A committee within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has reopened controversy by recommending that the church divest from three companies doing business with Israel. The report will be voted on at the church’s General Assembly next year.
The church’s Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment released a report Sept. 9 arguing that the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church divest from Motorola, Hewlett-Packard and Caterpillar.
The release provoked pushback from Presbyterian and Jewish groups, and the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League issued statements condemning the recommendation.
“This renewed effort by some within the Presbyterian Church to penalize Israel does not advance peace,” said Rabbi Noam Marans, AJC’s director of intergroup and interreligious relations. “On the contrary, threatening divestment undermines those who are truly committed to Israeli-Palestinian peace.”
The organization Presbyterians for Middle East Peace released a statement promising to fight the report from being adopted.
In 2004, the church adopted a policy that called for “phased selective divestment” from corporations operating in Israel. It changed the policy in 2006, and two years later, the church’s General Assembly instructed Presbyterians to avoid over-identifying with one side on the Israel-Palestine conflict. — jta