Mainline Protestants Challenge Israel Lobby

[madison2000]

The Presbyterian Church recently came under fire for its decision to employ a human rights tactic on behalf of Palestinians that it once used to encourage racial reform in apartheid South Africa: the process of divestment – in this case, from companies that profit from Israel's brutal occupation of Palestinian territories.

The divestment process was set in motion by the PC-USA's 216th General Assembly last summer. In early November, the Church's committee on socially responsible investment set criteria to guide the "phased selective divestment" from corporations that profit from Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

"It is a modest attempt by one small denomination to say a word of peace and justice and hope in the middle of continuing mind-numbing violence and human suffering," the Rev. John Buchanan, senior pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, recently told the Chicago Tribune.

The response was immediate – and extreme. An anonymous letter postmarked in Queens, N.Y., was sent to the Louisville, Ky., headquarters of the Presbyterian Church USA threatening arson against Presbyterian churches in retaliation for "your anti-Israel and anti-Jewish attitudes."

According to an account of the incident issued by the Presbyterian News Service, the handwritten letter read, "I promise violence against Presbyterian Churches – They will go up in flames, bet your ass that's a terrorist threat."

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cmoore.php?articleid=4101

[Warpy]

1. Damn! That's about bloody time!

The mainstream churches have dropped the ball for decades, probably to avoid irritating their weel-heeled, conservative members in hopes of getting remembered in the will.

Well, they've got little to lose now, as the lowering of the inheritance tax makes tax dodges like donations to churches and charites less attractive.

I just hope it's not too little too late.

[The Sushi Bandit]

2. I support their position.. this Israeli occupation must end!

[ElsewheresDaughter]

3. went to a meeting yesterday in Kingston NY about this issue...it is just

"The target here is not Israel," said VanMarter, who points out that the church has supported Israel's right to exist within recognized and secure borders since the state's inception in 1948. "The target is multinational corporations which profit from the more destructive aspects of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank."

The major target of the divestment process, VanMarter said, is Caterpillar Inc., which provides armored bulldozers used by the Israeli Defense Force to raze the family homes of suicide bombers and other civilian property in Gaza and the West Bank. VanMarter said the church, through its foundation and pension funds, had $2.5 million invested in the tractor company.

VanMarter said the resolution was in keeping with church policy, which discourages investment in, among other things, defense firms, makers of land mines, and alcohol, tobacco and gambling concerns. In the 1980s, the church launched a divestment campaign against companies doing business with South Africa's apartheid government, and more recently, divested from a Canadian oil company operating in Sudan.

VanMarter added that actual divestment would not take place until at least 2006 and was not, in fact, the goal of the process set in motion at the June assembly.

"The goal is not to divest, the goal is to persuade these companies to change their business practices," VanMarter said.

[Moderator]

4. Source

antiwar.com is not a suitable source. This article is not Breaking News either.