Church
Boycott Calls Ring Louder: Israel Other Biblical Promised
Land - Backlash
30 August 2010By Sarah Irving
The world's churches have long been one of the
battlegrounds of the boycott, divestment and sanctions
(BDS) movement. With the strengthening of the BDS
movement, a number of churches across the globe have
seen the boycott of Israeli and Israeli settlement
goods hotting up, and recent weeks have witnessed some
notable victories.
The British Methodist Church has seen a number of
resolutions on Israel passed in recent years. In 2006,
says Dr. Stephen Leah, a Methodist preacher and member
of the church's conference, a vote to divest from
companies profiting from the occupation was passed
"overwhelmingly," and other motions condemning Israeli
actions in Gaza and encouraging church members to
campaign for a just peace have been welcomed.
In June, Leah and colleague Nicola Jones, a Methodist
minister who works with Palestinian liberation
theology organization Friends of Sabeel, sparked major
debate in the British media after they successfully
shepherded a boycott motion through Methodist
conference. "In 2009 we set up a working party in
order to bring a statement to 2010 conference
outlining the Methodist Church's position on
Palestine," explains Leah. "Our report was the basis
for the new resolution."
The resulting motion has attracted most attention for
its call for a boycott of goods from Israeli
settlements. Christine Elliott, the Church's Secretary
for External Relationships, said in an official press
release that "This decision has not been taken
lightly, but after months of research, careful
consideration and finally, today's debate at the
Conference. The goal of the boycott is to put an end
to the existing injustice. It reflects the challenge
that settlements present to a lasting peace in the
region. We are passionate about dialogue across
communities and with people of all faiths. We remain
deeply committed to our relationships with our
brothers and sisters of other faiths, and we look to
engage in active listening so that we act as agents of
hope together."
"My personal view is that I'm in favor of a boycott of
all Israeli goods," says Leah. "But we had a big
debate about it in the working party, as you can
probably imagine, and some people said we should stick
with a boycott of settlement products. So the
statement now says that the Church will boycott
settlement goods, but that some Methodists would like
to go further." Although the Methodists are the first
church in the UK to mandate a settlement boycott, Leah
claims that grassroots opinion within other churches,
particularly the United Reform Church, would also
support a boycott motion if one was presented to their
conferences.
Significantly, the Methodist resolution doesn't stop
with a settlement boycott. It encourages church
members to educate themselves on the issue of
Palestine, directing them to documents such as the
2009 Kairos Declaration by Palestinian Christian
leaders. It also encourages them to take action,
ranging from engaging with the Amos Trust's Just Peace
for Palestine initiative to volunteering with the
Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and
Israel (EAPPI), whose human rights observation work
takes volunteers to villages such as Yanoun, which has
been repeatedly attacked and threatened by far-right
settlers from Itamar. Official Methodist documents now
refer to settlements as illegal, and the Church
leadership has written to Britain's main supermarkets
asking for details of their policies on settlement
produce. According to a Church spokesperson, they
intend to make the results of their enquiries public
in the near future, and the Methodist website already
includes guidance on country of origin labels relating
to Israel, the occupied West Bank and settlements.
The Methodist resolution also "directs the Faith and
Order Committee to undertake further work on the
theological issues, including Christian Zionism,
raised in the report that are needed to guide and
support the approach of the Methodist Church to the
Israeli/Palestinian situation and to bring a report to
Conference." This, says Leah, is a measure aimed at
"getting to grips with what's behind Christian
Zionism, because there are all sorts of different
strands. Part of that will be a discussion within the
Committee as to whether or not some aspects are
compatible with Methodist beliefs. For example, some
people, including the UN, have said that Zionism is
akin to racism, and the Methodist Church is completely
against all forms of racism." Leah says that he's
rarely encountered Christian Zionism within his local
Methodist congregations in the north of England, but
acknowledges that "some people do have a feeling that
we should be supporting Israel because they're in the
Bible and so on. But I'd say it's stronger in other
churches, especially the evangelical churches."
Boycott backlash
Unsurprisingly, the decision of Britain's second
largest Protestant church to endorse the settlement
boycott and research Christian support for Zionism has
been controversial. The London-based Council of
Christians and Jews responded to the Methodist
resolution with mailings claiming that the boycott
will "hurt Palestinian people," while the Board of
Deputies of British Jews issued a statement calling
the motion "a very sad day, both for Jewish-Methodist
relations and for everyone who wants to see positive
engagement with the complex issues of
Israeli-Palestinian relations. The Methodist
Conference has swallowed hook, line and sinker a
report full of basic historical inaccuracies,
deliberate misrepresentations and distortions of
Jewish theology and Israeli policy." The statement
went on to accuse the Methodist Church of being
"crass, insensitive and misinformed," and The Jewish
Chronicle reported that the board had cut off
relations with the Methodist leadership until "we see
signs of a change in their stance."
From Israel, meanwhile, commentators raised the
specter of a "threat to inter-faith efforts all over
Europe." The Jerusalem Post called the Methodist
Church, which claims 330,000 members in the UK, a
"small and declining community" and described the
Kairos Declaration as a "highly organized" effort by
Palestinian Christian leaders. A Jerusalem Post op-ed
by Robin Shepherd of the Henry Jackson Society (which
numbers Operation Cast Lead defender Max Boot, former
Israeli ambassador Dore Gold and a former CIA director
amongst its figureheads), was entitled "The Banality
of Methodist Evil," called the BDS campaign "rancid"
and accused the Methodist Church of "burying its
credibility under a gigantic dunghill of
intransigence, pedantry, lies and distortions." The
writers concluded by suggesting that "If the Methodist
Church is to launch a boycott of Israel, let Israel
respond in kind: Ban their officials from entering;
deport their missionaries; block their funds; close
down their offices; and tax their churches. If it's
war, it's war. The aggressor must pay a price."
"I think a lot of people were expecting this," says
Leah, "But the ordinary people I've been speaking to
in churches are absolutely delighted. They say we've
stood our ground and done what's right." He cites
letters such as that from the Reverent Rob Hufton,
which appeared in the Church's newspaper, the
Methodist Recorder, pointing out that Israeli
restrictions on Palestinian movement render impossible
the kind of inter-faith encounter which critics of the
Methodist motion claim to support. Hufton condemned
the Israeli policies which have turned the West Bank
into a "Swiss cheese" and concluded that "Things are
worse than the maligned [Methodist] report suggests.
We, as a Church, have nothing to apologize for and
should not be intimidated."
Leah admits that the Methodist leadership have been
"getting a lot of flak from The Jewish Chronicle and
The Jerusalem Post, which always makes them a bit
worried," but he sees grassroots work with members of
the Methodist congregation as his main task. He's also
keen to highlight the support which the Methodist
motion has attracted from anti-Zionist Jewish
organizations, and the potential it holds for
cross-community dialogue with Britain's Muslims. "I
think more than anything it's important for the
Methodist church and leadership to be bold in what
they're doing and take it back to those who are
criticizing and say, we've got to stand up against
injustice," he says.
Behind the hysterical attacks on the Methodist
resolution from Zionist commentators is their fear of
the growing BDS movement. For the Methodist Church's
decision may be part of a growing trend amongst
churches worldwide. Despite The Jerusalem Post's
insistence on the marginality of the Methodist Church,
the Church of England, the UK's largest Protestant
denomination, announced the week after the Methodist
conference that it was reviewing its stake in French
transportation company Veolia because of the latter's
role in the Jerusalem light rail project. According to
the Anglican Missionary and Public Affairs Committee,
there was concern within the Church that "once built,
the rail system will help to cement Israel's hold on
occupied East Jerusalem and tie the settlements even
more firmly into the State of Israel." The church
would, it said, be investigating whether "the tram
operator will ensure access to the tram that does not
discriminate between Palestinians and Israelis, and
abide by any ruling on the legality of the project in
an international law."
Australian, US churches move towards settlement
boycott
In Australia, meanwhile, the National Council of
Churches also passed a motion at the end of July
backing a boycott of settlement products. The NCCA
represents the Australian branches of the Catholic and
Anglican churches, along with 15 other denominations.
An NCCA press release states: "Rev Tara Curlewis,
General Secretary of the NCCA said 'We are asking the
member Churches of the NCCA to consider boycotting
particular goods produced in Israeli settlements in
the Occupied Palestinian Territories." NCCA added that
boycotting Israeli goods could help to "liberate the
people from an experience of injustice" and was a
means to help establish a "just and definitive" peace
for Palestinians and Israelis. It also confirmed that
Act For Peace, the Christian aid agency for Australia,
would support boycott actions and advocacy initiatives
by Australian churches.
Australian Zionist groups reacted with predictable
fury, framing the decision as a boycott against "West
Bank Jews." Robert Goot, president of the Executive
Council of Australian Jewry, claimed to reporters that
the resolution "revived painful memories for Jews in
Australia of earlier times in Europe when churches
allowed themselves to be swept up in the tide of
popular prejudices against the Jewish people."
While not going as far as British and Australian
churches, the Presbyterian General Assembly, which
represents the denomination's two million-plus members
in the US, in July passed a number of resolutions on
Palestinian issues. These included approving with 82
percent of the assembly vote a position paper which
called for an "end of the Israeli occupation of
Palestinian territories" (while also affirming
"Israel's right to exist as a sovereign nation within
secure and internationally recognized borders") and
"an immediate freeze on the establishment and
expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and
on the Israeli acquisition of Palestinian land and
buildings in East Jerusalem."
The Presbyterian General Assembly also approved a
report by the Mission Responsibility Through
Investment committee which "Strongly denounces
Caterpillar's continued profit-making from
non-peaceful uses of a number of its products on the
basis of Christian principles and as a matter of
social witness" and "Calls upon Caterpillar to
carefully review its involvement in obstacles to a
just and lasting peace in Israel-Palestine, and to
take affirmative steps to end its complicity in the
violation of human rights." The Presbyterian General
Assembly said that it rejected divestment as an
option, on the grounds that it would continue to
"engage" with companies which "profit from the sale
and use of their products for non-peaceful purposes
and/or the violation of human rights." The
Anti-Defamation League, which routinely attacks any
policies critical of Israel, called the reports
"biased."
Sarah Irving is a freelance writer. She worked with
the International Solidarity Movement in the occupied
West Bank in 2001-02 and with Olive Co-op, promoting
fair trade Palestinian products and solidarity visits,
in 2004-06. She now writes full-time on a range of
issues, including Palestine. Her first book, Gaza:
Beneath the Bombs co-authored with Sharyn Lock, was
published in January 2010
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