MILWAUKEE — The 227th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted last week 454-15 to adopt RIW-04, declaring that the government of Israel has violated the international law prohibiting genocide in its war in Gaza. The Reformed Identity Around the World (RIW) Committee approved the overture with amendments, 55-4, before it reached the floor of the assembly.
Related reading: “Committee approves naming Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide, calls for arms embargo” by Eric Ledermann, Outlook reporting
Fahed Abu-Akel, a teaching elder in the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta and moderator of the PC(USA)’s 214th General Assembly (2002-03), flew from Atlanta to Milwaukee the morning of the vote to urge commissioners to approve the overture. Speaking at the plenary microphone, he recalled being 4-years-old when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced following the founding of the modern State of Israel in 1948.
“I’m a Palestinian American,” he said to the assembly. “In 1981, I became a [U.S.] citizen.” He described fleeing his family’s home in Palestine as a child, watching his mother wave from a rooftop as the family left without her. “This is our home, this is our land, this is our church,” he recalled her telling his father. “They want to kill me? They need to kill me in my home.” Abu-Akel returned with his family several months later and was reunited with his mother.
“I see history repeating itself.” — Fahed Abu-Akel
Abu-Akel connected that memory directly to the vote before the assembly. “As I think about this motion, as I think about when I see the Palestinian children being killed in Gaza, I see myself all the time running around,” he said. “I see history repeating itself.”
What does the adopted overture do?
As amended, RIW-04 states that Israel’s war in Gaza constitutes genocide and condemns what it calls Israel’s violation of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It directs the denomination’s Office of Public Witness to advocate against U.S. military sales to and purchases from Israel, and encourages members to avoid products from Israeli companies linked to violations of international law, keeping broader language that the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy had recommended narrowing. The overture also condemns antisemitism and Islamophobia and affirms that criticism of the Israeli government is not inherently antisemitic.
Rachel Eggebeen, ruling elder commissioner from Presbytery de Cristo and moderator of the RIW Committee, told the assembly the committee had heard testimony from both Palestinians and Israelis during its deliberations. “It is clear that this genocide has not been committed by all Israelis or all people of Jewish faith,” she said in presenting the committee’s recommendation.
What changed on the floor?
Commissioners considered three amendments before the final vote. Erin Angeli, teaching elder commissioner from Pittsburgh Presbytery, proposed replacing the overture’s boycott language with a call for a full trade embargo on Israel, arguing the change would restore language the committee had set aside earlier in the week when it voted to answer a separate embargo overture, RIW-05, through action on RIW-04. The amendment failed, 138-323, after Melanie Clarkson, ruling elder commissioner from Trinity Presbytery, warned that a full embargo would cut off pharmaceutical imports from Israel, leaving many in the U.S. with no substitutes.
John McCarthy, teaching elder commissioner from Presbytery of the Peaks, offered a second amendment adding language affirming that the PC(USA) “stands in solidarity with Israel, even when we call for accountability and justice,” citing Genesis 12:3 and 1 Samuel 24. It failed, 57-409, after Cheryl Pyrch, teaching elder commissioner from the Presbytery of Philadelphia, cautioned against conflating the biblical Israel with the modern state.
The one successful amendment came from Beth Wylie, ruling elder commissioner from the Presbytery of San Jose, who added language condemning “the Israeli military’s targeting of Palestinian children in Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank,” citing a U.N. report she said found more than 20,000 children killed and 44,000 injured over two years. The amendment passed 443-25.
Who else spoke?
Lydia Cheek, a young adult advisory delegate from New Harmony Presbytery, told commissioners she is “older than around 50% of the population of Gaza” and described the war’s toll on children in the territory. Refaat Fathi, partner advisory delegate and secretary general of the Synod of the Nile of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Egypt, said the overture was offered “for our Palestinian Christian brothers and sisters, whose voices deserve to be heard.”
After the vote, co-Moderator Tony Larson disclosed that Abu-Akel had helped arrange a solidarity delegation to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories that Larson and co-Moderator Cecelia Armstrong took in December, organized with Sabeel, a Palestinian liberation theology organization.
“We’d like to acknowledge and thank former moderator Fahed Abu-Akel for working to make it possible for CeCe and I to travel last December to Israel and occupied Palestine as part of a solidarity delegation with Sabeel [Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center],” Larson told commissioners, minutes after gaveling through the vote Abu-Akel had just urged them to support.
Other Reformed Identity Around the World Committee business
RIW-04 was one of eleven items the Reformed Identity Around the World Committee brought before the assembly. Two others – RIW-01, calling for a commission to review the restructuring of PC(USA) World Mission, and RIW-07, seeking a report on the elimination of mission co-worker positions – are covered separately by the Outlook. Most of the committee’s remaining business passed on the consent agenda without debate.
Related reading: “Assembly creates commission to investigate World Mission closure” by Eric Ledermann, Outlook reporting
Three items were debated and approved by the assembly.
Commissioners adopted RIW-02, directing Presbyterian Life & Witness (PL&W) staff and an advisory group to develop a new missiological statement addressing the church’s global engagement, by a vote of 447-12. The statement is due to the 228th General Assembly in 2028.
By a vote of 410-62, the assembly approved RIW-08, directing PL&W to pursue joint observances with Korean partner denominations around the 80th anniversary of the Jeju April 3 Tragedy, when 14,000 to 30,000 people were killed on the South Korean island between 1947 and 1954.
Commissioners also approved RIW-10, a commissioner’s resolution, affirming Kairos Palestine II: “A Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide” for study across PC(USA) congregations and presbyteries, by a vote of 447-21.
