CHICAGO: A threat by the biggest US Presbyterian church group to dump investments in companies profiting from Israel's occupation of the West Bank and related strife has set off a wave of dissent in the church and angered American Jewish leaders.
But those in the 2.5-million-member Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) backing the move see it as a response to human rights violations consistent with the approach it took against South Africa two decades ago when the group used divestment as a pocketbook weapon trying to fight apartheid.
Whether any of the church's nearly $8 billion portfolio will ever be pulled from companies doing business in the West Bank or related areas is a long way from being determined. The process, however, is slowly moving forward.
Israel's occupation "is at the centre of the cycle of violence in the region - whether it is suicide bombings or the displacement caused by the occupation ... and impedes a peaceful solution to that conflict," said the committee now picking out possible divestment targets.
The church's General Assembly which set the matter in motion in July called for a "phased, selective divestment" beginning no earlier than July 2006, the next time the governing body meets. One dissident group, however, wants a moratorium placed on the whole project now and is asking the church's interim leadership to do so as early as next month.
No companies have yet been singled out, but a report identifying which firms might "most usefully be engaged" by the threat of divestment is due to be issued in August, the investment review committee said.
Caterpillar Inc has long been linked to the issue. Last November Human Rights Watch urged it to stop selling bulldozers to the Israeli army, saying they were used to demolish Palestinian homes in Gaza and the West Bank that posed no security threat.
The investment committee said it is looking at reports from the Sisters of Loretto and Jewish Voice for Peace who have filed a shareholders' resolution with Caterpillar.
The resolution questions whether sale of equipment to Israel complies with the company's world wide code of business conduct. Caterpillar's response has been that it has neither the right nor the ability to monitor what happens to its products once sold.
SPLITTING THE CHURCH: No one knows yet how much of the church's portfolio - investments covering pensions and other holdings controlled by the church leadership - might be at issue or which companies would be approached.
The Reverend William Somplatsky Jarman, speaking for the investment committee, said the matter is "a slow, deliberate process ... with actual divestment being a last resort."
The goal is not "divestment for divestment's sake," he said, "but rather to use dialogue, shareholder resolutions and public pressure to persuade corporations to change business practices that inflict harm on the innocent."
The process has already fractured the church, whose membership covers the bulk of US Presbyterian faithful. The next three largest Presbyterian groups have fewer than 400,000 members.
"The General Assembly made a very important, very political, very visible statement on behalf of the church that does not enjoy the overall support of its members and has very deeply divided both the church and the Jewish and Presbyterian communities," said Valerie Munson of Philadelphia, who helped organise Presbyterians Concerned for Jewish and Christian Relations.
The opponents hope to present a petition urging the church to drop the idea to the leadership next month. Added the Reverend William Harter of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, who formed the group along with Munson: "We'd like it stopped beforehand because of the uproar it has created in the church." -Reuters