By Emad Mekay
WASHINGTON, Oct 20 2004 (IPS)

The U.S. branch of a global church that threatened to stop investing in companies whose actions support the Israeli military’s occupation of Palestinian land says it will go ahead with the plan despite an outcry from Israel, some Jewish groups and members of the U.S. Congress.

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) says it will take the next step in its plan by drawing up guidelines it will use to determine which multinational firms are supporting the occupation.

“We already had what we consider to be a very prudent and deliberate process and we are going to continue moving along that path,” said Reverend William Somplatsky-Jarman, who runs the church’s body responsible for social justice, the mission responsibility through investment (MRTI) committee.

The criteria will be announced in November, but are expected to state that companies would have to meet a number of conditions before they could be said to be directly involved in the occupation.

“We have to figure out the criteria as to what companies are involved and activities that may be harming the peace process or causing harm to honest folks in Israel and Palestine,” Somplatsky-Jarman said.

The PCUSA has an investment portfolio worth eight billion dollars, which includes many companies that work in Israel, but Somplatsky-Jarman would not name the businesses that could be cut off from church money.

Recently, U.S. peace activists, including many Jewish groups, also organised a campaign against Caterpillar. It was sparked by the 2003 death of 23-year-old U.S. peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death by a Caterpillar machine as she protested demolitions of Palestinian homes.

The company continues to operate, as usual, in Israel.

The PCUSA’s divestment decision is apparently gaining some momentum among other churches.

“Basically there are a number of churches that contacted us to say they are interested in being supportive of this process, but they are in the early stages of making their decision,” Somplatsky-Jarman told IPS.

He added that the church hoped divestment would be a last resort, if talks with companies yielded no results.

Representatives of the Anglican Peace and Justice Network announced in September they intend to recommend that their church – with an estimated worldwide membership of 77 million Anglicans and Episcopalians – follow in the U.S. Presbyterian church’s footsteps.

The Anglican Church’s socially responsible investment (SRI) committee will spend the next 12 months investigating “what corporate actions might be appropriate with companies that contribute to the ongoing occupation, especially in the areas of home demolitions, settlement building and the separation wall,” they added.

The PCUSA, which represents 2.5 million members, decided in July to begin a process of “selective divestment” from the companies.

U.S. churches used divestment as part of a successful campaign in the l970s and l980s to help end apartheid in South Africa.

Only last year, groups waged a similar scheme against Canadian energy company Talisman. The firm was forced to sell its Sudan operation in March 2003 after a strong divestment campaign by organisations including unions, human rights and religious groups.

The Swedish company Lundin and Austrian firm OMV later also stopped working in Sudan to protest the civil war in the south of the county.

The PCUSA says its resolution was in part a response to calls by Palestinian Christians, who are also suffering under the occupation, which has devastated living conditions. For example, the number of poor in the Palestinian territories tripled from 637,000 in September 2000 to two million in March 2003, according to the World Bank.

The move has angered members of the right-wing and supporters of the governing Likud Party in Israel, with some calling it tantamount to declaring a boycott of firms that do business with Israel.

The ‘Jerusalem Post’ newspaper called the churches “misguided” and predicted that the planned economic pressure, in addition to moral censure, would fail to affect Israel. The newspaper ridiculed the Christian denominations as increasingly “shrinking in membership.”

The church’s decision also provoked a backlash from some Jewish groups and Zionist institutions in the United States, including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee.

On Tuesday, Jewish groups met with a delegation from the church. At a press teleconference afterward, Jewish leaders expressed deep concern that other Protestant churches would follow the Presbyterian lead.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union of Reform Judaism, said the Jewish community feels “utter dismay” over the Presbyterian move. “We have differences on a variety of issues, but this is the one felt most viscerally,” he said.

Jewish groups say they have made “pre-emptive contact” with other Christian groups, especially the Anglican Church, in an attempt to block future divestment plans.

The Presbyterian Church is also facing political pressure from the U.S. Congress. A group of 14 congressional representatives, who support the Likud government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, sent a letter this month to the leader of the Presbyterian Church General Assembly deploring the resolution.

The letter said the move is, “irresponsible, counter-productive and undermines the prospect of peace by emboldening those who seek to de-legitimise the State of Israel.”

Rev Clifton Kirkpatrick of the PCUSA fired back, saying Congress had failed to act as a balanced arbiter for peace in the region or to condemn the illegal expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

“While Congress has passed repeated statements against the Palestinian Authority, it has never passed a resolution condemning the continuous illegal construction of settlements in the West Bank,” Kirkpatrick wrote in a letter seen by IPS.

“There has been nothing done by Congress to pressure Israel to adhere to international law. Rather, Israel has been encouraged by Congress to violate international law.”

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