WASHINGTON, 15 October 2005 — Some American Protestant churches are rethinking their initiative of boycotting investments in companies profiting from Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, members told journalists this week.
Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, along with a debate over whether divestment is effective, and pressure from Jewish organizations, may have helped cool what looked like a growing trend amongst church leadership just a few months ago.
The US Episcopal Church leaders rejected divestment in favor of corporate engagement, and another major denomination, the United Church of Christ, voted down the divestment idea at its convention last summer.
The 2.5-million member Presbyterian Church in the US (PCUSA), the largest body of that denomination in the country, approved in 2004 a “phased, selective divestment” involving its $8 billion portfolio beginning July 2006.
Last August, it singled out five companies which it said “contributed to the ongoing violence that plagues Israel and Palestine.” Most of PCUSA criticism involved military contracting. The individual reasons for each company are as follows:
• Caterpillar: Caterpillar manufactures heavy equipment used for demolition of Palestinian homes, the uprooting of olive trees, construction of roads and infrastructure in the occupied territories for use only by Israeli settlers, and facilitating by the Israeli military.
• Citigroup: Citigroup is a large international bank cited by the Wall Street Journal on April 20, 2005, for having moved substantial funds from charities later seen to be fronts funneling money to terrorist organizations. Some of these funds ended up as payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.
• ITT Industries: ITT Industries is a diversified manufacturer that supplies the Israeli military with communications, electronic and night vision equipment used by its forces in the occupied territories.
• Motorola: Motorola recently won a contract to develop wireless encrypted communications for the Israeli military in the occupied territories. Additionally, it is a majority investor in one of Israel’s four cell phone companies. This investment is controversial because cell phone companies, according to the Oslo Agreement of 1995, must be licensed by the Palestinian Authority in order to operate in the West Bank and Gaza. With powerful facilities in the settlements, with a range covering all of the occupied territories, this licensing has not occurred.
• United Technologies: United Technologies is a large military contractor whose subsidiary has provided helicopters to the Israeli military. They have been used in attacks in the occupied territories against suspected Palestinian terrorists.
The 2004 General Assembly adopted a seven-part resolution affirming its longstanding opposition to the occupation and taking action to demonstrate its convictions. It instructed MRTI to begin a process of phased, selective divestment of stock in companies whose operations support the occupation.
But some members were not happy with the decision and began a web-based petition “to bring about a reconsideration of the denomination’s controversial proposal to ‘divest’ funds from corporations working alongside Israel.”
