On the 24th June, the Anglican Consultative Council, which can best be described as the executive body of the 38 independent provincial or national Christian churches throughout the world which form the Anglican Communion, meeting in Nottingham, England, called for a reconsideration by its churches of their investments with Israel.
The council decided to stop short of calling without reservation for disinvestment. According to The Times (25 June) it:
“Commended the resolve of the US church to take appropriate action where it finds its corporate investments support the occupation of Palestinian lands or violence against innocent Israelis”.
The Council also asked its churches:
“to consider such action in line with their existing ethical investment strategies and to adopt investment strategies ‘that support the infrastructure of a future Palestinian state’.”
This cautious language reflects the very considerable heart-searching by council members, who were only too aware of the hornet’s nest they were about to poke. The original motion before them had arisen from a powerful report prepared by the Anglican Peace and Justice Network. However, Dr. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, and Dr. John Moses, the dean of St Paul’s, joined forces in asking for the original motion to be toned down.
We should be in no doubt that the final version is a landmark. It is the firmest statement up to now by the council on what is going on both within Israel and in the occupied territories and I warmly welcome it. The council claims to speak for about 70 million Anglicans and 800 archbishops and bishops world-wide, many in Commonwealth countries.
The Church of England is the established (i.e. state) church in England and the mother church of the Anglican Communion. In 1970 it was agreed that decisions on matters concerning the Church of England should be made by the General Synod which has a House of Laity. The General Synod is not obliged to accept a motion agreed by the Anglican Consultative Council, and there is bound to be a furious debate within the Synod over how far to go in supporting the council’s motion. The Church of England has its own ethical investment committee. Recently that committee turned down a request to withdraw its just under £200,000 investment in the Caterpillar group. This firm makes those huge and ugly bulldozers we see regularly on TV, which are used by the Israeli Army to knock down and destroy Palestinian homes and buildings.
Dr. John Moses, who is a key Church of England figure on investment matters, warned the Anglican Consultative Council that a call for disinvestment would be “a major statement of policy” which is true. He claimed both the Israelis and the Palestinians were working on the joint problems and he added:
“I draw back from anything that might exacerbate the peaceful settlement that they might seek”.
Similar statements are heard over and over again from British Foreign Office minister concerned that some suggestion of pressure on Israel might upset Israeli and Jewish opinion. Now is never the moment for pressure it seems, even though for decades there have been talks going on between Israelis and Palestinians even if they have come to nothing.
The authors of the report for the Anglican Peace and Justice Network suggested that pressure should be put on those firms that supported controversial policies in Israel. The hated and absurd security fence was mentioned. In the United States the Presbyterian Church has previously adopted a disinvestment policy. At least another church is on a similar course. It is easy for those of us who live outside America to fail to appreciate the courageous work of religious and voluntary groups in the United States, which for decades have been totally opposed to the biased US policies toward Arab-Israel.
Lord Carey of Clifton, the previous archbishop of Canterbury, and these days a bit of a maverick, has come out strongly against calling for disinvestment from companies that do business in Israel.
He believes disinvestment would seriously harm the peace-building work of a number of organizations such as the new Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East. He has said:
“Israelis are already traumatized and feel that the world is against them.”
He thought disinvestment by the churches:
“would be another knife in the back.”
The spokesman for the Board of Deputies of British Jews claimed the board was bitterly disappointed by the stand taken by the Anglican Communion:
“The Report’s findings ... which predated the withdrawal plans for Gaza and now Bethlehem, were based on consultation with Palestinian groups hostile to Israel. No Israeli input was countenanced.”
Clearly disinvestment by the Anglican Communion is going to happen to a greater extent and so it should. This is not blackmail as many Jews will claim. It is a form of moral pressure. What is wrong with that?
