Please join us in writing to your Congress members.

A 23 January 2014 release announced that the Presbyterian Church’s Committee on Mission Responsibility through Investment found Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions ‘not in compliance with General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) policy on socially responsible investing’ and that MRTI will ‘recommend to the 221st General Assembly this summer in Detroit that these corporations be added to the denomination’s divestment list until such a time as their corporate activities are found in accordance with policy.’  Read the full release here.  This decision was taken after years of corporate engagement with these corporations.  Links to the full report are here.

The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council has a Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility which also works with ecumenical and interfaith bodies on issues of corporate social responsibility.  An Executive Council resolution from 2003 Disinvestment from Military Contractors sets out clear policy.

Ten dioceses sent a resolution to The Episcopal Church’s General Convention in 2012 calling on the Church to ‘[participate] in corporate social responsibility by more vigorous and public corporate engagement with companies in the Church’s investment portfolio that do business in illegal Israeli settlements or contribute to the infrastructure of the Occupation.’  The resolution which came out of the convention included nothing on corporate engagement but encouraged ‘positive investment in the Palestinian territories.’

A subsequent resolution at the February 2013 Executive Council meeting ‘[affirmed] that it is the church’s policy to engage in constructive corporate engagement policies toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict adopted by the Executive Council in October 2005 and implemented by council Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility in the intervening years;’ and affirmed ‘that the church does not support boycott, divestment, and economic sanctions against the state of Israel nor any application of the church’s corporate engagement policies toward such ends.’

Finally to ground ourselves in our faith, we share Leon Spencer’s reflection from June 2012 making some connections between South Africa and Palestine/Israel.

The Episcopal Church has a clear policy for corporate engagement.  How may EPF PIN best act to see that these policies are implemented and work together with those charged with implementing the policies to effect movement towards peace and justice for Palestine and Israel?

EPF PIN is looking for members who have time and energy to consider how we might help The Episcopal Church to effectively implement its existing policies on corporate engagement and divestment. Email  if you are interested in working on this.

In November 2011 a group of ten women bishops of the United Methodist Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Episcopal Church traveled* for nine days to Palestine/Israel.  One of the several African American bishops, after seeing and experiencing the situation in the West Bank, said, “We remember this!”  What this bishop apparently newly realized is how similar the struggle for dignity, justice and freedom is between the Palestinians and the African American history in the United States.  The dispossessions, the humiliations, the suppression, the harassment, the discrimination imposed by the dominant Israeli government is of one piece with the African American experience in the Jim Crow South and elsewhere in this country.  An Israeli government, made up of people so beleaguered themselves historically, with such a biblical mandate for  seeking justice and peace, now so fearful for their own security, now practicing apartheid-like measures, forsaking their own moral high ground, is seemingly unable to entertain thoughts and dreams of two peoples—one a people with no land and the other a landed people—coexisting, living in harmony in one land.

I was asked recently why I engage myself in this far off, seemingly insoluble dilemma.  There are several answers:

1. Every year I renew on four different occasions my Baptismal Covenant in which I pledge once more, among other pledges, to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.”  I do so because I seek to be a faithful Christian.
2. I have been a pastor for fifty years, forty-six of them in inner city African American parishes, in New York City, Boston, and Baltimore.  I now serve a predominantly African American congregation in smaller Oxford, North Carolina.  For the first fifteen years of that ministry I sought primarily to “pick up the pieces,” to try to meet critical needs.  For the remaining thirty-five years I moved more into seeking justice, with church-based organizing as the vehicle.  The situations I experienced over these fifty years are deeply related to the situation I discovered in two trips to Palestine/Israel, in l987 and 2010.  The struggle for justice and a common humanity in these places is remarkably similar to that among the Palestinians, in my opinion.
3. I am aware of some of the possibilities of a better way.  Who of us has not been astounded by the recent history of South Africa?  A dominant, minority people, always fearful for their own security, foisting upon the majority people a brutal regime of oppression and apartheid, never daring to posit a land in which all of its peoples could live together in peace, now one nation, although far from perfect, with a local black leader, called “The Father of the Country.”

Who is to say this cannot happen also in Palestine/Israel?  It IS happening in South Africa!  It IS possible!  It CAN happen!  “By a large majority both peoples (the Palestinians and the Israelis) want a peaceful solution and are willing to make big compromises to get it,” writes Sari Nusseibeh, in ONCE UPON A COUNTRY.  Let a new Mandela arise in Palestine!  Let a new Mandela arise in Israel!

Can they dream it?  Can WE dream it?

~~ John Heinemeier serves as Vicar of St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church, Oxford NC, in the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina.

*Learn more about the trip http://www.cmep.org/content/women-voices-hope-message-bethlehem

In June 2012 Leon Spencer reflected on ‘to whom do we listen?’ in the context of divestment in South Africa and divestment in Palestine.  This reflection expands the question to include to whom do we listen in the Jewish community and who listens to us and on what terms does the listening occur.  No answers, just some things to ponder as we work for a peace with justice in Palestine and Israel and as TEC Executive Council’s B019 committee works on implementing the resolution passed at last year’s General Convention.

In October 2012 fifteen Christian leaders sent a letter to Congress calling on it to investigate and evaluate Israel’s use of the $3 billion annual military aid it gets from the US.  The Council for the National Interest reports on it here.  The letter, to which The Episcopal Church was not a signatory, set off a wave of protest from parts of the Jewish community.  Because of the letter, Jewish organizations involved in dialogue with the Christian denominations suspended further dialogue and a resumption of conversations has not been announced.  However, the President and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a key constituent group in the dialogue, met with The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops in September 2013 as part of a panel on Palestine/Israel where he presented on Christian-Jewish partnerships.

Rabbi Brant Rosen, a congregational rabbi in Evanston IL and a speaker at Sabeel’s ‘A Wide Tent for Justice’ gathering in Chicago 3-5 October, wrote about some push back concerning some of the speakers at the conference, including Naim Ateek of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem.  We shared that link in the 3 October PINontheGo.  If you missed it, you can read more here.

Rosen comments, “[M]any in the Jewish establishment world continues to vilify Rev. Dr. Ateek and the Sabeel Institute. While I certainly understand that many are challenged – often profoundly – by Palestinian liberation theology, it grieves me that the “official” Jewish communal response to this movement has been to publicly excoriate its leaders as anti-Semitic rather than to engage them in real and honest dialogue.  I do believe this kind of posturing has everything to do with politics and very little to do with actual interfaith dialogue.  True dialogue occurs when respective communities agree to explore the hard places – the tension points – no matter how painful. In my own dialogue with Palestinian Christians (and those in the Protestant church who stand in solidarity with them), my own sensibilities have been challenged and broadened – but I’ve also found that my participation allows me to have a similar kind of impact on my Christian partners. And while we might not agree on every issue, we ultimately emerge from our encounter strengthened by our common commitment to universal prophetic values of justice.”

He reflected further in a conversation with a member of his congregation who had concerns about what he viewed as hateful language towards the Jewish community when describing the Palestinian community as undergoing a crucifixion through the Israeli Occupation.  (This link includes links to Ateek’s statement the congregant is questioning and to an article in the Huffington Post written by Ateek in response to a congregation withdrawing its invitation to host a regional Sabeel conference in New Mexico last year.)

Rosen comments, “I’ll just say I fully understand how and why some find his rhetoric hateful. I do not. Through my own study of his work and my personal dialogue with Naim, I have come to understand that as a Christian he refracts his personal experience among other things, through the crucifixion narrative. And as a Palestinian, it has very real relevance to his peoples’ experience in Israel/Palestine. I do not believe he invokes this narrative in order to make an accusation of deicide/blood libel against the Jews. He is using it in a genuinely faithful way, as part of a theology of liberation, to understand/frame a very real oppression against his people.”

Rosen’s congregant concludes that, assuming Naim Ateek has something important to teach him and ‘other like-minded Jews like [him],’ ‘he will never succeed unless he changes his rhetorical approach.’

One wonders if the obligation of use of language and content works only one way or both ways or all ways in difficult conversations.  Paul Eisen in ‘Speaking the Truth about Zionism and Israel’ paraphrases Jewish liberation theologian Marc Ellis on the ‘ecumenical deal’ “which translates also into a political deal… It goes like this: To the Christian and to the entire non-Jewish world, Jews say this: ‘You will apologise for Jewish suffering again and again and again. And, when you have done apologising, you will then apologise some more. When you have apologised sufficiently we will forgive you … provided that you let us do what we want in Palestine.’”

Finally, Philip Weiss, co-editor of Mondoweiss, “a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective,” writes about the recent J Street conference — setting out its achievements as well as shortcomings — “[T]he Jewish community doesn’t want to hear from voices outside the Jewish community except on its own terms.”

What has been your experience in engaging with what Rosen calls ‘the Jewish establishment world,’ much of which is dedicated solely to the defense of the State of Israel, while a growing chorus of Jewish voices outside this establishment supports more justice-oriented dialogue and action?  Where have you found opportunities to deeply engage with members of the Jewish community beyond learning about beliefs and practices?

We invite you to join the conversation.

Since we inaugurated PINontheGo in April, we’ve asked what you’re reading and watching and what resources you use.   Additional resources will be featured in a subsequent posting. Thanks to those who’ve contributed.

• Newland Smith recommends Generation Palestine: Voices from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, edited by Rich Wiles.  He lifts up two essays: Kali Akuno’s “The US Civil Rights and Black Liberation Movement: Lessons and Applications for the Palestine Liberation Movement” and “Leveling the Scales by Force: Thoughts on Normalization” by Rifat Odeh Kassis.
• Peggy Bronson recommends Our Harsh Logic: Israeli Soldiers’ Testimonies from the Occupied Territories, 2000-2010, compiled by Breaking the Silence.  She comments, “ For their protection the book removes all identity of the soldiers.  It tells the stories of what the soldiers were ordered to do while serving in the West Bank and Gaza.  It is a compelling book that shows how their own soldiers do not agree with the orders coming from their superiors. The book was one that I could not put down.  It tells of the harsh conditions that the Palestinians live with from the perspective of the Israeli soldiers.”
• Edward Thompson recommends Robert Smith’s new book on the roots of Christian Zionism More Desired than Our Owne Salvation.  It “tells a compelling story of how biblical literalism and the associated Christian Zionist ideas were operating in living color 500 to 600 years ago in England, and Europe. These ideas were transported to America. Our culture and our individual psyches are embedded with vestiges of these ideas so that affinity for Israel comes ‘naturally.’  Anti-Muslim sentiment also flows ‘naturally.’”
• Caroline Cracraft suggests Yasmina Khadra’s The Attack, “brilliantly written, superbly translated from the French,” and Michelle Cohen Corasanti’s The Almond Tree.  She continues, “both vivid, accurate, detailed, unflinching pictures of real life in West Bank, Gaza, Israel.”
• Dana Grubb says he’s been particularly impressed by Patrick Tyler’s Fortress Israel.

From Donna Hicks, convener for EPF PIN:

We see things through our own experiences and may not always agree on what works or doesn’t as a resource, just as, for example, our perspectives on positive investment or one state/two state may differ.

For example, here are two contrasting reviews of The Almond Tree:

Electronic Intifada review of The Almond Tree

Palestine Chronicle review of The Almond Tree

This blog section of our website offers us an opportunity to comment and reflect together on the issues.  If you’ve read these books, what’s your take?  What else might you recommend to EPF PIN members?

Once again hopes are being raised towards a negotiated settlement between Palestinians and Israelis on the foundation of the two state solution.  But “cynics” are probably more common among us than “hopefuls,” given the endless trail of failed talks over several decades.  The Palestine Justice Network is made up of members who are committed to a just peace, but not everybody agrees on how to achieve it or what a peace agreement would look like.  Some commentary may be helpful.

Applying non-violent economic pressure (as has been used in other international campaigns) through boycotts, divestment and sanctions is seen by many as a legitimate expression of resistance to Israel’s 47 year Occupation.  The Episcopal Peace Fellowship governing board endorsed BDS in 2010 and its Palestine Justice Network affirmed this position in 2011.  But not all members of EPF or PJN agree with this position or have variations on their interpretation of how BDS should be carried out. Generally, BDS campaigns target those corporations and governments whose actions or investments contribute to maintaining the infrastructure of Israel’s Occupation of Palestine in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.  The Episcopal Church supports corporate engagement, which calls on corporations in the Church’s stock portfolio to end any business associations with the Occupation.  What role might BDS play in the negotiations?

Answering that question, the European Union is applying pressure through its decision on July 17 to ban cooperation with or funding of Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian lands — including east Jerusalem — and prohibit the financing of any settlement related faction.

The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner, and Israel’s growing isolation in the world is being felt despite its unshakeable alliance with the United States where criticism is muted. The idea that Israel may be facing hard core economic measures from its largest trading partner shows that while the movement has produced little momentum within the United States, especially in Washington, D.C., BDS may be having an impact on Israeli calculations.

Another issue is the two state solution versus one bi-national state.  Many members of PJN believe the door has already closed on the two state solution because Israel’s settlements and the separation barrier built on much Palestinian land make it impossible to negotiate a Palestinian state that Episcopal Church policy says must be viable, contiguous and sovereign.  Israel will be required to reverse huge projects that have taken prime land from Palestinians throughout the West Bank, including east Jerusalem.  As negotiations begin, settlement expansion continues, including in sensitive Palestinian areas of Jerusalem; and Israel plans major settlement expansion that would cut off east Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, ending Palestinian dreams of establishing their capital in the City of Peace, a dream the Episcopal Church supports.

An alternative bi-national, democratic state (one person, one vote, one state for two peoples), is rejected out of hand by the Israeli government because it would end the idea of Israel as a Jewish state.  The problem within Israel proper today is how Israel can be a Jewish and democratic state when there are 1.5 million Palestinians living within that state. Palestinians have restricted rights within Israel, making the status of Palestinians at best second class. Comparisons have been made to segregation in the U.S. prior to the civil rights movement.

If the bi-national state formula were to be implemented, that would add 4 million more Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza to those already living In Israel, making the two peoples roughly equivalent in population.

There is a third option which is to maintain the West Bank and Gaza as part of Israel, but treated as cantons or bantustans, making Israel an apartheid state, which is in reality what Israel is maintaining today. This was noted in a speech by lead Israeli negotiator Tzipi Livni.  Responding to Israeli youth who had protested against Israel’s decision to export oil reserves she said “the time has come for the same youth to ask, to what kind of state do they want to leave their gas reserves?  To a Jewish democratic Israel?  Or to a binational Arab state?  Or to an apartheid state? It is impossible to deal with economic issues and to ignore the important diplomatic issues related to two states for two peoples.”

There is an additional incentive for Israel to be serious about negotiations.  They are no longer occupying just a foreign land. They are now occupying a foreign state, since the United Nations has formally recognized the state of Palestine as an observer state and may move to grant full and permanent status.  And Palestine now has access to international bodies like the International Court of Justice where charges can be brought against Israel for its human rights violations and illegal settlements, the barrier and other accoutrements of the Occupation.

Considering these realities, is it possible that Prime Minister Netanyahu sees these options and has determined that it is in Israel’s long term interest to carve out a Palestinian state in order to insure Israel’s own survival?  Or will the determined view within his own Likud party to hang onto the West Bank which holds the lands of Biblical Judea and Samaria lead to yet another charade that goes nowhere?

Looking at why these negotiations may be doomed from the start, perhaps the biggest sign for cynics is the choice of Martin Indyk as the “honest broker” appointed by President Obama and Secretary Kerry to be mediator in the negotiations.  Richard Falk, long time Middle East expert, professor of international law at Princeton and the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights, writing in Aljazeera notes:  “Does it not seem strange for the United States, the convening party and the unconditional supporter of Israel, to rely exclusively for diplomatic guidance in this concerted effort to revive the peace talks on persons with such strong and unmistakable pro-Israeli credentials?

What is stranger, still, is that the media never bothers to observe this peculiarity of a negotiating framework in which the side with massive advantages in hard and soft power, as well as great diplomatic leverage, needs to be further strengthened by having the mediating third-party so clearly in its corner. Is this numbness or bias?”

This leads Falk to ask: “The only remaining question is why the Palestinian Authority goes along so meekly. What is there to gain in such a setting? Having accepted the Washington auspices, why could they not have demanded, at least, a more neutral or balanced negotiating envoy?”

His conclusion is that “we can expect to witness yet another charade falsely advertised as ‘the peace process’.  Such a diversion is costly for the Palestinians and beneficial for the Israelis. Settlement expansion and associated projects will continue, the occupation with all its rigours and humiliations will continue, and the prospects for a unified Palestinian leadership will be put on indefinite hold.”

So there are arguments why Israel might be waking up to see that it cannot continue to thumb its nose at the international community.  And there are arguments to show that the renewed talks will once again end in futility.  What do you think?  Are you a “hopeful” or a “cynic”?  Please leave your comments in a reply window below. And, if not already, join PJN and be part of our witness.

The Palestine Justice Network of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship is committed to a prophetic witness for justice for all the peoples of the Holy Land: Palestinians and Jews; and Muslims, Jews and Christians.  As the negotiations continue during the coming months, PJN will do its best to sort the wheat from the chaff, to speak truth to power both within the Church and without, and to bring a word of hope to the oppressed, especially our Palestinian sisters and brothers, who will continue to suffer under the brutality of Occupation while negotiators parry proposals.  For their sake and for all those of good will, we will attempt to hold high the Church’s vow to “strive for justice and peace, and respect the dignity of every human being.”