Divestment Over DiplomacyChurch-backed Group Aims Pressure at IsraelJeff WaltonOctober 21, 2009
This is the third in a series of three articles about the 2009 Sabeel Conference in Washington, D.C. To read part one, click here, for part two, click here.
Dissatisfied with diplomatic efforts, speakers at the annual Sabeel conference are encouraging activists to pursue the kinds of boycotts and financial divestment used against the South African apartheid regime as a way to punish Israel.
“Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) is the cutting edge of how we in the international community can be in solidarity with Palestinians and Israelis working to end the occupation, working to end the apartheid practices of the Israeli government,” said David Wildman, Executive Secretary for Human Rights and Racial Justice with the General Board of Global Ministries (GMGM) in the United Methodist Church.
The United Methodist official led a workshop entitled “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, a Justice-Based Strategy of Solidarity” at the recent pro-Palestinian conference in Washington, D.C.
“Boycotts do change bad behavior,” Wildman said, citing the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott during the civil rights movement as an example of an effective boycott. Wildman, who also serves as co-chair of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, summarized BDS as nonviolent, moral, economic actions.
Comparisons to the U.S. Civil Rights movement and the opposition to South Africa’s apartheid-era regime are a consistent part of Sabeel’s narrative linking the two histories to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sabeel also roots the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in alleged Israeli racism, equating the Nakba (the dispersion of Arab refugees at the founding of Israel) with the Nazi Holocaust.
Wildman joined other conference speakers in equating Israel to apartheid South Africa. He rejected a supposed false idea of “good violence” perpetrated by colonizers to protect order and tradition against “bad violence” perpetrated by indigenous peoples resisting colonization.
“It’s racist,” Wildman said of the idea. The United Methodist official said that for years, activists have focused on many issues, but not on “the horrendous human rights violations in Israel.”
“There are many brutal governments in the world, but these [alleged Gaza war crimes] were done with the consent of the governed,” said Wildman, referring to the Israeli electorate. “As a U.S. taxpayer, I’ve funded violent attacks – benefitted from a system of apartheid and oppression.”
“When we talk about apartheid, it’s systematic unjust discrimination on a basis of identity,” explained Wildman.
The United Methodist official highlighted a series of legislative actions taken by mainline Church bodies, including a June 2004 resolution by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to engage in a campaign of Phased Selective Divestment (PSD). Wildman also mentioned a series of resolutions from regional United Methodist annual conferences from 2005-2007 calling for a divestment process from companies allegedly supporting the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
Wildman did not mention that the PCUSA effectively rescinded its PSD policy in 2006, or that comparable United Methodist resolutions had failed in all but a handful of annual conferences, including the church’s most recent 2008 General Conference. In July, the Episcopal Church’s General Convention rejected a resolution that was singularly critical of Israel.
Wildman did say that after passing the 2004 PSD resolution, Presbyterian officials were attacked with “arson threats, death threats, hate mail,” and had to hire an outside public relations firm to respond to “the level of mail and attacks that were coming in.”
Wildman acknowledged that there was strong opposition to boycotts and divestment in many circles, noting that some people would ask, “Why are you picking on Israel?”
“We’re not,” Wildman said. “There is a 40 year tradition of ethical BDS work.” Wildman cited boycotts against the makers of napalm during the Vietnam War, Nestle, Shell Oil, and the governments of South Africa, Burma, and Sudan. He singled out Caterpillar tractor and Motorola as specific examples of companies doing business with Israel that were being targeted.
“Don’t underestimate the capacity of moral and economic measures against powerful companies,” Wildman said. “We will be attacked by folks that have genuine concerns, and we will be attacked by those that have less than genuine concerns.”
Wildman was also part of a conference panel discussion later the same day, entitled “Raising the Voices of Conscience.” The panel questioned Israel’s existence and expressed concerns about Christian Zionism, a concept held by some evangelicals that equates the modern state of Israel with the ancient kingdom of David.
“One must stop using the Holocaust as though it mandates the creation of a state at the exclusion of its former occupants,” said liberal Catholic theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether, Visiting Professor of Feminist Theology at the United Methodist-affiliated Claremont School of Theology. “One evil does not compensate for another.”
“A Jewish state is systematic discrimination because it’s based on identity,” said Ruether, who blamed a “subtle form of Christian Zionism” pervading the churches, one that “hands over all of the Middle East to Israel.”
The Catholic theologian said that Christian Zionism was in the mainline churches and was an impediment to churches speaking out. Ruether argued that Jews are no longer burdened by the Holocaust, but that mainline churches were striking an “ecumenical deal” to evade knowing much about Palestinian issues. The theologian asserted that this was intentional, as mainline Christians wanted not to offend Jews with which they wished to share ecumenical relations.
“Their [mainline churches] main perspective is shaped by a desire to compensate for past anti-Semitism,” Ruether said. “This crime [Israeli occupation of the West Bank] has taken place with either the active or passive role of western Christianity.”