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June 26, 2006
Semantics and Semitics: Presbyterian Church Investment to Focus on Israeli-Palestinian Peace
by Bill Baue
A recommendation approved by the church General Assembly apologizes to Jews and refines language
while reaffirming commitment to corporate engagement with divestment as last resort.
SocialFunds.com --
In Birmingham, Alabama last Wednesday, the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) voted 483 to 28 (with one abstention) in
favor of a revision to the resolution regarding Israel-related investment adopted at the 216th
General Assembly in 2004. This resolution originally called for initiating phased, selective
divestment--PCUSA's standard process for corporate engagement by its Mission Responsibility Through
Investment (MRTI) committee--from
companies operating in Israel, due to Israel’s occupation of land claimed by Palestine. The
revised version significantly shifts the semantics of the resolution, starting with an apology for
the strife caused by the 2004 resolution. The strife included accusations that PCUSA is
anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and pro-terrorism.
 "We acknowledge that the actions of the
216th General Assembly caused hurt and misunderstanding among many members of the Jewish community
and within our Presbyterian community," states the resolution. "We are grieved by the pain that
this has caused, accept responsibility for the flaws in our process, and ask for a new season of
mutual understanding and dialogue."
Most significantly, the revision replaces the section
calling for phased selective divestment with a more explicitly balanced statement and a more
nuanced explanation.
"To urge that financial investments of the Presbyterian Church (USA),
as they pertain to Israel, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, be invested in only peaceful
pursuits, and affirm that the customary corporate engagement process of the Committee on Mission
Responsibility Through Investment of our denomination is the proper vehicle for achieving this
goal," the resolution recommends.
The semantic changes in the revised resolution achieve
two primary ends. First, they shift to a neutral framing of the political situation that refrains
from placing primary accountability on either Israel or Palestine. And second, the revision
reaffirms phased selective divestment as MRTI's standard procedure, rebuffing an alternate
resolution seeking to repeal and rescind the 2004 resolution's call for employing this process.
MRTI has used this process successfully since its 1984 inception to address South African
apartheid, and since then on other issues ranging from human rights violations to climate change.
"We believe that this new statement clarifies the engagement process, which has not yet
led to any recommendation for divestment," said Reverend Gretchen Graf, moderator of PCUSA's
Peacemaking and International Issues committee. This committee, which considered more than 20
overtures from Presbyteries around the country both supporting and opposing the 2004 resolution,
drafted the compromise overture and approved it by a vote of 53 to six on Saturday to send it to
the General Assembly. "Our intent is to engage corporations, not to divest."
MRTI is
currently engaging five companies regarding how their operations impact Israel and Palestine:
Caterpillar (ticker: CAT), Citigroup (C), ITT (ITT), Motorola (MOT), and United Technologies (UTX). Any
divestment decisions must be made by the General Assembly, and so could not happen until the next
GA meeting in 2008.
In many ways, the controversy created by the 2004 resolution serves as
a microcosm for the controversy, and misunderstanding, surrounding socially responsible investing
(SRI) in general. Many mistakenly view divestment or negative screening as the primary purpose of
SRI, while in reality the primary purpose is to align investments with personal or institutional
values, which most often encompass various visions of social justice, environmental stewardship,
and fair governance. Divestment is almost always viewed as a last resort, when corporations refuse
to respond to engagement through compromise.
The revised resolution includes a number of
provisions clarifying PCUSA's position. First, it instructs MRTI to conduct its corporate
engagement process in a way that will "reflect commitment to positive outcomes." It also calls
upon PCUSA as a whole to work with all impacted communities--American and Israeli Jews, and
American and Palestinian Muslims and Christians--on a series of commitments, including:
--"...an end to all violence and terror against Palestinian and Israeli citizens."
--"...to end the occupation."
--and "...the creation of a socially, economically,
geographically, and politically viable and secure Palestinian state, alongside an equally viable
and secure Israeli state, both of which have a right to exist."
This language helped
clarify the context in which the MRTI committee is engaging corporations, responding (to the degree
possible) to concerns expressed on all sides of the issues. For example, James Woolsey, a
Presbyterian and former Central Intelligence Agency director, characterized PCUSA's posture under
the 2004 resolution as "clearly on the side of theocratic, anti-Semitic, genocidal beliefs..." On
the other end of the spectrum, Reverend Donald Wagner, director for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at North
Park University in Chicago, characterized the Israeli occupation of lands claimed by Palestine as
"worse than apartheid."
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