Presbyterian delegation meets with leader of group blamed for strikes against U.S.
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, October 19, 2004
A 24-member delegation from the Presbyterian Church (USA) met Sunday with southern Lebanon’s commander of Hizbollah, an Islamic organization that is on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist groups.
Hizbollah is blamed for – but denies involvement in – the bombings of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut in 1984, which killed a total of 270 people.
“The occupation by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza must end because it is oppressive and destructive for the Palestinian people,” one member of the Presbyterian delegation, Nile Harper, told The Associated Press after meeting with Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, Hizbollah’s commander in southern Lebanon.
Harper is the chair of the denomination’s Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, the lead Presbyterian group on the denomination-financed Mideast trip. He criticized as “unhelpful” the barrier Israel is building in the West Bank to prevent Palestinian suicide bombings.
Harper, of Ann Arbor, Mich., also warned that the PCUSA’s 216th General Assembly had instructed its investment agencies to study the possibility of withdrawing money from U.S. corporations whose products “are being destructively used against the Palestinians” by Israel.
The resolution, however, doesn’t say what The Associated Press quoted Harper as saying. It calls for – instead of a study of the possibility – actual “phased selective divestment” of funds invested in “multinational corporations” doing business with Israel. The resolution does not limit that to corporations whose products “are being destructively used against the Palestinians” by Israel.
Besides the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, the Presbyterian delegation included representatives of the PCUSA’s Worldwide Ministries Division, the Presbyterian News Service, the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and the executive director’s office of the General Assembly Council.
According to an Associated Press account of the meeting, Kaouk told the Presbyterians, “Hizbollah is not on a collision course with the people of the United States. Rather, we are very eager for contacts and understanding. But the U.S. administration considers that a meeting between us and you is rejected … because they fear dialogue.”
Even before the Presbyterian delegation met with Kaouk at a Hizbollah-run refugee center, the PCUSA had shown an increasing willingness to support Palestinian causes in their conflict with Israel.
Representatives of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy and the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program helped write that controversial resolution calling for divestment, which has spawned a huge backlash from Jewish and secular media.
Hizbollah fought a guerrilla war against Israeli troops in south Lebanon for nearly two decades until the Israelis pulled out in 2000. The militia is widely seen in Lebanon as a legitimate resistance movement against Israeli occupation of Arab lands.
The United States is not alone in denouncing Hizbollah. The United Nations called on Lebanon to disband all militias – a clear reference to Hizbollah.
According to Lebanese television and press reports, Kaouk provided the Presbyterian delegation with a non-terrorist view of Hizbollah, telling the American delegation about its refugee center and charitable work.
One news agency quoted an unidentified delegation member as saying the visit was intended to better understand the situation in the Middle East. He said Kaouk briefed the Americans on Hizbollah’s role in providing social services and education to the poor.
Jerry Van Marter, director of the Presbyterian News Service, said he did not know all of the members of the Presbyterian delegation but that they included, in addition to Harper:
- Kathy Lueckert, deputy director of the General Assembly Council.
- Victor Makari, Mideast coordinator for Worldwide Missions.
- Sara P. Lisherness, coordinator of the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program.
- Evan Silverstein, a reporter on sabbatical from the Presbyterian News Service.