 Former CIA director, peace activists testify on divestment policy By John H. Adams The Layman Online Saturday, June 17, 2006
Nearly equal numbers opposed and favored the resolution of the 216th General Assembly that called for "phased selective divestment" of PCUSA holdings in corporations doing business with Israel. The majority of the overtures being reviewed by the assembly's Committee on Peacemaking and International Issues oppose the one-sided divestment policy that has spawned worldwide opposition from Jewish groups. A few favor the policy and others call for a third way - investing in businesses in both Israel and Palestine that focus on peace. During Friday's hearing, the most pointed statements showed a partisan divide between supporting Israel and Palestine and the merits or demerits of the divestment resolution. James Woolsey, a member of Chevy Chase (Md.) Presbyterian Church, whose term as director of the CIA ended in 1995, strongly opposed the divestment resolution. Woolsey said he didn't know "whatever the church thought it was doing two years ago when it opted for effectively choosing the side of the Palestinian Liberation Organization." Then Woosley added: "Today by maintaining that position, the church is choosing Hamas," a terrorist organization. "Hamas is now the elected governing body. It is theocratic, totalitarian, anti-semitic and genocidal. It teaches 5-year-old children to be suicidal bombers. There is nothing remotely close to moderate about it." He contrasted Palestine under the governing of Hamas with the government of Israel. "Israel has within its borders some one million Arabs, who are the only Arabs in the Mideast who can worship freely." One of the speakers disagreeing with Woolsey was former General Assembly moderator Fahed Abu-Akel, who was raised as a Palestinian Christian and who advocated Palestinian interests during his term in office. "The whole purpose of divestment is the end of occupation," Abu-Akel declared. As did other speakers, Abu-Akel gave a litany of injustices against Palestinians: "Fifty-two percent of the Palestinian people live on $2 a day. If I'm a Palestinian and want to go to Jerusalem, I have to go to the government to get a permit. All of the money [from U.S. investment] from 1948 to present has supported Israel." One speaker, the Rev. Doug Hucke of Peoria, Ill., said moving forward with divestment could have collateral damage -- possibly destroying his growing congregation. Peoria is the corporate home of Caterpillar, one of the companies targeted for divestment. Hucke is the pastor of Northminster Presbyterian Church; Caterpillar employees make up about 30 percent of the membership. "They are angered and simmering," he said, adding that some are ready to "divest" from the denomination. "I am convinced divestment will damage Northminster Presbyterian Church," he said. "We are a growing vibrant church, and we're dedicating a $3 million expansion tomorrow. If this goes through, you might sacrifice a wonderful congregation." But the speakers on the other side of the issue were just as adamant. Norman G. Finkelstein, the son of survivors of Auschwitz, said, "This referendum is not on Hamas. It is not a referendum on the loss of any person. It's a referendum on truth and justice. The truth is that Israel has accumulated a horrendous record of human rights on the Palestinian territories … illegal curfews, demolition of thousands of Palestinian homes. It's about justice, about a two-state solution, which has been denied due to the American and Israeli governments." Finkelstein is a university professor and peace activist who has written extensively against Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Before the General Assembly, with the help of Presbyterian volunteers, he sent one of his pro-Palestinian books to the commissioners. One speaker, the Rev. George McIlrath of the Tropical Florida Presbytery, criticized the way the divestment resolution was introduced to the 216th General Assembly. McIlrath was a commissioner to that assembly. He said commissioners did not know anything about the resolution "until about an hour and a half before it came to the floor." He said the commissioners were "blindsided" and "I regret I wasn't nimble enough to file a protest." Some of the other comments during the hearing: Alan Wisdom, a Presbyterian elder who is a researcher and analyst for the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, told the committee that in recent years the Presbyterian Church has adopted several resolutions on the Mideast that have focused almost exclusively on Palestine and Israel and "have tended to blame all of the problems on Israel." Wisdom noted that Israel and Palestine have a combined population of 10 million compared with a Mideast population of 400 million, mostly Arabs. "We haven't seen the larger picture," Wisdom said. He urged the committee to "step back from the particular issue of divestment" and to develop a new policy statement on the Mideast. Ordinarily, Wisdom added, the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy would develop such a policy. "Unfortunately, in this dispute it has not been a neutral party." ACSWP played a key role in pushing the divestment resolution through the General Assembly. Later, ASCWP led a Presbyterian trip to the Mideast, where some of the ACSWP leaders met with -- and praised -- the work of a Lebanon terrorist group. David Hard, who identified himself as a retired investment banker, spoke in favor of divestiture. "Divestiture is sound," he said. "Divestiture, I hope, will wake up the church and every other church around the world." He said a massive Christian witness is needed in the region. "I would get a caravan of 24 747s and go there and praise God." Gary Green, who is the head of a Presbyterian group called End Divestment Now, said he has spent the last two years and $2,000 studying the issue and has determined that "divestment will not lead to peace. It will likely delay peace, and if we delay peace, we will end up with more people killed. Divestment is a negative rather than positive action toward peace." A relative of Rachel Corey, a 23-year-old student who was struck by Caterpillar earthmoving equipment, declared that Corey was "run over twice and killed intentionally. We are called by God to love our neighbors. Who is Caterpillar's neighbor? A good neighbor must take responsibility for the weak and dying. There is no question that Caterpillar is well aware of the evil use of its equipment in occupied territories." But another family death brought the opposite view. Dr. Judea Pearl, the father of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was beheaded by terrorists in Pakistan, said that "divestment is not an instrument of peace. It is an instrument of division and terrorization. Who will cheer the people who killed my son and the people who threaten the lives of your children?" Rabbi Jonathon Miller said, "I pray that you not divest. I pray that you invest. If you play this card, you are out of the game. Divestment is a clumsy and painful weapon." He added that the divestment threat brought by painful memories for Jews, who remember that Nazi Germany's prelude to the Holocaust was an economic boycott. Angela Goudstein, an Israeli peace activist, thanked the PCUSA for the divestment policy. "Israel, my country, is an occupying power" she said, declaring that Israel had taken thousands of acres of Palestinian land in violation of international law. "Palestinian life has become miserable and untenable," she said. "More than three times as many Palestinians have been killed than Israeli in the last six years." |
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