Presbyterians Concerned for Christian & Jewish Relations, a group of Presbyterians troubled by the stand the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has taken regarding divestment in certain companies doing business in Israel, is asking Presbyterians to join together and work to get that policy changed.
At issue is a 431-62 vote taken last June by the General Assembly authorizing selective, phased divestment in some companies doing business in Israel in protest over the Israeli government’s treatment of the Palestinians. Before any divestiture happened, the PC(USA) first would try to negotiate with the companies involved and would consider filing shareholder resolutions to try to change the companies’ actions. Guidelines drafted in November by the PC(USA)’s Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee would try to limit potential divestiture action to companies whose work in Israel has some kind of link to the political difficulties there, such as involvement with the construction of Israel’s controversial security barrier or the demolition of Palestinian homes or crops.
PC(USA) officials have said no divestiture could take place before the next General Assembly meets in 2006.
PCCJR, which describes itself as “an informal group of Presbyterian ministers and laity” committed to a positive, constructive relations with Jews, is asking the General Assembly Council to place a moratorium on shareholder actions or any other steps related to divestment. And it wants individual Presbyterians and congregations to sign a statement it released December 8 expressing “deep concern” over the assembly’s divestment action and encouraging people to prepare overtures asking the 2006 assembly to reverse that position.
That statement says, in part, that the assembly’s action detracts from the PC(USA)’s commitment to a two-state solution in the Middle East and “it is wrong to single out Israel as the object of a `divestment’ policy when other states and parties in the region are also guilty of serious human rights violations that can and must be addressed.”
The General Assembly Council will meet in Louisville the last week in March.
The statement by Presbyterians Concerned for Christian & Jewish Relations is among the latest in a series of aftershocks rattling the PC(USA) following the assembly’s divestiture vote.
Another one: The General Assembly Council’s Personnel Committee, at the request of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, plans to conduct a review of what led to the departures in November from the PC(USA)’s national staff of Kathy Lueckert and Peter Sulyok. Lueckert, the council’s deputy executive director, and Sulyok, coordinator of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, both lost their jobs following a fact-finding tour in the Middle East in October that included a meeting with leaders of Hezbollah, which the U.S. State Department lists as a terrorist organization. The review will consider whether the PC(USA)’s personnel policies were properly followed in this case.
John Detterick, the council’s executive director, will not discuss specifics of the departures, but has said repeatedly that the council’s executive committee was consulted and that he was careful to follow the PC(USA)’s personnel procedures.
All of these aftershocks leave some Presbyterians feeling unsettled. At the recent moderator’s conference, several national staff members on the front lines of the dispute encouraged the church not to back down from the divestment decision, and not to send an ambiguous message. They called for the PC(USA) to clearly speak out against terrorism and violence — to say, as Jay Rock, the PC(USA)’s coordinator of interfaith relations, put it, that “there is a moral problem with terrorism and there is a moral problem with occupation” of Israel of the West Bank and Gaza.
But the pressure is on, Rock and others acknowledged, with some Jewish groups working to try to get the divestiture action overturned. PC(USA) leaders have responded by calling the denomination’s position “principled.” And now some Presbyterian voices are joining those of Jewish leaders in seeking reconsideration of the assembly’s divestment action.
