The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has named five companies in which it’s considering divesting because of those firms’ involvements in Israel — involvement that a church committee contends contributes to the “ongoing violence that plagues Israel and Palestine.”
During its meeting in Seattle on Aug. 5, the PC(USA)’s Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee (MRTI) named five companies — Caterpillar, Motorola, ITT Industries, United Technologies and Citigroup — it alleges have direct links to the violence, after considering a range of companies in which the church has investments and looking in detail at the business practices of each involving the Middle East.
MRTI maintains that four of the five firms support Israel’s military in the occupied lands, as follows:
· Caterpillar Inc. makes heavy equipment used to destroy Palestinian homes and orchards;
· ITT Industries Inc. supplies the Israeli military with communications and other equipment it uses in the occupied territories;
· Motorola Inc. has a contract to develop wireless encrypted communications for the Israeli military and invests in an Israeli cell phone company; and
· United Technologies Corp. has, through a subsidiary, supplied helicopters to the Israeli military that “have been used in attacks in the occupied territories against suspected Palestinian terrorists.”
Regarding Citigroup, on the other hand, MRTI cited a Wall Street Journal story from April that claimed the bank had “moved substantial funds from charities later seen to be fronts funneling money to terrorist organizations,” according to an MRTI statement. “Some of these funds ended up as payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers,” the statement continued.
In response, Citigroup spokeswoman Leah Johnson told the New York Times: “Any assertion that Citigroup supports terrorism in any way is an outrage.”
Caterpillar Inc., based in Peoria, Ill., issued a statement saying: “For the past four years, activists have wrongly included Caterpillar in a publicity campaign aimed at advancing their much larger political agendas. Over that same period of time we’ve repeatedly evaluated our position, as have our shareholders, and determined that while the protests occasionally succeed in getting headlines, they neither change the facts nor our position.”
Pressure points
Some are likening the Presbyterian effort to use economic pressure to push for change to the international campaign against apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s — although some supporters of Israel find that comparison deeply objectionable and there are questions of how much influence the PC(USA) really has. The denomination holds about $60 million in investments in the five companies, but altogether those firms have billions of dollars of outstanding stock.
MRTI is recommending that the PC(USA) begin a process of “engagement” with those five companies — a process that could involve discussions, shareholder actions and, if none of that worked to change the companies’ actions, possibly divestment of the PC(USA) holdings in those firms. Divestment would require General Assembly approval, which could not come before June 2006 at the earliest, although things may not move as quickly as that.
Meanwhile, what the PC(USA) is doing is being closely watched — both by Jewish organizations, some of which have condemned the Presbyterian consideration of possible divestiture as anti-Semitic, and by other religious groups which are considering whether to follow the Presbyterian path.
Since the General Assembly voted last year to begin a process of considering “selective, phased divestment” in some companies doing business in Israel, a number of other Christian groups have also been discussing whether they also want to use divestment as a possible tool to influence companies active in Israel. Those groups include the Episcopal Church U.S.A., the United Church of Christ and two regional United Methodist conferences, along with, internationally, the World Council of Churches and the Anglican Consultative Council.
Exactly what each group is considering varies, and each has its own process of decision-making.
But the idea of exerting economic pressure is raising questions of whether it’s a fair tactic, similar to what the PC(USA) has done in Sudan and other places, or an inappropriate singling out of Israel, without proper regard for the Palestinian role in the violence. Some contend, for example, that Israel’s construction of a separation barrier in the occupied territories is needed to stop suicide bombers and has been effective in doing so — but the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) passed a resolution in July calling on Israel to tear down the barrier.
Some Jewish groups also question whether the attempts to apply economic and moral pressure properly weigh the shifting political realities in the region — including, for example, Israel’s planned withdrawal from some of the occupied territories.
The whole debate — churning now for more than a year — has rocked Jewish-Presbyterian relations, from the international and national level all the way down to congregational and personal friendships, and has caused a major reassessment of the kinds of interfaith connections, and the level of honesty, that have existed for years between mainline denominations and Jewish groups. What some once regarded as clear-cut friendship and cooperation on issues such as race relations and fighting poverty, now they are not so sure.
Clifton Kirkpatrick, the PC(USA)’s stated clerk, has argued that the denomination is not opposed to Israel — but feels compelled to work against injustice and violence wherever it exists.
