| ©2007. Used by permission. LOUISVILLE -- Conversations are under way with three of the five multinational companies targeted by the denomination's Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee -- three years after a decision by the 216th General Assembly to use shareholder pressure to reform corporate behavior that supports the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Basically, the Assembly acknowledged there are legitimate issues here," said Bill Somplatsky-Jarman, who staffs MRTI's work, referring to actions taken by the 2006 Assembly that modified language in the original action, calling for investment in "peaceful pursuits" and specifically expanded its mandate to study corporate involvement in Gaza, historically Palestinian East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israel. The original language called for a process of phased, selective divestment of companies who profit from Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
©2007. Used by permission. LOUISVILLE -- Conversations are under way with three of the five multinational companies targeted by the denomination's Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee -- three years after a decision by the 216th General Assembly to use shareholder pressure to reform corporate behavior that supports the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Basically, the Assembly acknowledged there are legitimate issues here," said Bill Somplatsky-Jarman, who staffs MRTI's work, referring to actions taken by the 2006 Assembly that modified language in the original action, calling for investment in "peaceful pursuits" and specifically expanded its mandate to study corporate involvement in Gaza, historically Palestinian East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israel. The original language called for a process of phased, selective divestment of companies who profit from Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. At the time, MRTI said that analyzing corporate support -- including financial backing -- of Palestinian or Israeli violence against innocent civilians was also within its mandate since the 2004 action also affirmed other denominational statements condemning such attacks by suicide bombers and by the Israeli military. "The (2006) Assembly said it wants to be sure its stock is invested only in peaceful pursuits. We're trying to make sure that's what happens," Somplatsky-Jarman said. The denomination is focused on Caterpillar, Inc., a corporation at the center of several campaigns directed against the use of its equipment to demolish Palestinian homes, as well as building Israeli-only roads, the separation barrier and clearing Palestinian agricultural land; Citigroup, to investigate alleged funneling of money to terrorist groups as reported in a 2005 Wall Street Journal article; ITT Industries, Inc., for supplying the Israeli military with communications equipment used to support the Israeli occupation; and Motorola, for contracting with the Israeli military to develop wireless encrypted communications and for cell phone supply in the occupied territories. MRTI has not yet met with Caterpillar or with United Technologies, Inc., of Hartford, Conn., which is slated for conversation about supplying helicopters to the Israeli army, through a subsidiary, for use in the occupied territories. Somplatsky-Jarman said that other ecumenical partners have met with Caterpillar. The company has historically said that it sells its heavy equipment to the U.S. government, which, in turn, supplies the Israeli army. The corporation maintains that it is not liable for how customers use their products. MRTI hopes to wrap up all of its meetings by summer's end, Somplatsky-Jarman said, so that the committee may recommend whether to file shareholder resolutions this fall -- resolutions that may have nothing to do with divestment. Any shareholder resolutions must be approved by the General Assembly Council; any recommendation to divest must go before the 218th General Assembly, which convenes June 21, 2008, in San Jose, Calif. Somplatsky-Jarman said that MRTI's goal is not to divest of stock in targeted corporations, but rather to remain a shareholder and influence corporate practice. U.S. Jewish denominations and the major secular organizations like the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the Anti-Defamation League, were outraged when the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted in 2004 to use shareholder pressure to alter the business practices of corporations that profit from the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza -- and to divest of holdings in recalcitrant companies. The language of divestment -- smacking of the international campaign to end apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s -- rattled Jewish-Presbyterian relations on local and national levels. Rabbi Gary Greenbaum, interfaith relations director of the AJC, told The Presbyterian Outlook that dialogue between Presbyterians and Jewish denominations and secular organizations is resuming on the national-level. The AJC, in fact, will host a meeting in October in New York. "We're off to a new start ... We've had a wonderful past," said Greenbaum, even though the present has been rocky. "The future is really in our hands. We've had good beginnings (for more conversation). And we'll set a serious agenda that is theological as well as political. If we just deal with politics, we'll never get too far." The PC(USA)'s Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick, said the denomination and its Jewish partners are looking for mutual projects and that simultaneous efforts are underway at many levels of the denomination. The deans of Presbyterian and Jewish seminaries are in dialogue. "I don't think the strain is as great as it was," Kirkpatrick said. "But there's still a lot to be done." Also there is still anxiety. Jim Berkley of Presbyterian Action, an arm of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) in Washington, D.C., and a Presbyterian minister, worries that the analysis of corporate engagement related to Israel is overly simplistic. "The idea that the occupation is the heart of all the problems (in Israel/Palestine) ... It's just not that simple," said Berkley, who believes that MRTI is too critical of Israel and too lenient on Palestine. IRD's policy paper -- Twenty-One Theses to Guide Christian Engagement With the Middle East -- written by Alan Wisdom, says that Israel's tactics must be held to the same moral standards as other states; that U.S. Christians ought not see support for Israel as atonement for past sins of Christians against Jews or hold back disagreement about some tactics used by Israel to achieve its goal of a democracy within secure borders, the latter of which makes Israel "properly an ally of the United States and deserving of the best wishes of American Christians." The report says that while Israeli democracy is flawed -- the military occupation being an anomaly -- it has the political means to correct its shortcomings, while most Arab governments in the region are essentially dictatorships reliant upon military rule and who continue to offer verbal and material support to terrorist groups intent on wiping out Israel. The 2004 Assembly affirmed the committee's customary engagement process, which includes ecumenical engagement. Somplatsky-Jarman said that MRTI's corporate meetings have included Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Catholics who've taken similar stances. Most of the ecumenical measures identify the occupation and the ongoing expansion of Israel's illegal settlement enterprise as obstacles to peace, including MRTI. Several protest the route of the separation barrier since it does not follow internationally agreed upon borders for Israel and Palestine. Church researchers say that there is little investment in Palestine so it is harder to find corporate leverage there. At present, the committee is working with a coalition called the Ecumenical Action Group: Investment for a Just Peace in Israel/Palestine. The coalition was formed on the heels of the World Council of Churches Assembly in Brazil last summer. According to a September 2006 report drafted by the WCC, approximately 20 church bodies or agencies -- largely in North America and Europe but also including the South African Council of Churches and the Anglican Church of Kenya -- are using economic pressure to protest Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories. Only a few of those actions were taken before the controversial 2004 PC(USA) vote. Three-quarters of those churches are calling for morally responsible divestment from occupation-related commerce and investment in peaceful measures. One-quarter of those support boycott of products made in the settlements, a means encouraged by the WCC in an action dating back to 2001. "The PC(USA) action got attention," says Jonathan Frerichs, the World Council of Churches' executive responsible for disarmament issues, who was leaving the office for an international convocation on church action for peace in Israel/Palestine in Amman, Jordan, in the midst of the 40th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. "In other (countries) ... it is not as controversial. It just depends." The PC(USA) is also studying ways to invest in peaceful economic development in Israel and Palestine. Alexa Smith is a freelance writer living in Louisville, Ky.
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The original decision in 2004 was clearly in its rationale prompted by the occupation; and as I mentioned in my earlier, clearly included the descriptors phased and selective. Nonetheless, there is a tremendous distinction between what has been asserted and what was actually decided by the 216th General Assembly. The original overture clearly sought a divestment from all companies conducting more than one million dollars in business with Israel; this amounted to an attempt to divest from Israel across the board because of the occupation -- not to divest solely from those companies profiting from the occupation. The General Assembly modified this to conform to PC(USA) policy by including the "phased" and "selective" language. The General Assembly offered NO qualification of the type of business targeted. It was clearly and verifiably not targeted solely to companies "profiting from the occupation" as you have claimed. This clearly and intentionally put Israel into a fairly unique position in the history of PC(USA) actions. In only two prior cases had the PC(USA) specifically targeted a country -- not an activity -- for divestment: South Africa and Sudan. This may have been clumsy; it may have been unintentional, but it remains the action of the 216th General Assembly. That the MRTI developed a set of criteria that included the occupation in no way changes the original action. That this was the nature of the original action was clearly understood by Alexa Smith. The report of the General Assembly's action, "Assembly endorses Israel divestment: Palestinian says merely issuing another statement is not enough" (available at http://www.pcusa.org/ga216/news/ga04121.htm ) indicates that Smith clearly had this understanding -- at least until she was instructed to modify abandon it.
The 217th General Assembly explicitly removed that instruction. It affirmed the customary practices of the MRTI, but the criteria developed in accordance with the no longer existing instruction are not the customary practices of the MRTI. Because the original mandate targeted a nation rather than an action, it is a non-customary process. In the absence of their original mandate, these criteria have no legitimacy; to continue to apply them violates both the spirit and the letter of the 2006 action. To portray this as an expansion of the 2004 action -- when that action was explicitly removed -- is Orwellian at best, if not patently immoral.
If this interpretation is to be believed, then the purpose of the action of the 217th General Assembly was to deceive: to pretend that something had changed (as the plain language of the two relevant GA actions indicate, but as the subsequent denominational response attempts to obscure), when the alteration was one of wording only. I, for one, cannot believe the commissioners to the General Assembly intended such a deceitful action. You are certainly welcome to publish whatever you desire, but even in the best case scenario, these assertions amount to a gross distortion of the facts.