In June, the PCUSA’s General Assembly approved a resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian situation that, among other things, calls for the initiation of “a process of phased selective divestment in multilateral corporations operating in Israel.” Catherine Gordon, the PCUSA representative to CMEP, asked that the CMEP Email Network, which includes many Presbyterians, be informed of an exchange of letters between fourteen Members of the House of Representatives and PCUSA’s Stated Clerk Clif Kirkpatrick.

The letters were reported in the September 20 and September 27 issues of Roll Call, a Capitol Hill daily paper, with headlines that exhibit the controversy sparked by the resolution:  "Israel Divestment Blasted" and "Church Fires Back at Congress." 

September 24, 2004 letter to fourteen Members of the House from PCUSA Stated Clerk, Clifton Kirkpatrick

(On PCUSA letterhead)

Dear Representative ------ 

I am in receipt of your letter indicating that you are “terribly distressed” by the action of the 216^th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) seeking a just and peaceful resolution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.  I very much regret your disappointment, but in all candor, must also communicate with you that I am terribly distressed in the failure of the U.S. Congress to seek a peaceful resolution to this conflict that would both protect the right of Israel to live in peace with secure borders and the rights of the Palestinians to statehood and an end of the occupation of their territory.  Perhaps if the U.S. Congress had been more forthright in seeking such a just solution for Israel and Palestine, it would not have been necessary for our General Assembly to take this further action to achieve our long term commitment for peace and well being for both Israelis and Palestinians.  Let me give you a bit of background on the stand of our church.

In 1948, in the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) declared that a solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict “will be a achieved only by a return to the principle of faithful devotion to the welfare, needs, and rights of both the Jewish and Arab peoples.”  The Presbyterian Church (USA) has long been concerned with finding a just peace in the region and over the last 56 years we have expressed our concern for peace between Israel, the Palestinian people and the Arab states.  We have consistently called for US policies to encourage and to help to achieve the negotiation of a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in the region with two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side with secure borders.

The decision made by the 216^th General Assembly to initiate a process of phased, selective divestment from certain companies operating in Israel, which are profiting off the harming of innocent lives was not taken lightly.  It was born out of the frustration that many of our members, as well as members of other denominations, feel with the current policies of Israel and those of our own government in regards to the Israel/Palestinian conflict.

Neither the Israeli, nor the Palestinian, nor the U.S. leadership has taken the necessary and bold steps needed to achieve peace.  However, the United States, both its government and its institutions and its citizens, has a unique roll to play in the conflict.  The governments and peoples around the world look to the US for the leadership necessary to implement peace accords, bring an end to the occupation, and bring peace and security to the people of the region. 

It has been very disappointing to us that the U.S. congress has not proven to be an ally or a balanced arbiter in the negotiations for peace in the region.  While congress has passed repeated statements against the Palestinian Authority, it has never passed a resolution condemning the continuous illegal construction of settlements in the West Bank.  There has been nothing done by congress to pressure Israel to adhere to international law.  Rather, Israel has been encouraged by congress to violate international law.  The recent passage of House Resolution 713, which condemns the International Court of Justice and supports a wall that is in blatant violation of international law, is one case in point.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian conditions in the occupied territories continue to worsen.  Sixty percent of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank now live below the poverty line; almost 2.5 million subsist on under $2 per day.  The West Bank has disturbing rates of acute malnutrition, and Gaza now faces a humanitarian emergency. The USAID found a direct correlation between the humanitarian conditions in the West Bank and the curfews imposed on the Palestinian population by the Israeli Government. The sweeping restrictions on freedom of movement that Israel imposes in the occupied territories are the main cause of the corrosion of the Palestinian economy and the extreme increase in unemployment and poverty.

While the Israeli government claims it is building the “separation barrier” between Israel and the West Bank, only a small percent will be on the Green Line, Israel’s 1967 border. The rest stretches into the West Bank, isolates huge amounts of land and affects the lives of many thousands of Palestinians. This year some 210,000 people will be economically and socially cut off from their neighborhoods. The route of the wall has been determined not by security, but by the political goals of maintaining the settlements and impacting future peace talks. (A wall built along the Green Line would be half the length of the current wall and much easier to patrol.)

The current wall ghettoizes the Palestinians and forces them onto what can only be called reservations.  A just and lasting peace will only be achieved when BOTH people are able to live within secure boarders.  A wall imposed by Israel on the Palestinians while maintaining the right to invade at anytime does not advance that goal.

The fourth Geneva Convention details the responsibility that an occupying power has for the civilians under its control. However, Israel has refused to apply this to its occupied territories.  Just recently, Prime Minister Sharon repudiated the Road Map and announced that the illegal settlements in the West Bank are there for the long term.  Americans for Peace Now, a Jewish peace organization has documented the most recent moves to expand these settlements.  Israeli Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz has issued instructions to have 72,000 olive trees planted in huge areas of the West Bank near settlements for the settlers’ exclusive use.   He stated “This is seizing lands and preventing them from being turned over to Palestinians.  That is how we will strengthen our hold on Judea and Samaria.”

The unconditional support of Israel and Prime Minister Sharon, while the continuous assaults on Palestinians and their leadership by the Israeli army are broadcast all over the world does nothing to protect our security as a nation.  It also does nothing to bring the security so needed to Israel.   It is the occupation, not our move to consider divestment that threatens the existence of Israel.  The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to begin a process that might lead to divestment from companies profiting from the occupation because there is a strong feeling among many people, and most likely many people in your district, that the occupation needs to end in order that all people - Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans - can live in peace and security.

While I regret that you and the other fourteen of your colleagues who signed the letter are disturbed by the specific action of the Presbyterian General Assembly, I am encouraged by your assurance that you seek a peaceful and just solution to the conflict in the Middle East.  Since we obviously both hope that the other’s institutions (Congress or the Presbyterian General Assembly) might change their actions, I would welcome an opportunity for constructive dialogue between you and your colleagues who joined you in signing the letter and the leadership of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  Once I receive word of your interest in pursuing this dialogue, I will ask my colleagues in the Presbyterian Washington Office to be in touch with your staff to make the necessary arrangements for our conversation together on this most important concern for the well being of all the peoples in the Middle East.

May God grant peace with justice to all the people of the Middle East!

Cordially yours,

Clifton Kirkpatrick

Stated Clerk of the General Assembly

---------------------------------------------------------------

September 13, 2004

The Reverend Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick
Stated Clerk of the General Assembly
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
100 Witherspoon Street
Louisville, KY 40202 

Dear Reverend Kirkpatrick,

As Members of Congress from various faiths, we are terribly distressed about the resolution adopted at the 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which calls on the Church to divest from certain companies doing business in Israel. In our view, this resolution and other associated resolutions and statements reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, contradict the Church's stated commitment to "the secure existence of Israel and the Israeli people," and undermine the prospect of peace by emboldening those who seek to de-legitimize the State of Israel.

We wholeheartedly concur with the Church's call for a just and peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with two states living side by side in peace and security. The Israeli people have repeatedly shown their willingness to make painful compromises to achieve this vision. At the Camp David Summit in 2000, Prime Minister Barak made an historic offer that was rejected by Chairman Arafat. Most recently, Prime Minister Sharon, the Father of the settlement movement, has advocated a groundbreaking plan that will lead to a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the evacuation of some settlements in the West Bank.

Since the beginning of the so-called second intifada in September 2000, Palestinian terrorists have murdered more than nine hundred innocent Israeli civilians. Many Palestinian civilians have also been killed in Israeli military operations. The loss of any human life is tragic, but in the context of this conflict there is a critical moral distinction: Palestinian terrorists deliberately target Israeli noncombatants, including women and children, through suicide bombings and other barbaric acts that leading human rights organizations have defined as "crimes against humanity." By contrast, Israel uses military force only as a response to terrorism, and never intentionally targets innocent civilians. If the Palestinians stopped all terrorist attacks and dismantled terrorist organizations, the violence would end, and meaningful efforts to reach a peaceful solution could resume.

Israel's decision to erect a security fence between Israel and the West Bank must be viewed against the backdrop of this horrific terrorist assault. It is truly "the fence that terrorism built." In its "rationale" for the resolution on the security fence, the Church asserts that the barrier "decreases the security of Israel." In fact, the exact opposite is true. Since the fence was completed in the Northern section of the West Bank, no Palestinian terrorists have infiltrated Israel from Jenin and Tulkarm, the sources of many previous suicide bombers. A similar fence around Gaza has been nearly 100 percent effective in preventing would-be attackers from entering Israel.

As currently planned by the Israeli Ministry of Defense, the security fence (only about five percent of which consists of a "wall") will encroach on about 12 percent of the West Bank, leaving over 99 percent of Palestinians on the Palestinian side, and incorporating 76 percent of Israeli settlers on the Israeli side. There is no question that the fence will make daily life more difficult for some Palestinians on both sides of the barrier, including those that will have to pass through Israeli-controlled gates to reach their farmland. This is a terribly unfortunate situation, but a small price to pay in order to save innocent lives, and one that is made necessary by the failings of the Palestinian leadership.

It is important to recognize that Palestinians have the ability to petition the Israeli Supreme Court on questions regarding the fence. Several weeks ago, the Court ruled that the Israeli military must alter the proposed route of the barrier in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and henceforth apply a strict test of proportionally in weighing Israeli security needs against Palestinian humanitarian concerns. The Israeli government has pledged to abide by this decision.

In condemning the security fence for extending into the West Bank, the Church ignores U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which explicitly acknowledged Israel's right to secure and defensible borders, as well as the Church's stated commitment- reaffirmed in its resolution on the fence- to Israel's right to exist within "secure" borders. Nearly every blueprint for peace- including the flawed Geneva Accord endorsed by the Church- envisions modifications to the 1967 lines, including the Israeli annexation of large settlement blocs. To argue that Israel somehow forfeits its inherent right of self-defense unless it retreats to those insecure and indefensible borders is a strange reading of history and recent events.

We disagree with your characterization of the conflict as "rooted in Israel's continued occupation of Palestinian territories." We believe the conflict is primarily rooted in the Palestinian leadership's refusal to accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. Sadly, nothing else can adequately explain their unwillingness to provide a substantive response or counteroffer to the Israeli peace proposal at Camp David, not to mention the subsequent campaign of terrorism.

As long as Palestinians and their extremist allies continue to seek the destruction of Israel, then the Government of Israel has a fundamental obligation- as do all democratically elected governments - to provide security for the Israeli people. Unlike the U.N. peacekeeping force advocated by the Church in its divestment resolution, the fence will provide real physical security and- because Israel will have the ability to redeploy its forces from much of the West Bank when it is complete- will help create the conditions necessary for a two state solution in which the legitimate aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians can be satisfied.

We believe very strongly that the efforts of the Church to divest from companies doing business in Israel- thus penalizing Israel for acting in its own self-defense- are irresponsible, counterproductive, and morally bankrupt. Rather than contributing to peace, this approach will only provide encouragement for those that seek to de-legitimize the very existence of the Jewish State.

We note with alarm your press release mention that "divestment is one of the strategies that U.S. churches used in the l970's and the l980's in a successful campaign to end apartheid in South Africa." South African apartheid? Surely the Presbyterian Church is aware that Israel is a nation whose population is nearly 20% non-Jewish Arab with the same rights as Jewish Citizens, including voting. They even have their own political parties, and serve in the Israeli Knesset. Israel is a nation that occupies a tiny sliver of land known as the West Bank only because Jordan, overwhelmingly composed of Palestinians, invaded Israel in l967 in order to destroy it and thereby lost its ownership of the West Bank.

The resolution's blatant disregard for recent history, and its blatant disregard for the safety and security of the only democracy in the Middle East leads us to only one conclusion: the Presbyterian Church has knowingly gone on record calling for jeopardizing the existence of the State of Israel.

We urge you in the strongest possible terms to rescind your resolution.
Sincerely,

REP. HOWARD L. BERMAN (D-CA)
REP. ROY BLUNT (R-MO)
REP. STENY H. HOYER (D-MD)
REP. DEBORAH PRYCE (R-OH)
REP. JOHN LEWIS (D-GA)
REP. JOHN LINDER (R-GA)
REP. HENRY A. WAXMAN (D-CA)
REP. MARK STEVEN KIRK (R-IL)
REP. GARY L. ACKERMAN (D-NY)
REP. ERIC CANTOR (R-VA)
REP. LINDA T. SANCHEZ (D-CA)
REP. TOM FEENEY (R-FL)
REP. BARNEY FRANK (D-MA)
REP. LAMAR S. SMITH (R-TX)