Note #9101 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:
06059 Feb. 6, 2006
Panel won't have proposal for GA on Israel/Palestine divestment issue
Several presbyteries expected to submit overtures urging reversal of policy
by Toya Richards Hill
NEW YORK CITY - Almost two years after getting its assignment, the committee overseeing possible divestment from corporations whose business practices promote violence in Israel and Palestine isn't ready to make recommendations on the issue to the upcoming General Assembly.
That was the biggest news to come out of the Feb. 2-4 meeting of the Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) committee of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
"We have a couple of suggestions for recommendations" - although they don't have anything to do with the phased, selective divestment process, said Carol Hylkema, the MRTI chair and a member of the General Assembly Council (GAC).
MRTI intends to ask the GAC, which meets this week and again in April, to ask the 217th General Assembly for an additional $13,000 - $8,000 to pay for an extra meeting in 2007, and $5,000 for "dialogue teams" to meet with corporations with which MRTI is "engaged."
The committee has a current meeting budget of $14,100 and an additional $11,000 earmarked for programmatic expenses and related meetings.
MRTI was instructed by the 216th Assembly (2004) to explore divesting church funds from companies that have directly or indirectly caused harm or suffering to Palestinians and/or Israelis.
Since then it has been outlining a strategy for doing the work. In August, the committee named five multinational corporations that it said it intended to "engage" in discussions of their business practices in Israel and Palestine.
To date, MRTI has met in closed sessions with three of the companies - Citigroup Inc., headquartered in New York City; ITT Industries, based in White Plains, NY; and Motorola Inc., which operates from Schaumburg, IL. Committee members met with representatives of Citigroup and ITT last Thursday and Friday and with Motorola executives in November. The other targeted companies are United Technologies Corp., whose headquarters is in Hartford, CT, and Caterpillar Inc., based in Peoria, IL.
MRTI's "debriefings" after the corporate meetings also were closed to the press.
"We need to be very judicious in how much public comment is made," said the Rev. Bill Somplatsky-Jarman, the PC(USA) staff person assigned to MRTI.
"When we are at the point of making a decision ... that will be public," Hylkema said.
In a press release issued after last week's meetings, MRTI said the Citigroup meeting included "a review of their policies related to due diligence and monitoring to identify potential money laundering." Citigroup officials expected to take part included Stephen Long, president of global operations, and Richard Small, who is responsible for Citigroup's anti-money laundering operation.
Citigroup was targeted by MRTI because of transfers of money to the Arab Bank from U.S. charities later determined to be "fronts" funneling money to terrorist organizations. MRTI said in its release that some of those funds "allegedly ended up as payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers."
ITT was selected for "engagement" because it supplies the Israeli military with communications, electronic and night-vision equipment used in the occupied territories.
The General Assembly's divestment action has been controversial. The decision prompted a wave of protest, with some Jewish groups calling the action anti-Semitic. Presbyterians and others have said the decision has undone years of positive interfaith relations between Presbyterians and Jews.
On Wednesday, before its meeting, MRTI held a closed session with the Union for Reformed Judaism, the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.
Overtures calling for a reversal of the divestment action, and a wide range of related proposals, are expected at the June 17-24 Assembly in Birmingham, AL.
Somplatsky-Jarman told the committee that the Twin Cities Area Presbytery will suggest that any Assembly overture related to divestment would be referred automatically to MRTI for further study.
Divestment-related overtures "are all over the map," said the Rev. Vernon Broyles, the PC(USA)'s associate for corporate witness, some calling for a halt in the phased, selective divestment process and others pushing for investment in the region.
After a meeting on Jan. 31, New York City Presbytery failed to pass an overture from the session of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church urging a "suspension" of the process. The issue hit hard in New York, which has the largest population of Jews outside of Israel.
The presbytery did pass an overture from the Madison Avenue session that would create a task force on the Middle East and ask it to produce a "resource document to guide policy and inform future resolutions and actions of the PC(USA) in the region."
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