c. 2005 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) They marched together for civil rights in the 1960s, sang the 1980s hit “We Are the World” for famine relief in Africa and held interfaith discussions following the release of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.”
But after decades of shared struggles on everything from debt relief to the death penalty, efforts by mainline Protestant churches to divest from companies in Israel are threatening their fragile alliance with Jewish groups.
“This divestment movement is the bite on the rear end of 40 years of ignoring our differences,” said Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, director of interfaith affairs at the New York-based Anti-Defamation League.
One year after the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to study divesting from some companies in Israel, Jewish groups are still scrambling to stop divestment from taking root in other churches. It’s a movement, they say, that has been coordinated by an anti-Semitic Palestinian Christian group.
They are also bracing for recommendations expected this month (August) from a Presbyterian committee on how the church should redirect portions of its $8 billion investment portfolio away from Israel.
The divestment fight sparked by the Presbyterians in July 2004 has since spread to other denominations:
_ November 2004: The Episcopal Church voted to undergo a yearlong study of its investments in companies linked to the Israeli occupation, as well as to groups responsible for violence against Israel.
_ February 2005: The Geneva-based World Council of Churches issued a statement on the Middle East that urged its 347 member churches to consider using economic pressure in the Middle East.
_ June 2005: The policy-setting panel of the worldwide Anglican Communion commended the efforts of the Episcopal Church and encouraged other Anglican churches to consider initiating similar studies.
_ June 2005: The Virginia and New England conferences of the United Methodist Church approved resolutions calling for the two regional bodies to investigate whether they have holdings in companies that profit from the Israeli occupation.
_ July 2005: The General Synod of the United Church of Christ voted to investigate the possibility of using “economic leverage” as a way of pressuring both sides in the Middle East conflict.
In addition to mulling divestment, many denominations _ most recently the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) _ have also considered resolutions calling for the Israeli government to dismantle the separation barrier it has erected between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank. Jewish leaders strongly oppose both types of measures.
Bretton-Granatoor said Jewish groups were “blindsided” by the Presbyterian vote last summer. In news releases and interviews, critics accused the Presbyterians of singling out Israel as a human rights abuser.
“Why do U.S. mainline churches have almost nothing to say about human rights in Saudi Arabia, where it’s illegal to be a Christian, but everything to say about Israel, where by and large there is religious liberty?” said Mark Tooley, an organizer at the Washington-based Institute on Religion and Democracy, a think tank that is frequently critical of mainline churches.
Allegations of anti-Semitism underlie much criticism of the divestment resolutions.
“When we see Israel isolated as a unique, egregious case as an attack on a minority, when thousands of Israelis have been murdered, maimed _ families destroyed _ it’s hard for Jews and Israelis not to ask the question if something else is going on,” said David Elcott, the U.S. director of interreligious affairs at the American Jewish Committee.
Bretton-Granatoor and other critics of divestment expressed concern that the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, a Palestinian Christian group based in Jerusalem, has injected anti-Semitic rhetoric in the debate.
The Sabeel offices are frequently included in the itineraries of mainline Protestant delegations visiting the Holy Land. In one of many partnerships with U.S. churches, the Rev. Naim Ateek, president of Sabeel, visited the U.S. for four months at the end of 2003 as a guest of the Presbyterians.
Encouraged by actions of the Presbyterians and the WCC, Sabeel published a report in March urging other denominations to consider divesting from companies that support the Israeli occupation of the territories.
“The Israelis said, `Fine, let people poke and let people write,’ but then the Presbyterians began to talk about divestment, and people started listening,” Ateek said in an interview.
Rabbi David Rosen, international director of interreligious affairs at the American Jewish Committee, said passages in some of Ateek’s writings show “clearly anti-Judaic” language that has influenced U.S. churches.
“When Western Christians buy their propaganda hook, line and sinker without discriminating between a legitimate criticism and illegitimate scapegoating, then a slide down a dangerous, slippery slope has begun,” Rosen said.
Rosen and other critics pointed to an Easter message that Ateek wrote in 2001 as an example of the type of writing they find objectionable. Comparing Palestinians to Jesus on the cross, Ateek wrote, “The Israeli crucifixion is operating daily.”
And, in his 2000 Christmas message, Ateek drew another comparison between Jews and the Romans who crucified Jesus: “Our celebrations are marred by the destructive power of the modern day `Herods’ who are represented in the Israeli government.”
Ateek denied that his writing is anti-Semitic. “I know almost without a shadow of a doubt they have not read our documents. The little they have read, they have twisted it,” he said.
Protestant organizers say the anti-Semitism charges are unfair and misplaced. The Rev. William Somplatsky-Jarman, who is overseeing divestment for the Presbyterians, said his church has reached out to Jewish groups.
“I think it’s been a tough conversation,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been productive.”
The Presbyterians and representatives from four other mainline denominations are planning to travel with Jewish leaders to the Middle East in September as part of an effort to improve relations.
Somplatsky-Jarman’s committee is due to issue a report in early August that will likely select four or five companies to “engage in discussion.” The bulldozer company Caterpillar, which has been accused of selling the equipment used to bulldoze Palestinian homes and farms, is frequently cited as an example of the type of company the Presbyterians and other denominations might target. Other possibilities would be companies that sell weapons or are involved with building the separation barrier.
The debate over divestment has, for the most part, remained at the national level, with churchgoers mostly unaware of the controversy. Robert Wuthnow, a professor of religion and sociology at Princeton, said it is typical for members of local mainline churches to pay little attention to activities at the national headquarters of their denominations. “It’s just largely irrelevant (at the grass roots),” he said.
Some of the sharpest critics of the divestment movement agree that it has yet to have much traction at the local level.
“This is not a disease, if you will, of the grass roots. God forbid, we’re not talking about our next-door neighbors _ it’s not at that level,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center.
But Cooper is not waiting to see whether the debate over divestment spreads to the pews. Speaking on a cell phone from the recent General Assembly meeting of the Disciples of Christ in Portland, Ore., where he lobbied unsuccessfully against a resolution urging Israel to dismantle the separation barrier, Cooper said Jews cannot afford to back down.
“I cannot afford to wait until that kind of blindness and deafness to the Jewish narrative seeps down to the grass roots. Then we’ll have a real disaster,” he said.
KRE/PH END GLASS
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