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Three Perspectives on the Presbyterians and Divestment from Companies Doing Business with Israel |
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by David Green
Email: davegreen48 (nospam) yahoo.com (verified)
Phone: 840-3979 |
07 Mar 2005
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On January 28, Professor Fred Jaher of the U of I published a Guest Commentary in the News-Gazette casting anti-Semitic aspersions on local Presbyterian pastors for joining the larger church in promoting divestment from companies doing business with Israel. Included is his commentary, my submitted response, and a statement by Jewish Voice for Peace, a Bay Area-based organization that opposes Israeli policies and supports divestment. |
New-Gazette: Jan 28, 2005, Guest Commentary
The Presbyterian History of anti-Semitism
Frederic C. Jaher
As a scholar of American anti-Semitism and Jewish-Christian relations, I read with interest the Jan. 21 guest commentary by several local Presbyterian pastors endorsing the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) decision to explore a selected disinvestment in corporations engaging in business with Israel. As a Jew, I read this commentary with considerable concern and I would like to convey my opinions.
Since the General Assembly decision and this ministerial affirmation purports to be a moral declaration, it is reasonable to begin with examining what particular moral leverage their denomination brings to matters concerning Israel and Jews: What historical and current Presbyterian perspectives on Jews and the Jewish state would justify, or possibly on a less lofty and more realistic basis, explain this judgment? During the 1930s and World War II, when 6 million Jews were massacred, individual Protestants did protest the Holocaust. Protestant sects, including Presbyterians, however, were not noteworthy in resistance to Nazi anti-Jewish policies. A prominent Presbyterian, John Foster Dulles, and his law firm represented German clients and interests before World War II. At that time the Presbyterian Church USA did not call for disinvestment in German businesses. (For an account of Protestants and the persecution of Jews see Leonard Dinnerstein “Anti-Semitism in America” Oxford University Press, 1994.)
Although this record transpired within living memory, it is, of course, more relevant to investigate present attitudes. Here the inquiry properly focuses on the selectivity of the proposed boycott. When 9/11 occurred, the majority of the terrorist assassins came from Saudi Arabia, a dictatorial nation notorious for sponsoring anti-Jewish propaganda and, according to the CIA and other U.S. government agencies and the New York Times, for financing al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations. Russia has waged a murderously brutal war against Chechnya. Yet, for neither country, whose depredations dwarf the alleged malign behavior of Israel, have the Presbyterians officially called for disinvestment.
Why Israel? The Presbyterian ministers and their organization assure us that their stance is principles and has no anti-Semitic implications. Perhaps their convictions are devoid of any aversion against Jews; regrettably some of their colleagues cannot claim the same degree of virtue. Over a period of several years I have occasionally attended services in a Presbyterian Church, USA, in another city. Three times, I witnessed aspersions cast against Jews. One interim clergyman stated from the pulpit: “The Jews have the law, but we have God’s grace.” This attestation of Christian triumphalism with regard to Judaism ignored the fact that Jews also feel they have God’s grace. After all, and I know Presbyterians who would agree, the Jews consider themselves “the Chosen People.” How the Jews’ behalf, can claim divine selection without divine grace was a paradox not examined by this clergyman.
Another service, preached by the regular minister of that church, contained the passage where Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath in a synagogue and the Pharisees plot to destroy him because he violated Sabbath law (Mark 3:1-4). In fact, preservation of life is the highest value in Judaism and takes precedence over any other law.
These, however, are incidental aspersion compared with the Easter service where the minister quoted Matthew 27:22-23, depicting the Jews demanding crucifixion and saying, “His blood be on us and our children.” This is a text frequently used by anti-Semites to blame the Jews for killing the Messiah and accuse them of inherited guilt for killing the Messiah and accuse them of inherited guilt for Deicide. Other Gospels are less severe on the Jews, but Matthew was the choice of this pastor.
My own experience at Presbyterian services and my evaluation of the official decision for disinvestment and the rationale offered by local Presbyterian clergy lead me to make this recommendation: Before you judge that the House of Israel if out of order, make sure that your own house is in order.
Frederic C. Jaher is a professor of history at the University of Illinois. His specialty is U.S. social and intellectual history and his current field of research is anti-Semitism in American history and Christian-Jewish relations.
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David Green’s response, submitted to the News-Gazette:
Frederic Jaher (1/28) evaluates the local Presbyterian pastors’ endorsement of selective divestment from corporations engaging in business with Israel. He presumes the right to judge them as a Jew among Christians and as a historian among clerics, but whatever Jaher’s background and credentials, his right is only to judge whether the pastors are holding another group to the standard to which they hold themselves.
But on a moment’s reflection, whether this is the case is moot: as American citizens we all massively support the military dictatorship that Israel has imposed on occupied Palestine for 37 years: the illegal settlements, the continued confiscation of land, the “targeted killings,” the apartheid wall, and the daily humiliations that are institutionalized only because our government has chosen to use our tax dollars and diplomatic power to that violent and imperialist purpose, against a defeated people in the process of being destroyed. The pastors are holding not only Israel and Jews to what is arguably a standard of basic and obvious morality, but themselves and their congregants, while providing a much-needed example for the rest of us in this country, Jewish or otherwise. This is not about Jews versus Christians, but Americans violating Palestinians.
The rest of Jaher’s piece regarding history and religion is transparently irrelevant and shockingly infantile. It matters not at this point what response was made by John Foster Dulles or any other Presbyterian in this country during the years leading up to and during the holocaust, when American elites (including Grandfather Prescott Bush) overwhelmingly supported and did business with Hitler’s Germany; when the American leader of Reformed Judaism agreed to silence himself regarding the holocaust at Roosevelt’s request; when Zionist leaders in Palestine undermined an effective boycott of the German economy; and when the leader of the Jewish community in Hungary—a Zionist—used his relationship with the Nazis to save himself and 1,600 of his followers while advising 400,000 Jews to passively and obediently report for “relocation”—which he well knew meant almost certain death; he was later assassinated by a Hungarian Jew in Israel.
And surely it is disingenuous of Jaher to employ Dulles for this convenient purpose, when he knows full well that the neoconservatives he now supports trace their lineage to those like Dulles and Dean Acheson, who used the “red menace” to expand the military-industrial complex and American hegemony in the postwar era—resulting eventually in our support for Israel as a virtual American military base in the oil-rich and strategically vital Middle East. Jaher does not even seem to understand that because Saudi Arabia is our ally, Israel is committed to use its resources to support the corrupt royal family, whatever the rhetoric displayed for local consumption on either side.
Jaher concludes with a sermon to the pastors about judging their own house before that of Israel, but it is he who is unwilling to look in the mirror, while wielding the overworked and manipulative accusation of anti-Semitism against those moving tentatively to challenge American complicity in blatant injustice; what Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling calls the “politicide” of the Palestinian people. Jaher baldly implies that speaking as a Jew confers moral authority on his words. But none of us can make such a claim, whether based on the accident of birth or even the experience of victimization. Nor can he claim to speak for a majority of Jews, and even if this were the case, majority is no proof of morality. In the final analysis, Jaher must make his argument with facts, logic, and moral consistency, rather than appealing to his person and status. On these terms he has failed miserably, while insulting the intelligence and integrity of others who have made a far more sincere effort.
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Jewish Voice for Peace Statement on Divesment
December 08, 2004
With some 10,000 members and supporters, and a board of advisors that includes high-profile American Jews and Israeli peace activists, Jewish Voice for Peace is one of the largest and oldest grassroots Jewish peace organizations in the United States.
For years, through its call to suspend military aid to Israel until it ends its occupation of Palestinian lands, Jewish Voice for Peace has been part of a large movement calling for material pressure on Israel. That movement is growing, with others joining in the effort to resist funding the occupation while maintaining a positive relationship with the Israeli people.
In July, 2004, the Presbyterian Church made a decision to investigate selective divestment from companies that profit from Israel’s occupation. As a result, a number of mainline Jewish organizations have called on Christian organizations to oppose divestment. All the while, the actual content of the Presbyterian Church’s decision has been misreported as a decision to divest from Israel. In fact, the PCUSA merely decided to investigate divestment from companies, both American and Israeli, that profit from the occupation.
At JVP, we fully support selective divestment from companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. This includes American companies like Caterpillar who profit from the wholesale destruction of Palestinian homes and orchards. It also includes Israeli companies who depend on settlements for materials or labor or who produce military equipment used to violate Palestinian human rights.
We believe that general divestment from Israel is an unwise strategy at this time. We believe that economic measures targeted specifically at the occupation and the Israeli military complex that sustains it are much more likely to produce results.
However, we absolutely reject the accusation that general divestment or boycott campaigns are inherently anti-Semitic. The Israeli government is a government like any other, and condemning its abuse of state power, as many of its own citizens do quite vigorously, is in no way the same as attacking the Jewish people.
Further, it is crucial not only to criticize the immoral and illegal acts of the Israeli government, but to back up that criticism with action. Socially responsible investing, divestment, and boycott campaigns have proven to be effective tools for both individuals and institutions working to make governments accountable to international human rights standards. The mere fact that some groups have chosen different or more aggressive tactics from us does not necessarily make them anti-Semitic.
Each year, US corporations receive an alarming subsidy from US taxpayers, primarily in the form of US military aid to Israel. The total amount of US aid given to Israel since 1949 represents the largest transfer of funds from one country to another in history. Seventy-five percent of US military aid to Israel must by law be spent in US corporations, making corporations, not Israel or Israelis, the primary recipients of US aid. This means that US corporations are primary beneficiaries of Israel’s continued and brutal military occupation of Palestinian lands.
The lopsided American foreign policy may seem to be in Israel’s interest, but it actually works to the detriment of the Israeli people. Continued militarization of Israeli society increases the exposure of Israeli women and children to violence in their daily lives, and has helped lead the country to economic crisis. At the same time, this unbalanced US foreign policy has devastated the Palestinians. Americans of conscience must work to balance that policy in favor of a peaceful solution. It is not discriminatory that Americans working for a just peace focus their attention on Israel’s occupation and take concrete steps to end it, like divesting from companies profiting from Israel’s occupation.
Neither the US nor Israel will change their policies in favor of peace through their own goodwill. This is not the way of governments. Tangible pressure must be brought to bear if policies promoting a better future are to take root. The time has come for groups to bring that pressure to bear.
We salute the Presbyterian Church for their courage in taking on this critical human rights issue, and are grateful for the visionary leadership of the Sisters of Loretto and the Sisters of Mercy who insisted on holding the Caterpillar Corporation to account for their sale of weaponized bulldozers to Israel.
And we remind the many groups that are alarmed by the Presbyterian Church’s actions that the best way to stop the growing divestment movement is to eliminate its root cause -- Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land.
We call on all Americans of conscience to join the Presbyterian Church, the Sisters of Loretto, Sisters of Mercy, Jewish Voice for Peace and countless other groups in taking tangible steps to create a better future for Israelis and Palestinians together. |
This work is in the public domain |
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