Methodists for Divestment

By Mark D. Tooley FrontPageMagazine.com July 6, 2007

The $15 billion United Methodist Church pensions board, which services over 74,000 church employees, is grilling companies doing business with Israel, with an implied threat of divestment.

Meanwhile, several regions of the denomination have called for divestment, including most recently the Baltimore-Washington Conference, with over 200,000 members. The New England Conference, which endorsed divestment in 2005, just released is Divestment Task Force report. Among its targets: Blockbuster Video, which is operating video kiosks in “illegal” Israeli settlements.
No doubt, the fusty New Englanders are distressed that Israelis might be watching “Rated R” movies!

“This month marks 40 years of Israel’s brutal and illegal occupation,” the grim New Englanders mused in their report. “Three generations of Palestinians have been denied their freedom.”

Implied threats from the Methodist pensions board, with its vast assets, carry more weight. Of late, the board has been quizzing companies doing business with Israel. “Many voices within the Church already have called for divestment from companies with significant involvement in Israel,” a letter from a pensions official intoned, citing special concerns about countries suffering from “civil and political unrest.” Israel is the only named country of concern, though. “The General Board, however, is interested in gathering information on the strategies and practices that you have implemented to govern your operations in this challenging business climate.”

One company responded back to the Methodist pensions agency: “We are not aware of any substantive ‘political or civil unrest’ within Israel as that term is commonly understood. Perhaps you were referring to the conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians, or Israel and Hezbollah and/or or Lebanon or other Arab or Muslim countries.” The company also pointed to its compliance with U.S. anti-boycott laws “with respect to Israel and other U.S. allies.”

The pensions official asked for one targeted company to report back to the pensions agency before an upcoming gathering of Churches for a Middle East Peace, a coalition of mostly pro-Palestinian church groups, to which the pensions board evidently reports.

Although The United Methodist Church, with its 7.9 million members in the U.S., has not endorsed divestment against Israel, many of its bureaucratic elites do support it. The Virginia Conference and California-Nevada Conference have also endorsed divestment.

But the church’s very left-leaning, and numerically declining, New England Conference has been the most aggressive in advocating anti-Israel divestment. “Palestinians face soaring unemployment, malnutrition, restrictions on movement, denial of medical care, denial of access to their agricultural lands, humiliation at checkpoints, and extended lockdowns called curfews,” its report observed. “More than 4 million Palestinian refugees live in poverty, while Israelis live in their homes and on their lands. Palestinians continue to alternate between often futile non-violent protest and unacceptable violent attacks on Israelis. Israeli soldiers have repeatedly fired on non-violent protesters, killing and wounding not only Palestinians, but international peace activists – including Americans – who have stood with them. In addition, volunteers with the Christian Peacemaker Teams in the West Bank have been attacked by Israeli settlers while escorting Palestinian children to school. Settlers have been involved in many acts of violence against Palestinians.”

Predictably, attacks against Israelis do not merit a lot of ink in the New Englanders’ ostensibly comprehensive report.

The New Englanders, upset about all the violence that the Israelis have exclusively let loose in the Middle East, recommended divestment against several dozen firms doing business with Israel. They include Blockbuster Video, which operates kiosks in “illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land,” Boeing, which supplies F-15’s to the Israeli Air Force, Caterpillar, which sells bulldozers to the Israeli Defense Forces, Cement Roadstone Holdings, which sells cement used in the separation barrier, General Dynamics, which sells tanks, General Electric, which sells propulsion systems for Israeli helicopters, Motorola, which provides security radar for “illegal Israeli settlements,” Volvo, which provides construction equipment, United Technologies, which produces helicopters, and Veolia Environnement, whose subsidiary, Connex, is helping to build light rail between Jerusalem and the “illegal settlements.”

Helpfully, the New England Methodist divestment task force explained that it was targeting Israel, alone of all the world’s nations, because Israel’s “actions endanger Christians in the cradle of our faith and as members of the Body of Christ, we have an obligation to defend them,” The New England Methodists profess to be an “advocate for all who are persecuted.”

The New England Methodists are also distressed that Israel’s “blatant violations of human rights” are fueling terrorism and “anti-American hatred” around the world. The U.S. has repeatedly “vetoed efforts by the United Nations to end this conflict,” they lament. “We are seen as the reason this conflict continues.” These prime New Englanders are also concerned that Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid.

Of course, Egypt has for nearly 30 years been the second largest recipient of U.S. aid, and its human rights record, one-party rule, and policies towards its Coptic Christian minority, have not yet aroused the interest of the otherwise flint New Englanders. Indeed, the plight of no other Christian population in the Middle East seems to have aroused the New Englanders attention. Apparently, Israel is the only persecutor of the Holy Land’s Christians, who otherwise would apparently be quite happy to live in peace under Hamas’ brand of Islamist law and repression.

Undoubtedly, when the New England Methodists finally compel Blockbuster to shut down its video kiosks in the “illegal” Israeli settlements, the proverbial lion will finally lie down with the lamb on the once again peaceful slopes of the West Bank.