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U.S. Methodist Church renews drive for divestment from Israel
By Nathan Guttman, The Forward
Tags: Divestment, U.S. 

Tensions are re-emerging between Jewish organizations and some mainline Protestant churches in the wake of a renewed drive for churches to divest from companies doing business with Israel.

The United Methodist Church opened discussions last Friday on a resolution calling for divestment from Caterpillar, the tractor manufacturer, because the company supplies Israel with bulldozers used in building the separation barrier and in demolishing Palestinian homes. The divestment resolution comes only months after the publication of a church-sponsored report referring to the creation of the State of Israel as the "original sin."

Relations with the Presbyterian Church (USA) are also strained, following remarks by church officials criticizing Israel because of the Gaza closure. A recent study by an affiliate of the Presbyterian Church called on American Jews to "get a life" instead of focusing on defending Israeli policies.
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"This reflects a very disturbing trend in these churches," said Ethan Felson, assistant executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. "These developments are a result of work of several very wicked forces that play in the church."

The divestment campaign, thought by many in the Jewish community to be dormant, is still active among mainline Protestant churches and is re-emerging as a main issue on the agenda of Jewish groups. Attempts to block the divestment drive, which began four years ago, have proved only partially successful. Interreligious dialogue efforts and public pressure managed to mute some churchwide calls for divestment, but other initiatives are still gaining support.

The Methodist meeting, held on January 25 in Fort Worth, Texas, was an initial orientation meeting for delegation heads who will lead their groups at the church's quadrennial conference in April. Delegation leaders were presented with speakers both supportive and opposed to the draft divestment resolution, which calls for removing all Methodist pension fund holdings from Caterpillar.

"The United Methodist Church holds $141 million of pension funds in companies that sustain the occupation," said Susan Hoder, a member of the church's Interfaith Peace Initiative. "This has to stop. We have to cut our ties to the occupation."

Hoder, who strongly favors passage of divestment measures, went on to claim that American taxpayer dollars are used to fund Israeli military. "A lot of this money goes into the pockets of Israeli military leaders and politicians who get rich while the population of Israel suffers," she said.

With 11 million members, The United Methodist Church is the largest mainline Protestant denomination in the U.S. The upcoming April general conference, the church's main forum for making policy decisions, will first discuss the divestment resolution in a subcommittee. Afterward, the panel's recommendations will be put to a general vote to make them official policy.

A spokesman for the United Methodist Church did not return calls from the Forward seeking comments on the divestment drive.

Arrangers of the pre-conference meeting last Friday in Fort Worth allowed a representative of the organized Jewish community to speak on the issue. Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, the American Jewish Committee's director of interreligious affairs, told the Methodist delegates that the Jewish community was concerned about the resolution. "I told them that while they may think it is not anti-Israel and not anti-Jewish, for us it feels anti-Israel and feels anti-Jewish," Greenebaum told the Forward after the meeting.

At the same time, Greenebaum warned the Jewish community against overreacting to anti-Israel sentiments in the church. Protestant churches, he said, "care very deeply about their relations with the Jewish community."

What prompted Jewish activists to take action was not only the renewed divestment drive but also a report from the women's division of the Methodist church, which addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The 225-page report, compiled by the Rev. Stephen Goldstein, attempts to outline the historical and current contours of the conflict, but according to Felson, the report amounts to "the most egregious thing that has crossed my desk that was not put out by an overt hate group."

Among the statements in the report that irked Jewish community activists are a reference to the founding of the State of Israel as "the original sin," a passage calling Israeli founding father David Ben-Gurion an "extremist" and a passage defining Israeli actions as acts of "terror." Discussing the impact of the Holocaust on Israeli society, the Methodist report claims it has been the cause for "hysteria" and "paranoiac sense" among Israelis.

"Are we not called to testify when oppressors use their identity as the
oppressed with stories of sixty years ago but through some failure of perception cannot see what transpires now in the shadow of the Holocaust?" the report goes on to ask.

After letting four months pass without a formal response, last week four Jewish women's groups sent a letter to heads of the Methodist church, calling the report "inflammatory, inaccurate, and polemical." Hadassah and women's groups affiliated with Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism and United Jewish Communities signed the letter.

Another expected step by Jewish organizations is the launching of a new Web site that will call for a "return to civility" and condemn anti-Israeli voices among Protestant churches.

The Presbyterian Church, the first to come up with resolutions calling for divestment, has so far avoided taking action on this issue, but it still supports a line seen by Jewish activists as anti-Israel. In recent weeks, a heated exchange of letters took place between Jewish community leaders and heads of the Presbyterian Church, following the church?s criticism of Israel over the situation in Gaza. In a letter to the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, head of the church's general assembly, 12 Jewish organizational leaders complained that "the anti-Israel tone of your statement calls into serious question whether the season of mutual understanding we welcomed in July 2006 has yet arrived."

Related articles:
  • Archbishop of Canterbury to visit Israel, meet chief rabbis
  • Divestment against Israel is back in town
  • World Council of Churches calls for divestment from Israel
  • Presbyterians divest themselves from Israel

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      1.   Control after the sale 11:09  |  Johnny Weintraub 03/02/08
      2.   Good Christians 11:09  |  Bandar Michaels 03/02/08
      3.   CATERPILLAR just started a major Chinese branch."Industry week" 11:10  |  PETER SM 03/02/08
      4.   Good for the church, the occupation contravenes chruch teachings 11:27  |  Lev Bronstein 03/02/08
      5.   DEFENDING ISRAEL IS THEIR BUSINESS 11:36  |  indrajaya 03/02/08
      6.   B.MICHAELS"Good Christians"protest at targetting Israeli - 11:42  |  PETER SM 03/02/08
      7.   What`s the problem 11:51  |  Bon Levi 03/02/08
      8.   Methodist divestment 11:53  |  Keith T. 03/02/08
      9.   would Jesus accept what Israel is doing to the Palestinians? 11:57  |  Christian 03/02/08
      10.   The sin of the divestment drive 11:57  |  Shalom Freedman 03/02/08
      11.   We have to fight back 12:00  |  Michael 03/02/08
      12.   hypocrites 12:02  |  Jeff 03/02/08
      13.   We are witnissing the start of a slowly developing trend 12:05  |  Natallie Durson 03/02/08
      14.   true christians indeed 12:07  |  :) 03/02/08
      15.   Christians that refused the Faustian deal. 12:09  |  James Mandela 03/02/08
      16.   Does he mean the human rights activists? 12:12  |  Leser 03/02/08
      17.   FUNNY they never spoke up no matter what the Arabs said or did 12:23  |  PETER SM 03/02/08
      18.   Biased article 12:24  |  Leser 03/02/08
      19.   show apicture of caterpillar products please 12:33  |  v hardman 03/02/08
      20.   Good "Christians" 12:33  |  pastaneta 03/02/08
      21.   Criticism should not be muted but argued against 12:35  |  Leser 03/02/08
      22.   to Chriswtian 12:37  |  Pastaneta 03/02/08
      23.   #11 Michael 12:47  |  Chris Linthwaite 03/02/08
      24.   Internal church politics feeding on Shylock style anti-Semitism 12:48  |  Shlomo 03/02/08
      25.   #10 Shalom Friedman 12:51  |  Chris Linthwaite 03/02/08
      26.   Reply to Victor Hardman (Post No. 19) 12:53  |  Johnny Weintraub 03/02/08
      27.   #12 As a Christian who has visited Bethlehem 12:54  |  Chris Linthwaite 03/02/08
      28.   church goer 12:55  |  matt 03/02/08
      29.   U.S. Methodist Church renews drive for divestment from Israel 13:01  |  John Stewart 03/02/08
      30.   #13 Natallie 13:11  |  Chris Linthwaite 03/02/08
      31.   Less talk and more action. 13:16  |  A good Christian 03/02/08
      32.   AMEN to RIGHTEOUS in these churches 13:17  |  eric 03/02/08
      33.   Would Jesus accept what the Palestinians are doing to the Jews? 13:27  |  D 03/02/08
      34.   Freedman and mass murder 13:35  |  Truth 03/02/08
      35.   Christian Perception is Wrong 13:38  |  Boyd 03/02/08
      36.   # 19 surely you know what bulldozers do for israel, vickie 13:38  |  eric 03/02/08
      37.   Why are jewish groups being hypocritical? 13:48  |  Tim 03/02/08
      38.   It`s clearly anti-Israel and anti-semitism because: 13:58  |  Nechama 03/02/08
      39.   Vote Methodist! 13:58  |  Mount epicus 03/02/08
      40.   The BDS Movement(Boycott,Divestment,Sanctions) is certainly 13:58  |  lakshmi 03/02/08
      41.   Methodist Divestment 14:17  |  Jim 03/02/08
      42.   Christian 14:19  |  Ruby 03/02/08
      43.   johnny weintraub 1 14:20  |  realism 03/02/08
      44.   peter sm 6 14:23  |  realism 03/02/08
      45.   Methodist Church 14:26  |  Ruby 03/02/08
      46.   This is funny!! 14:30  |  Lynn 03/02/08
      47.   #41 Jim 14:34  |  Chris Linthwaite 03/02/08
      48.   #45 Ruby 14:40  |  Chris Linthwaite 03/02/08
      49.   Shalom Freedman #10 - poor propagandist 14:41  |  zeev 03/02/08
      50.   chris Lintwaite 14:43  |  Ruby 03/02/08
      51.   church goer 14:44  |  Ruby 03/02/08
      52.   #3 Peter SM 14:50  |  Chris Linthwaite 03/02/08
      53.   # 1 Johnny Weintraub 14:51  |  Gillian 03/02/08
      54.   Israelis sign the support petition 14:55  |  Occupation MAgazine 03/02/08
      55.   Keith 8 14:56  |  Kenneth 03/02/08
      56.   on Nechama #38 - bird-brained 14:56  |  zeev 03/02/08
      57.   Kenneth to Keith 14:57  |  Kurt 03/02/08
      58.   # 9, Christian, would Jesus accept....? 15:01  |  Jennifer 03/02/08
      59.   Caterpillar and Napalm.. 15:06  |  Rachel Corrie 03/02/08
      60.   Israel Should return the favor 15:08  |  JordanisPalestine 03/02/08
      61.   Shalom Freidman #10 15:08  |  Real Freidman 03/02/08
      62.   Michael # 12 fight back? 15:11  |  Michael 03/02/08
      63.   #50 Ruby 15:14  |  Chris Linthwaite 03/02/08
      64.   Jeff, in Haifa 15:14  |  Hannah in J`lm 03/02/08
      65.   # 35 Boyd 15:18  |  Bob 03/02/08
      66.   Christian Conscience 15:18  |  Mordechai Hayehudi 03/02/08
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      68.   Israel gives Jews a bad image.... 15:22  |  POP 03/02/08
      69.