Last week’s decision by the Presbyterian Church (USA) to step back from its 2004 call for “selective divestment” against Israel represents a severe blow to the effort to use mainline Protestant churches to isolate and stigmatize the Jewish state.
The overwhelming vote to “replace” divestment with a policy of investing in companies that promote peace at the PCUSA General Assembly in Birmingham, Ala., doesn’t mean Presbyterian leaders have become ardent Zionists. Don’t expect divestment proponents to go quietly into the night, or church leaders to abandon a Palestinian cause they have long championed.
But the decision does reflect a clear recognition that the earlier decision singling out Israel for economic punishment undermined the church’s overall goals in the Middle East and fractured relations with the Jewish community.
No single factor caused the policy shift.
Jewish activists representing a range of groups played a role, but just as important were the dynamics of a church wracked with internal dissension over core theological issues, starting with the explosive question of the ordination of gay ministers.
While Mideast politics remained important to many, it just wasn’t important enough to a majority in the church to justify the additional internal conflicts the divestment drive generated, especially as anti-divestment forces within the church started gaining traction.
There was also a growing recognition that much of the divestment effort was being driven by groups that were not, in fact, committed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Last week the church did not renounce the extreme positions of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem, which played a pivotal role in the 2004 divestment decision.
But it was clear that Sabeel had lost much of the influence it had two years ago in the face of growing scrutiny by the press and by Jewish groups. Sabeel has not been defanged, but clearly church leaders are looking a little more closely at its agenda and the pronouncements of its leaders.
Some Jewish leaders are claiming that the reversal points to the success of their particular tactics — confrontation in the case of groups like the Wiesenthal Center, dialogue and quiet pressure by groups like the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the American Jewish Committee, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the Anti-Defamation League.
In fact, the Presbyterian decision was probably motivated more by internal factors in a church beset with controversy; the involvement of Jewish groups employing a variety of tactics acted as a catalyst to intensify those internal fights.
On balance, many top Jewish leaders say the combined efforts of local Jewish agencies around the country to work with their Presbyterian neighbors did the most to change the climate at this year’s convention and allow the church leadership to overcome the fierce activism of pro-divestment forces.
The resolution that passed could allow divestment actions in the future, according to some interpretations; this week pro-divestment activists were busily insisting that nothing has really changed.
But few Jewish leaders buy that frantic spin; most are satisfied that the church went about as far as it could go in correcting the wrong done in 2004.
They point out that the resolution includes an explicit admission — right at the top — that the earlier resolution caused “hurt and misunderstanding among many members of the Jewish community and within our Presbyterian communion. We are grieved by the pain that this has caused, accept responsibility for the flaws in our process, and ask for a new season of mutual understanding and dialogue.”
In a surprise move, the church also passed a broadly worded resolution condemning suicide bombings as a crime against humanity. That resolution was approved even though it had been axed by the church’s Social Justice Committee.
But nobody involved in the divestment fight believes the matter is settled. Strongly pro-Palestinian forces within the church will seek new avenues to make their point that Israel is always at fault and that the Palestinians are blameless.
A broader segment of the church, with a theology that emphasizes the responsibility to protect the weak against the powerful, will continue to side with the Palestinians and be skeptical of Israeli peace moves.
Still, most Jewish leaders say the church took a significant and welcome step back from the brink.
The challenge for Jewish groups now is to re-engage the Presbyterians and others in an ongoing dialogue about Israel, about the Jewish connection to the land and about Israel’s efforts seeking a fair solution to the conflict with its Arab neighbors.
That dialogue had languished in recent years, and the pro-Israel community paid the price for letting that happen in 2004.
Jewish groups at every level also need to pay very close attention to pro-Palestinian forces in all the mainline Protestant churches that so effectively sandbagged the pro-Israel community with the divestment push two years ago, and are now looking for new opportunities in a war that is far from over.