Fighting Back: Presbyterian Committee to End Divestment Now
There is some really good news regarding the struggle against the divestment charade. A group of US Presbyterians have formed the Committee to End Divestment Now. Their Web site at http://www.enddivestment.com/index.html features a forthright and systematic analysis of the larger issues, and a micro-analysis of church politics and procedural issues, with extensive details regarding the fallacies and errors involved in divestment at http://www.enddivestment.com/analysis.html Continued...
They conclude:
These resolutions have shattered our interfaith relations with our Jewish friends. These resolutions have undone a half-century of positive efforts to improve interfaith relations, following our denomination's less-than-impressive response to the Holocaust. Isolating Israel for punitive action, while not condemning terror-sponsoring states, means that Israel has been unjustly targeted.
Historically, such double standards have been connected with anti-Semitic attitudes. While anti-Semitism probably was far from the minds of commissioners in 2004, our committee understands why our Jewish friends are consequently upset. At the same time, however, we are confident that interfaith relations can be fully restored if the church acts promptly to repeal these resolutions at the 217th General Assembly in June 2006.
Any peacemaking role we as a church may assume in the face of the complexities of the Middle East conflict must reflect and be tested against authentic grassroots congregational convictions. In a like fashion, our role must be fashioned in humility and fairness, in close consultation with authentic representatives of mainstream thinking in both the Jewish/Israeli and the Palestinian communities. This task yet remains to be accomplished properly.
As we have pointed out more than once, divestment initiatives are motivated and led by anti-Zionists who want to see the end of Zionism and Israel, not the end of occupation. As one such conference stated quite openly (http://www.badil.org/Campaign/Expert_Forum/Haifa/Summary.htm):
"We must understand that occupation will end only after, or simultaneously with, de-Zionization"
All of Israel is "occupied." for them (see Anti-Zionist Boycotts and Divestment Initiatives). The same sentiments, along with a "how to subvert religion" kit, were expressed repeatedly at the recent PSM conference at Georgetown University (see http://www.zionism-israel.com/ezine/PSM_Palestine_Subversion_Movement.htm).
We can only hope that these good people will succeed in explaining to their fellow church members that they have been "had" by a very sophisticated con operation that seeks to pervert religion, and that if they do not succeed, they do not disband their group in 2006 as they have announced they would do.
Ami Isseroff
 If you like this post – click to Reddit!
| |
 add to del.icio.us |  Add to digg - digg it
|
Moderator on 03.24.06 @ 10:06 PM CST [link]
