|
Leftist Protestants Consider Israeli Divestment
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is pursuing withdrawal of investments from some companies with ties to the territories, following a vote this summer by its General Assembly. Separately, the Socially Responsible Investment panel of the Episcopal Church is researching the idea. New tensions arose last week when delegates from a Presbyterian policy committee on a fact-finding trip met in Lebanon with leaders of Hezbollah, which the United States considers a terrorist group. One delegate said "relations and conversations with Islamic leaders are a lot easier than dealings and dialogue with Jewish leaders." Kirkpatrick said the comments "do not reflect the official position" of the church, which he says condemns terrorism.Relations between Jewish and mainline Protestant leaders were already poor when the divestment proposal surfaced at the Presbyterian national meeting. Corinne Whitlach, executive director of the Washington-based Churches for Middle East Peace, said she knows some Methodist and United Church of Christ representatives who have fielded request from congregants that they consider divestment as well. "The churches that I work with share the view that's very widely held that the very possibility of a two-state solution seems to be increasingly less possible," Whitlach said. "I think, in this point in time, the frustration is reaching such a high, that things like this get traction," said Antonios Kireopoulos, an international-affairs officer at the National Council of Churches, which represents 36 Protestant and Orthodox Christian denominations. U.S. Jewish leaders have told the Protestants their approach smacks of bias, since the Christians have made no concurrent demand that the Palestinian Authority work to end suicide bombings against Israelis. That the divestment campaign borrows from the 1980s movement against South African apartheid is even more unsettling for Jewish leaders. "Unless you think Israel represents nothing other than colonial imperialism, then there is no analogy to be made at all, and those who call Israel colonial imperialism - that's a form of blindness, as if Jews have no relationship to the land of Israel," said David Elcott, national head of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, based in New York. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, last month organized a meeting of Jewish and Presbyterian leaders, including the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, the Presbyterian executive officer, to iron out differences, but they failed to reach any agreement on the issue. Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-10-24 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=46856 |