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Presbyterians to divest from Israel
By an overwhelming vote of its general assembly, the Presbyterian Church USA, boasting 3 million members, is siding with Palestinian Arabs and against Israel, choosing to divest from the Jewish state as it did only with apartheid South Africa.With the decision, approved in a 431-62 vote at the 216th annual general assembly of the PCUSA, the denomination is believed to be the largest organization or institution to join the divestment campaign against Israel. It is the first Christian denomination to do so.
In 2001, the combined value of the church's foundation and pension fund was estimated at $7 billion.
Leaders of the liberal mainline Protestant church approved several other anti-Israel resolutions at their gathering in Richmond, Va., and also refused to halt funding for "messianic congregations" that target Jews for conversion.
The Presbyterian resolutions came just as Jewish organizations were hailing the results of a historic international interfaith meeting in Buenos Aires last week, where Roman Catholic officials for the first time signed on to a document equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
The assembly set the stage for the church to divest itself from companies that receive $1 million dollars or more in profits per year from investments in Israel or have invested $1 million dollars or more in Israel.
In a news release, the PCUSA liaison to the Middle East, Rev. Victor Makari, was quoted as saying: "If nothing else seems to have changed the policy of Israel toward Palestinians, we need to send a clear and strong message."
The church statement noted that "divestment is one of the strategies that U.S. churches used in the 1970s and '80s in a successful campaign to end apartheid in South Africa."
Yeah,
Separation is powerful, and non-violent.
Peace,
Christian
It's wonderful to see the Presbyterians taking this stand, even if it IS motivated more from a political than doctrinal standpoint. I think one may eventually awaken the awareness of the true saints of God to the reality of the other (i.e. the fact that Israel requires punitive, disciplinary measures taken against its policies being indicative of the fact that they really AREN'T God's "special people" at all). We can only hope that this is the ultimate outcome.
The "punitive, disciplinary measures" taken against Israel come at the behest of people who, in my judgment, are very poor candidates for being designated as enforcers of God's will. While I do not regard the Jews as God's "special people," I have a much higher regard for their culture than I have for the cultures of those who are so eager to expel them from the Holy Land. The day when the followers of Islam all renounce terrorism as an instrument of God's will will be the day when I consider their complaints against Israel to be worth a hearing.
Well,
If you really think that's "Holy Land" you may be a partial-Dispensationalist...
Peace to you,
C. Livingstone
I don't believe, for one, that anyone has been designated as "enforcers of God's will", Islamaphobe. Nor do I believe that the Israelis should necessarily be "expelled" from land of Israel. I think the socio-political vacuum created by complete removal of all Israelis and their government would create havoc of another sort, where various Islamic factions and interests would attempt to sweep in and take control overnight. A bloodbath would ensue, undoubtedly. I've lived over there myself. I've spoken with displaced Palestinian farmers personally, and visited their refugee settlements. I've also studied Islam and Arabic, and understand their culture. The Palestinians have a legitimate case against Israeli occupation of their traditional lands. The modern "Israelis" took control through acts of terror, and have no real claim to the land themselves.
Hopefully those thoughts will clarify matters a little.
Pretty cool. They've done the right thing!
THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE WAS TAKEN FROM THE MORNING CALL NEWS PAPER IN PA.
A concern and a prayer for Presbyterians
Sometimes it's hard to hold your head up when the very worst of your profession violates everything you hold dear and true.
That's the way we both felt recently when the Presbyterian Church (USA), at its annual General Assembly, approved, by a vote of 431-62, a proposal to study whether the church should divest its multibillion-dollar portfolio from all companies that do business with Israel because Israel, in their opinion, is just like the apartheid state of South Africa.
The PCUSA also voted NOT to end its work to convert Jews.
We are stunned, shocked and outraged by both votes. Words hardly convey the depth of our disappointment that people of God could so blatantly contradict the word of God. We want to pray to God for our Presbyterian brothers and sisters, and we want to urge them to face some deep questions and repent of their actions.
We pray: Do you not see that your vote to convert Jews is a vote to cut yourselves off from Jews and also from all Christians who have renounced active proselytizing among the Jewish people? We ask you to imagine how you'd feel if one out of every three Presbyterians had been murdered in a four-year period just 60 years ago and then members of some other religion attempted to reduce your numbers further by seeking your conversion to their faith.
Would you feel the warmth of God's love for these proselytizers? Is this the message you really want to send to the people Paul praises in Romans 9-11? We have always endorsed and blessed the free decision of any person to convert to another religion and to find his or her way to God along a path not followed by their ancestors, but the organized attempt to actively seek Jewish converts to Christianity after the Holocaust is obscene.
We've traveled around this country and have been deeply moved to see how many communities have given up active conversionary efforts in order to gain something even more precious and holy — the flowering of true interfaith efforts and friendship to teach tolerance, reduce prejudice, and find ways for everyone to work together to help those in our communities who are hungry and sleep in the dust. Rochester, New York, has such an agreement and other cities have active interfaith organizations none of which could exist in the corrosive spiritual environment of proselytizing.
On Long Island (New York), the Interfaith Nutrition Network operates 20 soup kitchens and four shelters. None of that good work would be possible if we did not honor each other's faith choices. We ask you to pray and reflect on this truth; you can seek a friend or a convert but you cannot seek both.
And we also pray: How, our brothers and sisters in faith, did you come to hate Israel? What you did goes far beyond a reasoned, prayerful and loving dissent over one or another policy of the State of Israel. Such disagreements among loyal and supportive friends are welcome even if they are harsh.
However, to compare Israel, a democratic state where a quarter of the citizens are Arabs and have full voting rights, including Arab women, and where no Arabs are held as slaves, to Apartheid South Africa where the black minority had no voting rights and were exploited and held in virtual slavery is bizarre, unfeeling, cruel, dishonest, sinful and anti-Semitic. Israel is the only democracy in that region and Apartheid South Africa was never a democracy.
These are simple, incontrovertible facts, yet they did not keep you from authorizing in God's name an action which foolishly equates these radically different states. To divest in order to kill an apartheid state was indeed a moral act, but to divest in order to kill a democratic victim of terrorism's worst attacks is a sin.
What led you to this desire to kill Israel? What led you to want what the enemy of America, Osama bin Laden, also wants? Where does such anger come from? It could not come from Israel's constant offer to return land for peace, or from Israel's constant search for a partner in peace who does not seek her destruction.
The alterations to Israel's security fence that were recently ordered to minimize inconvenience for Palestinians were ordered by Israel's own Supreme Court. Israel continues to support agricultural aid to many African nations, and when the terrorist bombers seek to kill innocent civilians, both the victims and the bombers are cared for in the same Israeli hospitals. You seek to be witnesses for God, and yet witnesses are now arrayed against you.
In the very week you spoke, the Catholic Church spoke and said that anti-Zionism is no different than anti-Semitism. Hating the Jewish state is no different from hating Jews. That is the message of the largest Church. How did your Church go astray? How did your pursuit of the truth lead you to embrace such a Big Lie? Your Church has become the first Church body, and indeed the first national body of any kind that has voted to kill Israel for the crime of being a victim.
When the divestiture movement against Israel began on campus and raised its ugly head at Harvard, President Lawrence Summers spoke to the entire Harvard community on Sept. 17, 2002, noting: ''Anti-Semitism and views that are profoundly anti-Israeli have traditionally been the primary preserve of poorly educated right-wing populists, (now) profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities.
''Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect, if not their intent … Some here at Harvard and some at universities across the country have called for the university to single out Israel among all nations as the lone country where it is inappropriate for any part of the university's endowment to be invested. I hasten to say the university has categorically rejected this suggestion.''
Our brothers and sisters in faith, we do not believe that you are anti-Semitic, but we absolutely believe that your resolution was anti-Semitic ''in its effect, if not in its intent.'' Repent of your sins and reach out to know the heart of the Jewish people. This reaching out has changed our lives for the good. We pray with all our heart and soul that it is not too late to change yours.
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