USA - Methodist Church renews drive for divestment from Israel

The United Methodist Church

The United Methodist Church opened discussions on 29 Feb 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."

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.

"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.

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.

Jewish activists are taking action in response to the renewed divestment drive also because of 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.

Among the statements in the report 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.

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.

Source: www.haaretz.com

Date: February 29, 2008

By Nathan Guttman, The Forward

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