Committee Backs Anti-Israel Divestment, Boycott
By Alan F.H. Wisdom, The Layman, July 4, 2012
]]> PITTSBURGH, Pa. — The General Assembly Committee on Middle East Peacemaking approved a report requiring assembly agencies to divest themselves of holdings in three companies selling non-lethal equipment to the Israeli military. Later on July 3, the committee adopted an overture calling for “the boycott of all Israeli products coming from the occupied Palestinian Territories.”
These actions were taken in protest against Israeli military presence and Jewish settlements in the predominantly Palestinian West Bank. They had support from large majorities of committee members: 36-11 and 37-6, respectively. There were no other nations similarly targeted for divestment or boycott.
The recommendation to divest from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions came from the denomination’s Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI). MRTI chair Brian Ellison explained his committee’s concern with how those companies profit from “non-peaceful pursuits.” Caterpillar, he said, makes construction equipment used by the Israeli military in “the demolition of homes of Palestinian civilians, the destruction of Palestinian agricultural land, including the uprooting of generations-old olive trees vital to the economic livelihood of the people, the building of Israeli-only settlements and roads that connect them, and the construction of the separation barrier on Palestinian territory.”
Hewlett-Packard, according to Ellison, supplies “biometric scanners which are used at the checkpoints in that separation barrier.” Motorola provides “technology for the surveillance of Palestinian communities around the Israeli settlements in the West Bank.”
The MRTI chair narrated how his committee had over eight years pursued its “customary corporate engagement process” in appealing to the three companies to cease supplying these products to Israel. He concluded that these efforts “have not been successful and are not likely to be successful.” MRTI was seeking PCUSA divestment as “a matter of both of witness and of conscience, ensuring that our own profit-making does not conflict with our values.”
Presbyterian Foundation and Board of Pensions officials reported to the Middle East Committee that their agencies have current holdings of about $20 million in the three targeted companies. If instructed by the General Assembly, they would sell those holdings over a period of months as it seemed prudent.
In committee discussion, Ruling Elder Commissioner Harold Pugh from Philadelphia declared his support for divestment. “There’s violence being done here,” Pugh said, “somebody’s profiting from it, and we need to not be a part of that.”
Ruling Elder Commissioner Kitty Martin from Twin Cities Presbytery expressed her confidence that “MRTI has done an excellent job historically over these last eight years.” Martin remarked, “We could continue this process [of corporate engagement] forever, but I think we need to seize the moment and we as a church need to take a stand” by divesting from the three companies.
Teaching Elder Commissioner Ted Hanawalt from Eastern Virginia voiced opposition to divestment. “Nothing is going to change,” he predicted. “Not one less tractor is going to go to Israel. Not less one computer…. We’re going to make a grand gesture, which is going to offend 90 percent of the Jewish community and probably 15 percent of the Presbyterian Church.” Hanawalt questioned the tendency to single out Israel for blame. “The violence wasn’t perpetrated by Israel,” he said. “Israel was attacked by seven other nations” in a series of wars.
Ruling Elder Commissioner Mack Dagenhart from Salem Presbytery in North Carolina defended Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions: “These are three ethical, upstanding American companies that make products which are purchased by people including the United States government and the Israeli government and the Palestinians. They haven’t done anything.”
Teaching Elder Commissioner Judy Kolwicz from Newton Presbytery in New Jersey warned, “If we divest, we lose the opportunity to influence…. I think we need to keep on keeping on” in conversation with the corporations.
Teaching Elder Commissioner Ken Page from Grand Canyon Presbytery worried about a “gut-level reaction” in the Jewish community. “For Jewish people for hundreds of years,” Page explained, “economic leverage has been used against them, accompanied by pogroms, persecution, the Holocaust.” If Presbyterians divest, Page feared that it would “break relationships” with Jewish neighbors. He doubted whether breaking relationships with one side of the conflict would be “the best technique for peace.”
But Elsa Falls of Presbytery of the James in Virginia insisted, “We have to do what is morally appropriate at this point, no matter what the consequences.” A strong majority of the committee agreed with her that divestment was the morally appropriate thing to do.
The boycott of products from West Bank Jewish settlements won even broader support with a similar appeal to conscience. Overture advocate John Anderson told the committee: “We call for a boycott as a nonviolent way for us to not be complicit in theft [of Palestinian land]. Simply, you and I do not buy goods that take advantage of another’s suffering.” Anderson said the boycott would “shine a bright light into the darkness of what the Israeli government calls occupation.”
Yet many committee members were eager to frame these actions in a way that would not cause offense or break relationships. Ruling Elder Commissioner Tripp Stuart of Mission Presbytery in Texas expressed his hope for “a middle way where it’s positive for both sides.” Stuart wanted to communicate that “we stand in solidarity with our Palestinian brothers and sisters against any violence committed against you by Israel, and we stand in solidarity with our Israeli brothers and sisters against any violence committed against you by the Palestinians.”
The committee added a comment to the divestment report indicating that PCUSA agencies retained stock in other corporations that did business in Israel, as long as those corporations did not have the same connections to the Israeli military as Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions. Seeking a positive counter-balance to the perceived negative action of divestment, the committee passed another overture asking PCUSA leaders to “devise a plan of active engagement … around issues of job creation and economic development” among Palestinians.
Many committee members voiced a desire to ensure that funds equivalent to those divested would be reinvested in enterprises or projects benefiting Israel/Palestine. Agency officials, however, informed the committee that this arrangement would not be possible, as they had a fiduciary duty to reinvest or spend the funds for the purposes to which those funds were dedicated, and there was not a sufficient pool of otherwise uncommitted funds available.
The same impulse to minimize the offense may have been at work in the committee’s decision to reject an overture to “recognize that Israel’s laws, policies, and practices constitute apartheid again
st the Palestinian people.” Ruling Elder Commissioner Walter Neely responded that “apartheid is too harsh a word” for a complex situation. “Divestment is a slap in the face,” Neely said. “But [calling Israel’s policies] apartheid is a knee to the groin.” The overture was defeated on a 28-19 vote.
The Middle East Peacemaking Committee spent perhaps 90 percent of its time on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Only two of the 12 items before the committee dealt with any other topic. An overture from Atlanta, adopted by the committee, rejected any use of force to stop the Iranian nuclear program.
A commissioners’ resolution sought prayers and peacemaking amidst “the ongoing agony of a virtual civil war in Syria” costing more than 10,000 lives already. In carefully balanced language, the resolution urged “a mediated process of cessation of violence by all perpetrators, including the Assad regime and armed opposition groups. At the same time, it asked outside parties to “refrain from military intervention.”
This Syria resolution did not recommend any divestment. It did not endorse any boycott. Only Israel was targeted for those measures of economic pressure.