Presbyterians to divest as protest against Israel
Source: Associated Press via WRAL
DETROIT The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on Friday became the most prominent religious group in the United States to endorse divestment as a protest against Israeli policies toward Palestinians, voting to sell church stock in three companies whose products Israel uses in the occupied territories.
The General Assembly voted by a razor-thin margin 310-303 to sell stock in Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions. Two years ago, the General Assembly rejected a similar divestment proposal by two votes.
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"Because we are a historical peacemaking church, what we have done is, we have stood up for nonviolent means of resistance to oppression and we have sent a clear message to a struggling society that we support their efforts to resist in a nonviolent way the oppression being thrust upon them," said the Rev. Jeffrey DeYoe, of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network.
The vote was the subject of intense lobbying both from within and outside the church. Rabbis and other members of Jewish Voice for Peace, which advocates for Palestinians, lined the halls of the meeting and prayed in vigils outside the convention center wearing T-shirts that read, "Another Jew Supporting Divestment." Other rabbis and their Presbyterian supporters held panel discussions and sent letters to delegates urging them to vote no.
Read more at http://www.wral.com/presbyterians-to-divest-as-protest-against-israel/13752764/#XVxR5R8QrV2yMxSZ.99
Read more: http://www.wral.com/presbyterians-to-divest-as-protest-against-israel/13752764/
I'm glad to see the Presbyterians voting to do something. It's not a huge thing, but it sends a message that it's time for Israel's right wing government to stop being so, well, right wing.
Delphinus
(11,847 posts)Unitarian Universalists will do the same thing. They did something similar a few years ago with Fidelity but I can't remember why.
Small and important steps.
truth2power
(8,219 posts)As you said, small steps, but unstoppable now, I hope.
JustAnotherGen
(32,025 posts)But in the US you won't see anything about it coming out of Boston. Personally I'm focused on poverty, maintaining US public education (look at the UU influence on that - we've not always been so nice), and the rights of the GLBT community. I can't see the fellowship jumping in on that other than to say - be tolerant.
zentrum
(9,866 posts)Babel_17
(5,400 posts)libodem
(19,288 posts)And makes tears fill up my eyes. This is a beautiful thing. It is so hard to be for the Palestinians yet not make a move that could be considered antisemitic. I walk that walk in my personal life. I was raised to be a 'good' liberal and I have a huge soft spot for all minorities. I love the Hebrew history and I feel the pain of of all the persecution of the Jews through history. I feel an affinity for the Jewish people. But I do not like the behavior of Israel and the Zionists.
klook
(12,174 posts)And a great many Israelis would agree with you 100%. Their government's policies are at odds with the ideals that many of its citizens uphold.
Alex P Notkeaton
(309 posts)Bibi's regime is a thugocracy. The people of Israel just want to live their lives.
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)There are factions of "Israel can do no wrong. And if you point out how badly they are acting you hate Israel."
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)VA_Jill
(10,045 posts)Historically my mom's family were Scottish Presbyterians.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Let the Palestinians have their state.
Or create a single, democratic state in all the territory.
How many more decades do we let this shit go on?
Purveyor
(29,876 posts)Nonhlanhla
(2,074 posts)The PC(USA) has made several momentous decisions this week. One smaller one is the decision to accept the Confession of Belhar that was written in South Africa during the anti-apartheid struggle. For me as a South African who now is a member of the PC(USA), this has been momentous. It is an affirmation of the PC(USA)'s commitment to racial inclusion and social justice.
Another big decision from this week's General Assembly is the one to let our clergy marry same-sex couples. This decision will still have to be ratified by local presbyteries, as is the case for all decisions made by the General Assembly (our structure is not top-down like that of the Catholics). We will probably lose more members due to this, as we did when we made the decision a few years ago to ordain gay clergy. But so be it. The church believes in its prophetic witness for social justice.
And now this decision. The PC(USA) has money in the stock market to fund its pension funds as well as other activities. This decision is to divest those funds from companies that aide Israel in its occupation efforts. This is by no means an anti-Semitic move. As a matter of fact, Presbyterianism is probably one of the least anti-Semitic denominations within Christianity. (I won't go into a lot of boring theological details, but for one, we don't operate with a law vs. gospel dichotomy in our views on the relationship between the Old and New Testaments like Lutherans do - not that Lutherans are necessarily anti-Semitic - but the affirmation of continuation between Judaism and Christianity is a Presbyterian tendency, which leads to less of a temptation to fall into historical Christian anti-Semitic patterns.) The PC(USA) is well aware that this move might be construed as anti-Semitism, but knowing this church, and indeed knowing several individuals who were at General Assembly this week, I know with absolute certainty that this is born from a strong sense of social justice, and not out of rejection of Jews, Judaism, or Israel. (One of the ironies in this country is that many of the churches who support Israel uncritically are also deeply anti-Semitic in their theology - they basically support Israel because they believe that the Jews must all go back to Israel and then be converted to Christianity en masse before the return of Christ. Presbyterians do NOT hold to that kind of view at all. We tend to respect Jews as Jews, and not as vehicles to the fulfillment of our own faith.)
burrowowl
(17,655 posts)ozone_man
(4,825 posts)Caterpillar bull dozes olive trees, and houses, and it seems Rachael Corrie. Well that would cause me to divest from them.