July 4, 2005
by Martin Bailey

After extended conversations with a prominent American Jewish leader and a noted human rights lawyer from Palestine, a Synod committee last night rejected several grass roots proposals that UCC agencies divest themselves from investments in companies that supply Israel with bulldozers and military equipment.

Instead the committee will recommend that General Synod adopt broader strategies of economic and other engagement to work for peace in the Middle East.General Synod will be asked on Tuesday to approve a wide-ranging resolution that calls for an even-handed allocation of foreign aid "that does not favor one state or one people over another."

The synod committee had heard Dr. David Elcott, an official of the American Jewish Committee, and Jonathan Kuttab, a U.S.-educated lawyer who has credentials to practice in Israel, Palestine and New York, agree that "We need the United Church of Christ as a partner to help us achieve peace in the land that is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims." They also agreed that "we know there has been violence on both sides—too much violence. We hope that you take a stand against violence from every side."

Beginning with two proposals that came from Penn West Conference and from a cluster of congregations in Hawaii, Seattle and Montana, the committee also received a late proposal from delegates from the Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine Conferences. Under the leadership of the Rev. Lillian Daniel of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, the committee heard oral presentations from nearly a dozen persons including a Jewish peace activist who is a member of the Hawaii chapter of Sabeel, the Palestinian liberation theology movement. The complex and emotionally-charged issue forced the committee into a late-night session following the Sunday evening communion service.

The committee also was helped by extended conversations with the heads of the UCC Pension Boards and the United Church Foundation, Michael Downs and Donald Hart. They explained that their agencies, along with the UCC's covenanted ministries, engage in economic leverage utilizing a series of actions that begin with careful research on how to help corporations appreciate the justice goals of the churches. These steps could include face-to-face conversations with corporate executives, possible shareholder actions, public policy advocacy and—as a last and desperate act—divestment itself.

Downs explained that the UCC agencies often work ecumenically with some 200 other partners through the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility whose offices are in the same New York City building with the Pension Boards and Foundation.

Downs and Hart offered to help provide study materials to local churches and other UCC organizations so that they, and individual members, could participate in the strategies for economic leverage. During the late-night session, the committee agreed to "encourage the entire United Church of Christ, in its many settings, to use tools of economic leverage to promote and support peace in the Middle East."

The committee's recommendation also will urge the Pension Boards and Foundation to identify companies whose business practices "perpetuate violence and oppression" and those who "promote peace and justice in the Middle East."

Members of the committee clearly had done their homework before arriving in Atlanta. Several had participated in conversations with Jewish friends and colleagues back home and some, like the Rev. Madison Shockley, pastor of Pilgrim UCC in Carlsbad, CA, had recently visited Israel and Palestine. Shockley told of conversations with Israeli government officials who explained their country's policies of building settlements in the occupied territories.

The Rev. Ruth Brandon of Second Congregational UCC, Westfield, MA., helped craft the final language of the resolution that will be presented to the General Synod. She is a winner of this year's Antoinette Brown Award and has been a member of the board of directors of Wider Church Ministries.

Elcott and Kuttab both told of the agony they and others experience when churches and individual Christians are insensitive to words and attitudes that remind them of bias and injustice.

"Jews remember with great pain when they have faced boycotts and economic prejudice," Elcott said. "Each of us—and especially those who have deep ties with the State of Israel, cannot help but take words like ‘divestment' personally. We do not want to be singled out."

Johnathan Kuttab, an ecumenical guest of Wider Church Ministries, explained that Palestinian Christians feel terribly isolated when churches overlook their plight and choose to ignore those whose shared-faith goes back to the time of Pentecost.

Peter Makari, executive for the Middle East and Europe for Wider Church Ministries and the Common Global Ministries Board, resourced the committee and introduced Dr. Elcott and Kuttab. Wider Church Ministries and the Council for Ecumenism had invited the two guests to Atlanta.

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