Presbyterian Church Divestment Document & Responses from Myself & Others

Note: This posting is intended to be read in the context of a related posting here.

Memo to MPC Session Elders
From Pastor
Re. Recent General Assembly
Date of Memo: August 10, 2004

Dear Session Elders,

At the recent meeting of the Presbyterian Church USA General Assembly in June several major changes in church policy were proposed. As it turned out most all of these proposals (for better or for worse) were defeated, some by the narrowest of margins (four votes in one instance).

One rather routine pronouncement on the suffering of innocent Palestinians (caught in the crossfire between terrorists and the Israeli military response to that terrorism) did, however, generate a strong, dissenting reaction from several national (and international) media personalities.

At issue was a final paragraph attached to the pronouncement that calls for the PCUSA to pursue a policy of divesting its investment holdings from international corporations that do business with Israel. The intended purpose of this boycott is , as I understand it, to influence (and change for the “better”) Israeli governmental policies that have brought increased suffering to many in the non-terrorist Palestinian population

For many people a “boycott” of those doing business with Israel is like punishing the victim of violence (Israel) for trying to defend itself against enemies (Hamas, Fatah, etc.) who are not bound by the same moral or legal restraints held by most Israelis and other Western nations.

Two of the most prominent negative responses to this GA policy vote were recorded by Jay Lefkowitz in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece and by Dennis Prager, a conservative radio talk show host, philosopher and Orthodox Jewish religious scholar (his show airs on KHNR 650 Honolulu…half in the am half in the pm).

Since I have received several inquiries from MPCers concerning this issue I am attaching a copy of the Wall Street Journal item, the Dennis Prager commentary, my email response to Dennis Prager and a copy of the actual GA policy statement itself.

Much of what is cited in both the Prager and Lefkowitz articles is not from the adopted policy itself but from statements made by a few of those who spoke in favor of its adoption during the General Assembly. At least one of these comments (which cited South Africa as a nation where boycotts had been effective in changing governmental policy per apartheid) was clearly taken out of context (by Prager) and used (unfairly, I think) as ammunition against the PCUSA.

In any case, I personally do not support this boycott policy and consider it both morally and politically irresponsible. Having attended GA on two occasions I have participated in hurried decisions often quickly adjusted to achieve some compromise or consensus that “sort of” made sense at the moment but, in retrospect, should have been stated differently. I suspect that this was one of those circumstances. Although there were many who were glad for this policy adopted I suspect that the particular paragraph in question would have either not passed (or passed by a much smaller majority) if more time and thought had been given to its implications.

These conjectured circumstances may explain how it might have been adopted but does not necessarily excuse or justify it.

If this issue interests you then read the material and make up your own mind about it. If this issue does not interest you then just be aware of it and set it aside for a month or two (just in case you change your mind) before tossing it out.

Feel free to share any thoughts or feelings you may have with me or with the Session as a whole (under “new business) at our next meeting on August 24.

Many thanks,

COMMENT BY DENNIS PRAGER

Presbyterian church defames ChristianityDennis Prager (archive)

July 20, 2004

I have argued in this column that the greatest sin is committing evil in God's name. As bad as the evil committed by secularists, such as communists and Nazis, has ever been, the most grievous evil is that which is committed in the name of God. For not only do religious evils harm their victims, they also do lasting damage to God-based morality, which those of us who believe in God and religion consider the only viable antidote to evil. That is why Islamic terror is so evil. Not only because it targets the most innocent of people for death and torture, but because it does so in the name of Allah and Islam.
Incredibly, The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) joins the list of religious groups committing evil. In the name of Jesus, it has called for the economic strangulation of Israel. They have equated the Jewish state with South Africa during apartheid and called for a universal divestment from it.

The Presbyterians are the first Christian church to do this, and, ironically, the divestment campaign came the very week that the Roman Catholic Church signed a document equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

It takes a particularly virulent strain of moral idiocy and meanness to single out Israel, not Arafat's Palestinian Authority, or terror-supporting, death-fatwa-issuing Iran, or women-subjugating Saudi Arabia, for condemnation and economic ruin. One of the most decent societies, one of the most liberal democracies in the world, is fighting for its life against Islamic fascists who praise the Holocaust and publicly call for the annihilation of Israel -- and the Presbyterian Church calls for strangling Israel!
Apartheid state? This Goebbels-like Big Lie, concocted by the world's anti-Israel and anti-American Left and by those who want Israel destroyed, is now an official doctrine of the Presbyterian Church. Israel is a nation whose population is one-quarter non-Jewish Arab, with the same rights, including voting and its own political parties, as Jewish citizens; a nation whose second official language is Arabic, the language of those who wish to annihilate the Jewish country; a nation that occupies a tiny sliver of land known as the West Bank only because Jordan, overwhelmingly composed of Palestinians, invaded Israel in 1967 in order to destroy it and thereby lost its ownership of the West Bank.

As an American who fights to preserve Judeo-Christian values as America's primary value system and preserve Christianity as the specific American faith that embodies those values, I can only say this: the God that the 431 leaders of the Presbyterian Church worship is not my God, any more than the Allah of the Islamic fascists that Israel and America fight is my God.

The Bible that these Presbyterians read is not my Bible.

The religious values that these Presbyterians hold are not my religious values.
This is not a difference about immigration policy, affirmative action, taxation, bigger or smaller government, welfare policies, gun control, or a myriad of other moral issues over which decent, God-fearing people can disagree.

This is one of the morality-clarifying issues of our time. To single out Israel for economic strangulation while that good nation fights for its life is an act of such immorality that holding that view precludes one from the title "good" or "God-fearing," for if they are true to God, I am false to Him. If they are good, I who support Israel am bad. If their Bible teaches them to strangle Israel and support Yasser Arafat, I am guided by a different Bible.

They have drawn a line. It is now time for good people, Presbyterians specifically, Christians generally, to distance themselves vigorously and publicly from this morally sick church. And it is time, once again, for Jews to realize that the enemies of the Jews in our day are to be found on the Christian Left while their friends are far more often on the Christian Right.

Many serious Christians ask, "What Would Jesus Do?" If Jesus were here, he would probably be at Israeli hospitals comforting fellow Jews who were deliberately blinded, paralyzed and brain-damaged by Jew- and Christian-hating Palestinian terrorists. He would surely not be with the Jews' enemies, among whom are now the leaders of the Presbyterian Church, USA.
©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

My Response to Dennis

Includes copy of GA

August 2, 2004

Dennis,

I am Pastor of Mililani Presbyterian Church in central Oahu, Hawaii. I am also a regular listener to your radio program each day (when I'm in my car...which is often!)

Although I agree with much of what you said about our recent General Assembly's resolution of divestment with Israel (I would not have supported it) you apparently based your article on second hand sources who wrote ABOUT the resolution and not the resolution itself (which was somewhat rewritten before the final vote). It might be a good idea for you to consider the actual text attached below) as it is not completely clear to me that the GA actually approved divestment or simply asked for research to be done (using existing social standards as guidelines) with the General Assembly Council making the final determination of what, if anything, should be divested.

Israeli policies and actions in the West Bank and Gaza often appear to be heavy-handed and unjust (if not cruel) by our American standards of daily life and liberty. Personally I view them as decisions made by an inherently good country despairing of finding a way to defend itself in a manner that is both effective against the "enemy" and fair and just to the innocent. The Palestinian Authority, of course, is not caught up in that moral dilemma and is (for many reasons, mostly bizarre ) not held to the same standards of behavior as Israel (a point you have raised repeatedly on your show).

In any case, the PCUSA resolution, with the exception of the seemingly "disconnected" final section concerning divestment, appears mostly even-handed although with a definite focus of concern on the Palestinian innocents (although it is not blind to the Israeli sufferings as well) and again, with the exception of that final paragraph, it could even be representative of the opinions of many Israelis themselves. To me, the final paragraph concerning divestment appears to be a clear case of, " Since we have no leverage on the Palestinian side of the conflict it is better to use whatever leverage we have on the Israeli side to influence policy than to sit by and do nothing at all." I don't defend this rationale but I can identify the sense of frustration that leads to what I would describe as a clearly unbalanced and unjust conclusion.

In any case, what follows is the actual text of the decision by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA on July 2, 2004.

May God bless you and your family. May God bless (and forgive) my denomination and may God bless all Israelis/Jews and Palestinians (both Christian and Muslim) who seek true peace and reconciliation with one another.

Sincerely, Jim Tweedie

General Assembly Resolution

The Assembly Committee voted to approve the following resolution in response to this item (68/0/0):

At the time the Presbytery of St. Augustine approved Item 12-01, support for the “Geneva Accord” urging Israel and the Palestinians to implement the Accord seemed a practicable way forward in light of the derailed “road map,” especially in light of action taken by the 215th General Assembly (2003) strongly urging Israeli and Palestinian leaders “to be serious, active, and diligent about seeking peace for their peoples; or, if they are unwilling or unable, to step down and make room for other leaders who will and can” (Resolution on Israel and Palestine: End the Occupation Now, Recommendation D, Minutes, 2003, Part I, p. 636.).

At this time, however, several months since the approval of the proposed item by said presbytery, the situation and the prospects for a negotiated just peace have so deteriorated that people in the region generally, and particularly the Palestinians, have been driven to the edge of despair and hopelessness. Therefore, the 216th General Assembly (2004) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) does the following:

1. Confesses the sovereignty of God over all nations, states, governments, and peoples, acknowledging God’s supreme act of love for the whole world manifest in Jesus Christ so that by faith the world might not perish but be saved. In Christ, God has called us to show love, seek peace, and to pursue justice, so that the world might be transformed into a foretaste of God’s peaceable kingdom.

2. Continues to be inspired by the tenacity of hope of our Palestinian Christian partners in the face of ominous, cumulative gloom and foreboding; it affirms that God has not given us a spirit of timidity, nor have we been called to surrender hope to an attitude of despair.

3. Commends the Presbytery of St. Augustine on its concern for a just resolution of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and for moving the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to persist in voicing this concern. The assembly, therefore, welcomes the possibilities for peace contained in the “Geneva Accord,” as a useful and practical approach. It would also be encouraged by other inspired initiatives that could advance the prospects of peace in the Middle East.

4. Reiterates and reaffirms the call of last year’s General Assembly on the Israeli government to “end the occupation now,” asserting that:

a. The occupation must end; it has proven to be at the root of evil acts committed against innocent people on both sides of the conflict.

b. The security of Israel and the Israeli people is inexorably dependent on making peace with their Palestinian neighbors, by negotiating and reaching a just and equitable solution to the conflict that respects international law, human rights, the sanctity of life, and dignity of persons, land, property, safety of home, freedom of movement, the rights of refugees to return to their homeland, the right of a people to determine their political future, and to live in peace and prosperity.

c. Horrific acts of violence and deadly attacks on innocent people, whether carried out by Palestinian “suicide bombers” or by the Israeli military, are abhorrent and inexcusable by all measures, and are a dead-end alternative to a negotiated settlement of the conflict.

d. The United States needs, now more than ever, to become an honest, even-handed broker for peace, and should review its approach to the problem, allowing more room for the more meaningful participation of other members of the U.N.-designated “Quartet” (the United States, Russia, Germany and France) and others;

e. The international community has an obligation to provide physical protection for those isolated by fear and/or by physical and psychological barriers, thus making space for the restoration of security and creating a climate for the resumption of negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. We support the Palestinians’ persistent request to the United Nations to send a peacekeeping force.

5. Vigorously urges the U.S. government, the government of Israel, and the Palestinian leadership to move swiftly, and with resolve, to recognize that the only way out of this chronic and vicious impasse is to abandon all approaches that exacerbate further strife, lay aside arrogant political posturing, and get on with forging negotiated compromises that open a path to peace.

6. Endorses the letter sent on April 19, 2004, by the Stated Clerk, reiterating concerns of our denomination for Christian partners and their institutions that serve as agents of reconciliation and hope, as well as for their Palestinian and Israeli neighbors, in the Holy Land, in the framework of previous statements of the General Assembly.

7. Refers to Mission Responsibility Through Investment Committee (MRTI) with instructions to initiate a process of phased selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel, in accordance to General Assembly policy on social investing, and to make appropriate recommendations to the General Assembly Council for action.

Wall Street Journal Op-Ed by Jay Lefkowitz

Wall Street Journal
Friday, July 30, 2004

Singled Out The Presbyterian church votes to pull funds from companies that do business with Israel.

BY JAY LEFKOWITZ Friday, July 30, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

By the overwhelming vote of 431-62, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) recently adopted a resolution calling for a divestment campaign from corporations doing business with Israel. Thus a major American religious denomination, whose American roots date back to the Rev. John Witherspoon, the only minister to sign the Declaration of Independence, has called divine authority into service for a biased attack on Israel in the name of peace.

In contrast to the action taken by the Presbyterian Church this month, the Roman Catholic Church has recognized that one-sided criticism of Israel can at times be so grotesque that there is no name to describe it other than anti-Semitism. And in a document ironically signed the same week as the Presbyterian General Assembly, the Catholic Church equated anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

A more nuanced standard, and one that properly recognizes that legitimate criticism of Israel is perfectly appropriate, was articulated last year by Natan Sharansky. A member of the Israeli cabinet who for years had been a prisoner of conscience in the Soviet gulag, Mr. Sharansky defined one current expression of anti-Semitism by three features: the application of double standards to Israel, the demonization of Israel and the delegitimization of Israel.

The recent action by the Presbyterian Church sadly satisfies Mr. Sharansky's test. The church has singled out Israel, alone among all the nations of the world, for divestment. It has demonized Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, and it has delegitimized Israel's right to self-defense.

The church is not calling for divestment of its $7 billion portfolio from China, despite China's denial of the most basic political and religious rights and its particularly harsh treatment of followers of Falun Gong. It is not condemning Russia, even though Russia's policies in Chechnya are by any human-rights standard atrocious. It is not even calling for economic sanctions against Syria or Iran, whose human-rights records for their own people are egregious and whose Jewish citizens are denied the basic civil rights and liberties afforded to all Israelis, including its Arab citizens, some of whom even serve in the Knesset.

Beyond the question of whether the divestment resolution is anti-Semitic, the resolution ignores the fact that Israel is one of America's strongest and most dependable allies in the war on terrorism. Though it is far from perfect (as its own free press regularly makes clear to its citizens and its own Supreme Court recently declared to the world), Israel is the only true democracy in the region, save for the fledgling U.S.-supported Iraqi government. And like the U.S., Israel is a target of choice for terrorist attacks on civilians by the jihadists, with more than 1,000 murdered Israeli men, women and children in the past few years. So when the Presbyterian Church singles out Israel for condemnation, it offers support to those whose ideology of hatred is directed against two of the most democratic nations in the world.

There is no reason to believe that most of America's 2.5 million Presbyterians even know about the divestment resolution, much less support its lack of balance or fairness. Surely for many the church's 1987 statement, in which it committed itself "never again to participate in, to contribute to, or (insofar as we are able) to allow the persecution or denigration of Jews," remains church policy, and they would be perplexed by the recent resolution. But while the general membership of the Presbyterian Church should not be blamed for the divestment vote, the 431 members of the General Assembly who supported it should be called to account.

If we have learned nothing else from the ideological wars of the past century against Nazism and communism, it is that political orthodoxies are potent and deadly weapons. And religious crusaders, whether of the right or left, whether well meaning or not, may be even more dangerous than their secular colleagues, because they drape themselves in the mantle of God.