Council OKs moderator’s appeal to GA on Mideast
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, Posted Saturday, April 29, 2006
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — After Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase and some allies spent a few hours Thursday night tweaking his statement on Israel and Palestine, the General Assembly Council voted Friday afternoon to approve it.
The revised statement asks the 217th General Assembly to answer more than two-dozen overtures by steering into the middle of the road on the ticklish issues in the Mideast — an alternative to the 216th General Assembly’s resolution that seeks to penalize Israel because of its defensive steps against Palestinian terrorists.
Notably missing from his revised statement was Ufford-Chase’s reference to involving the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy in his proposal to have a working group monitor the changing situation in the Middle East and making a report to the 218th General Assembly in 2008.
ACSWP exasperated the backlash against the 2004 General Assembly’s resolution calling for divestment of Presbyterian holdings in corporations that do business with Israel when it sponsored a trip to Israel and some of its leaders met with a terrorist group in Lebanon, praising them for their work.
The resolution suggested no similar retaliation against corporations that provide funds that pay radical terrorists who strap bombs on their bodies and detonate them in Israeli gathering places, murdering men, women and children.
Because of the resolution and the ACSWP meeting, pro-Israel and Jewish groups accused the Presbyterian Church (USA) of being anti-Semitic.
Ufford-Chase, after a visit to Israel and after hearing from Christians and Jews affected by the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation, recommended that the General Assembly Council respond to the overtures. The overtures range from strong opposition to the divestment strategy to a firm endorsement of it. But the majority call for a middle of the road approach.
Near the conclusion of Ufford-Chase’s revised proposal, one sentence read: “The alternative is an ‘us vs. them” debate that misses the fundamental reality that most Presbyterians are united in their desires for an end to the occupation [by Israel of Palestinian-claimed areas] and the creation of viable, secure states for both Israel and Palestine.”
Through a voice-vote-approved amendment, that sentence was changed to say: “The alternative is an ‘us vs. them” debate that misses the fundamental reality that most Presbyterians care deeply about the issues of peace and justice in Israel and Palestine.”
Rather than have an up-or-down vote on the divestment strategy, which many Jewish and Christians have condemned as anti-Semitic, the General Assembly is now being asked to buy time and make give more attention to fast-changing circumstances in the Middle East.
The PCUSA’s Mission Responsibility through Investment Committee has already targeted four U.S. corporations for possible divestment because they do business with Israel. A fifth company was also placed on that list because it allegedly assisted Palestinian terrorists, but the 2004 resolution made no provision for divestment of PCUSA holdings in pro-Palestinian corporations.
The gist of Ufford-Chase’s proposal was to ask the General Assembly to create a “working group” of seven people to monitor developments in the Mideast, listen “intentionally” to Christians, Jews and Muslims in the region, and provide guidance to the denomination through a report to the 218th General Assembly in 2008.
It also “urges the moderators of the 216th and 217th General Assemblies to ensure that the working group be made of Presbyterians who are committed both to our continuing accompaniment of Palestinian Christians who seek the end of the occupation and to the deepening of our historic and ever-living relationship with our Jewish and Muslim sisters and brothers.”
The General Assembly Council also voted to name Ufford-Chase as the PCUSA’s resource person for the committee that handles the overtures on the Middle East.