Presbyterians divest holdings to pressure Israel

The audience takes part in an opening prayer at the 221st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church at Cobo Hall in Detroit on June 19, 2014.(Photo: David Guralnick AP)

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has voted to divest its holdings in three companies — Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions — that it says supply equipment used by Israel in the occupation of Palestinian territory.

The resolution, which passed by a vote of 310 to 303 late Friday at the 221st General Assembly in Detroit, calls for the largest Presbyterian denomination in the U.S. to dump $21 million in investments from the three companies.

The American Jewish Committee slammed the vote, calling it "a breach with a Jewish community committed to Jewish-Christian relations."

Supporters of the measure argued that Caterpillar makes bulldozers Israel uses to demolish Palestinian homes, Hewlett-Packard makes technology used to promote biased treatment of Palestinians, and Motorola makes communications and security equipment that hurts Palestinians.

The moderator of the Presbyterian general assembly, Heath Rada, said that the bulldozers that Caterpillar makes for Israel are "not like anything we see in" the U.S. They are designed "to be destructive."

Motorola Solutions said in a statement that the company follows the law and its own policies that address human rights. Hewlett-Packard said its checkpoints for Palestinians were developed to expedite passage "in a secure environment, enabling people to get to their place of work or to carry out their business in a faster and safer way." Caterpillar has said it does not sell equipment to Israel, just to the U.S. government.

A spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, in a statement posted on its Facebook page,^[1] denounced the resolution as "shameful."

"Voting for symbolic measures marginalizes and removes its ability to be a constructive partner to promote peace in the Middle East," the statement said.

The decision by the Assembly, the church's top legislative body that narrowly rejected a similar motion in 2012, brought an "audible gasp" in the hall, according to an official church account of the proceedings.

"To our media friends in the room, please don't report that this action is anything other than an expression of love for both our Jewish and Palestinian brothers and sisters," Rada said after the vote.

The Rev. Dr. Walt Davis, in a statement released by the Israel/Palestine Mission Network, a Presbyterian group that pushed for divestment, was more pointed, saying that after engaging with the three corporations for a decade, the companies "have failed to modify their behavior and continue to profit from Israeli human rights abuses and non-peaceful pursuits."

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), with 1.76 million members and more than 10,000 congregations, is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the U.S., although its membership has dropped 37% in 21 years, more than 1 million members. It was formed in a merger with another Presbyterian denomination in 1983.

The assembly also voted this week by 61% to allow its pastors to perform same-sex marriages in their churches.

The divestment vote came after intense lobbying efforts over the past week, with supporters and critics of Israel coming to Detroit to press their case in the halls of Cobo Center up until the vote.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish denomination in the U.S., spoke to the assembly on Thursday, telling members he extends a personal invitation for Presbyterian leaders to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if they rejected divestment.

The vote comes amid a movement, often called BDS, Boycott, Divest and Sanctions, to divest from companies that operate in Israel.

Two smaller U.S. religious groups have divested in protest of Israeli policies: the Friends Fiduciary Corp., which manages assets for U.S. Quakers, and the Mennonite Central Committee. Last week, the pension board of the United Methodist Church, the largest mainline Protestant group in the U.S., revealed plans to sell holdings worth about $110,000 in G4S, which provides security equipment and has contracts with Israel's prison system. However, the United Methodist Church had rejected churchwide divestment.

Rada and Gradye Parsons, head of the assembly, stressed that Friday's vote was not an endorsement of the BDS movement. Both said the Presbyterians still support Israel and the Palestinians and are hoping for a two-state solution with the Palestinians. The resolution included a section that called for Presbyterians to have good relations with Jewish-Americans, Muslim-Americans, and Palestinian Christians.

Carol Hylkema of the IPMN, which spearheaded the drive for divestment, said their action was modeled on the divestment movement to end apartheid in South Africa. The 2012 assembly had endorsed a boycott of Israeli products made in the Palestinian territories.

In a reflection of the sensitivity of the issue, the assembly added a preamble to the proposal during floor debate to underscore the denomination's "commitment to interfaith and ecumenical dialogue and relationships in the region," PC(USA) said on its website.

"The PC(USA) has a long-standing commitment to peace in Israel and Palestine. We recognize the complexity of the issues, the decades-long struggle, the pain suffered and inflicted by policies and practices of both the Israeli government and Palestinian entities," the preamble said. "We further acknowledge and confess our own complicity in both the historic and current suffering of Israeli and Palestinian yearning for justice and reconciliation."

The Anti-Defamation League described the decision as "out of step with the views of the majority of Presbyterians in the pews and sends a painful message to American Jews."

"Over the past ten years, PC(USA) leaders have fomented an atmosphere of open hostility to Israel within the church, promoted a one-sided presentation of the complex realities of the Middle East, and permitted the presentation of a grossly distorted image of the views of the Jewish community," the ADL added.

Niraj Warikoo is a staff writer for the Detroit Free Press; Doug Stanglin reports from McLean, Va. Contributing: Associated Press

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References

1. ^{^} https://www.facebook.com/IsraelinUSA (www.facebook.com)