presbyterian members of the U.S. Congress also protested the divestment action of their denomination. Anti-divestment Presbyterians set up a website: www.enddivestment.com. Among the two-dozen or so local presbyteries calling for revocation of the divestment action was the Presbytery of Mississippi.
The overture from the Mississippi Presbyterians called the divestment stance “arrogant, condescending, and punitive.” It also lamented the denomination’s opposition to Israel’s Security Wall, which it called potentially “a necessary evil to deter attacks and counter-attacks.” Telling a “nation that it cannot protect its borders or defend its people from mortar or suicide bombers is naive, arrogant, and hypocritical,” the Mississippians declared. They also noted that The Presbytery of Mississippi “does not share the blanket condemnation of ‘Christian Zionism.’”
Meanwhile, most Presbyterians were against the divestment action, according to a denominational poll, by a 3-2 margin. “Few recent General Assembly actions have been as controversial as last year’s decision to explore possible divestment of stocks owned by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in companies doing business in Israel, one church official noted. According to the poll, lay people were opposed, 42 percent to 28 percent, with 30 percent undecided. Contrastingly, pastors favored divestment, 48 percent to 43 percent. Not surprisingly, theological conservatives opposed divestment. Theological liberals favored it, with moderates evenly divided.
Attempting to quell the controversy PCUSA Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase is proposing that the denomination defer any further action on divestment until 2008. Four firms in the church’s investments portfolio, including Caterpillar, have been listed as potential targets. The church owns $3 million in Caterpillar stock. The other firms are Motorola, United Technologies, and Citibank. Opponents of divestment decry the Moderator’s proposal as simply a stalling tactic to keep divestment alive. Though two years have passed since the divestment vote, the church bureaucracy has not yet actually formally divested in any firm.
Anti-divestment Presbyterians want to revoke the PCUSA divestment policy this week. Former CIA Director James Woolsey will address the anti-divestment Presbyterians at a 12:30pm luncheon on Friday, June 16th, at the Medical Forum (third floor), adjacent to the Sheraton Hotel, in Birmingham, where the General Assembly is gathered June 14 through June 22.
Whether the Presbyterians revoke anti-Israel divestment or not at this General Assembly, the divestment cause appears to be puttering out. But the Religious Left, including Presbyterian and mainline church officials, will certainly look for new avenues to express their hostility towards Israel.
Mark D. Tooley directs the United Methodist committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy.
