DETROIT, Mich. —The Middle East Issues Committee of the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly recommended that the denomination sell off its holdings in three companies that do business with the Israeli military. In a resolution adopted June 17, the committee proposed to instruct the denomination’s foundation and pension board “to divest from Caterpillar, Inc., Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions, in accord with our church’s decades-long socially responsible investment (SRI) history.
The committee vote to approve the resolution was 45-20. The issue will now go for final action in a plenary session of the General Assembly on Friday.
The three companies were targeted for divestment because of their sales to the Israeli military of products such as construction equipment (Caterpillar), biometric scanners (Hewlett-Packard), and ruggedized cell phones (Motorola Solutions). The committee’s decision for divestment was not unexpected, in light of the heavy weight of testimony the committee received the previous day linking the companies’ products to Israeli abuses against Palestinians. Current PCUSA officials, former moderators, international partner church representatives, grassroots Presbyterian pastors and members, Palestinian Christians and Muslims, and anti-Zionist American and Israeli Jews all implored the assembly commissioners to divest. Divestment opponents had far less time on the committee’s docket and generally spoke in more moderate tones.
The resolution claims, “This action on divestment does not mean an alignment with the overall strategy of the global BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanctions) movement” against Israel. It reaffirms the denomination’s commitment to “a two-state solution in which a secure and universally recognized State of Israel lives alongside a free, viable, and secure state for the Palestinian people.” The resolution encourages church bodies to consider “possible investments in Israel-Palestine that advance peace and improve the lives of Palestinians and Israelis.”
An overture flipped
The most curious thing about the committee’s action was the vehicle it chose. It did not approve the carefully documented divestment recommendation from the denomination’s Mission Responsibility Through Investment Committee (MRTI), as might have been expected. Instead the committee turned to an overture from New Covenant Presbytery in Houston that was originally written in opposition to divestment. Committee members made amendments to strip out the overture’s repudiations of divestment and replace them with an endorsement.
After the thrust of the overture had been completely reversed, it was adopted as amended. “We can stand behind this as a good compromise document,” declared Commissioner Bryan Franzen of San Jose Presbytery. By combining the divestment mandate with material from the previously anti-divestment overture, Paul Shields of Coastal Carolina Presbytery affirmed, “what we’re doing is we’re making a positive statement for Israel, we’re making a positive statement for the Palestinian people.”
Discussions among commissioners on the committee illuminated their reasoning. Shields from Coastal Carolina felt the PCUSA was “obligated by policy to divest and fulfill our commitment” not to profit from non-peaceful pursuits. “We can’t in good conscience not divest from these companies,” he said, “because we do have a ten-year history of going back and forth” urging them to stop selling to the Israeli military. Shields affirmed that “we trust our people” in MRTI who carried on those dialogues and are now recommending divestment.
“Divestment sends a powerful message that we are a people of the Word,” according to Lauren McFeaters of New Brunswick Presbytery in New Jersey. “It demonstrates our stewardship. It’s a biblical message to the Lord who felt the widow’s mite equaled millions.”
‘Our moral obligation to do something’
Christine Sackett of Detroit Presbytery worried that delaying a decision on divestment would deny justice to suffering Palestinians. “Too many times at GA we’ve kind of moved it to the next GA,” she complained. “My biggest concern this morning is that we just won’t do enough to make a difference…. If we’re not going to divest, then what else concretely can we do? We’re running out of time, folks. People are dying. People are being hurt. It’s our moral obligation to do something.”
But Earl Bland from Charleston Atlantic Presbytery questioned the wisdom of divestment. “I don’t believe anyone could defend all that the Israeli government has done,” Bland said. “The occupation of Palestine needs to cease today, not tomorrow. But divestment from the three American companies is neither effective nor just. There are other ways to come with a prophetic voice in the church.”
Bland, like many other commissioners, noted the relative insignificance of the denomination’s holdings in the three corporations—no more than a couple hundredths of one percent of the outstanding stock in any case. “There is so much doubt that it [divesting] will have any effect,” he remarked, “but there is no doubt it will be labeled as the PCUSA divesting from Israel…. There’s no doubt that it will alienate many of our Jewish and Israeli friends, and there is no doubt that it will continue to divide our congregations.”
Sue Sawers from Great Rivers Presbytery in Illinois shared personal experience of division at the local level. Her presbytery contains the Caterpillar headquarters in Peoria, with several congregations including Caterpillar employees. Sawers spoke of “thousands, hundreds of thousands, of faithful Christians [who] work for Caterpillar and for HP and for Motorola.” These are people, she said, “who are supporting the church, who are doing the kinds of social justice issues on a local scale that we are wanting to do on a more global scale.” Sawers asked her fellow commissioners to “be cognizant that in demonizing their companies, we are, in their view, abandoning them and throwing them under the bus.” She said Great Rivers had seen one large congregation depart for that reason, “and we’re hurting because we lost it.”
Bland observed that the products sold by Caterpillar and the other companies were “morally neutral.” Robert Opie of Stockton Presbytery wondered whether divestment advocates were “missing the mark” in fixing blame on the companies and their products, when perhaps the greater responsibility lay with the Israeli officials who directed the use of those products.
Ken Macari of Elizabeth Presbytery in New Jersey maintained that, regardless of the intentions of divestment proponents, “On the ground, divestment means Jewish people do not have a right to a land.” Macari worried about the reaction from his Jewish neighbors: “I cannot go back to Edison, New Jersey, if we divest because I will be told that you as a Presbyterian have voted against me as a person.”
Nothing to do with BDS, nothing against Israel
Divestment advocates minimized these concerns. Young Adult Advisory Delegate Emma Warman from Baltimore Presbytery gave assurance that “divesting is against American companies and not Israel.” Catherine Neal from Milwaukee Presbytery admonished her fellow commissioners to “stop worrying about someone who is outside of this room.”
YAAD Peter Stelljes from Monmouth Presbytery in New Jersey pleaded, “We can’t live in fear” of what the media or non-Presbyterians might say. “I think it’s within our power to tell the media how we are to be painted,” Stelljes insisted.
YAAD Rachael Wentworth from Blackhawk Presbytery in Illinois also preferred to think positively. She described divestment as “a gateway to do all of the things that we are saying on this floor: to be there for the Israelis and the Palestine people, to make more positive investments, to go forth in what Christ wants us to do.”
David Thornton from Pittsburgh Presbytery admitted his surprise at how little economic leverage the PCUSA had. “However,” Thornton said, “from a spiritual point of view this [divestment] speaks volumes.” He claimed: “We are actually loving those companies by bringing to their attention what they’re doing. We’re acting as their brothers and sisters. We’re saying, ‘Wake up.’ This is a loving, gracious wake-up call.” Thornton warned against “succumb[ing] to a position of moral neutrality” between oppressed and oppressors.
Franzen from San Jose asked, “If we divest, what’s going to happen?” The answer he said he always heard is: “Oh, it’s symbolic. It’s going to send a message. It’s going to do work that we don’t have to do. We’re letting our money do it.” Franzen raged, “I’m sick of letting our money do our work. We are Christians. We are here to do God’s work.”
Bill Ward of Inland Northwest Presbytery in Washington criticized divestment as “a moral bandaid for us to go home and feel good.” He was also “very concerned that what we do will be used against us and we will become another pawn in somebody else’s big geopolitical game.”
Kriss Bottino of Central Washington Presbytery delivered a more specific warning: “If we go with divestment, you all need to know that we give up in part a certain amount of control to others who are driving—particularly BDS [the international movement to impose boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel]. They are going to take our actions, I believe, and use the PCUSA as somewhat of a poster child to further their agenda, which might not be our full intention.”
Christine Dickerson from Riverside Presbytery in California denied any such connection. “Divestment has nothing to do with BDS,” she asserted. “It has to do with human rights and the right to exist. I believe that we have been placed here in this time to make a moral statement.”
Acting as ‘ecumenical brothers and sisters’
Andries Coetzee of Muskingum Valley told of growing up in South Africa under the apartheid regime. He expressed gratitude that the PCUSA participated in BDS movements against that regime. “What changed South Africa,” according to Coetzee, “was when these congregations and movements like the PCUSA said, ‘Well, this is wrong.’ And with that continuing isolation, we [white South Africans] realized that the path we were on was a path of self-destruction.” He praised the PCUSA as “ecumenical brothers and sisters” who “helped us see … that we were on the wrong path.” Coetzee drew the controversial parallel between apartheid South Africa and Israel, with the hope that in the latter case BDS measures might have the same success as they had in the former.
Elmarie Parker, a missionary advisory delegate working in Lebanon and Syria, told her fellow commissioners that she had consulted with Christian leaders around the Middle East. “I hear from them as well that divestment is a way to address the structural issue of [Israeli] oppression,” Parker reported.
Perhaps the most influential overseas voice was Ecumenical Advisory Delegate Rifat Kassis from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land. Kassis, who is also coordinator of the controversial Kairos Palestine initiative, sat on the Middle East Issues Committee and spoke freely. “For me I think divestment is the answer,” Kassis said. “I think we need to put pressure on Israel and the [Jewish] settlers [on the West Bank]. This is the only way to keep the two-state solution.” Apparently, the majority of his colleagues on the committee agreed with Kassis that divestment is at least part of the answer for the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
Other actions of the Middle East Issues Committee included:
- approving a new study to reconsider the denomination’s support for a “two-state solution”;
- turning down an overture to classify Israeli practices as “apartheid”;
- rejecting a call to boycott all Hewlett-Packard products;
- approving a resolution for “equal rights for all inhabitants of Israel and Palestine”;
- adopting a resolution clarifying that the controversial Zionism Unsettled study “does not represent the views of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)”;
- endorsing a discussion paper on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict produced by Chicago
4 Comments. Leave new
Notice how close the vote was on the matter of classifying Israeli policies as apartheid. The motion failed by one vote 32-33.
I thank Rev. Andries Coetzee for his brave and honest testimony on behalf of the divestment from the three American companies who are profiting from the occupation of Palestinian lands.
We can all condemn the PC(USA)’s anti-Semitic stand.
“However,” Thornton said, “from a spiritual point of view this [divestment] speaks volumes.” He claimed: “We are actually loving those companies by bringing to their attention what they’re doing. We’re acting as their brothers and sisters. We’re saying, ‘Wake up.’ This is a loving, gracious wake-up call.”
Too bad that saying Homosexual marriage is a sin isn’t viewed as a loving and gracious wake-up call.