So the Jews have managed to eke out another victory over the advocates of disinvestment in Israel in the Presbyterian Church USA. But last night's 333-331 General Assembly vote against withdrawing church funds from three companies that allegedly contribute to the oppression of Palestinians in the occupied territories hardly signals an end to the war.
As a practical matter, the disinvestment campaign in mainline Protestantism seems ill-calculated to encourage the Israeli government to do the right thing. On the other hand, the advocates seem less interested in changing facts on the ground than in presenting a prophetic witness to what they see as grave injustice. And there can be no doubt that they're making headway with their communities. I wouldn't bet against disinvestment when it comes up again at a PCUSA conclave.
It is important to recognize that the mainline campaign has to do with more than concern about Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians. At its heart lies theological resistance to the idea that God's covenant with the Jewish people involves a land title.
A few years ago, Eugene Korn, then serving as director of Jewish affairs at the American Jewish Congress, joined some mainline ecumenical officials on a trip to Israel when the group visited the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, a small Jerusalem think tank that has played a major role in the disinvestment campaign. Later, Korn reported on his conversation with the director, an Anglican clergyman named Naim Ateek:
He explained that he comes from Beit She’an in the Jordan Valley, and claims his family was evicted from there in the War of Independence. “Israel was born in sin. I can never recognize the right of Israel to exist,” he shouted. When I challenged him about the Bible’s view of the Land of Israel being essential to God’s covenant, Ateek told me that any theology that takes land seriously is “immature.” In one fell swoop he had delegitimized Judaism and the concept of the Jewish people.
By contrast, evangelical Protestants are more than happy to to take land as seriously as the Jews, whether because of a complex End Times theology or simply because of God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 15. Yet evangelicals have a hard time accepting that the original covenant is sufficient for Jews to get to heaven. Mainline Protestants, by contrast, have pretty much rejected the old-time supersessionism and allow Jews into heaven by way of a dual covenant theology.
Jews thus get to take their pick: the Protestants who grant them The Land or those who grant them Eternal Peace. Land for Peace or Peace for Land?
Eric Atcheson | Jul 6, 2012 | 10:02am
Am I the only one who recoiled at the way the opening sentence of this column sounds? The idea that “the Jews” acted as some outside, lockstep entity to score a collective victory is overly simplistic when, say, the NY Times reports that pro-divestment Jewish org’s like Jewish Voice for Peace had a significant presence, and to be completely honest, it feels prejudicial.
Mark Silk | Jul 6, 2012 | 10:15am
The little provocation in the lede has to do with the fact, reported in Richael Zoll’s AP story, that lobbying by Jewish agencies was intense. Anyone who’s followed this story as closely as I have knows that fighting the disinvestment campaign in the churches has been a major effort on the part of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs in particular, with the heavy lifting being done JCPA’s vp and general counsel Ethan Felson (an old friend). So there it is.
Eric Atcheson | Jul 6, 2012 | 10:32am
I’m not doubting the intensity of the lobbying from Jewish org’s, it’s whether the lobbying was one-sided. NYT and others are reporting it wasn’t. That’s also to say nothing of how many Jewish persons there are who may not actively support any of those org’s (after all, not every Roman Catholic is a fan of the Catholic League).
It’d be like saying that Americans scored a legislative victory when Bush passed his tax cuts. No, an organization representative of many but not all Americans (the Republican party) scored a victory.
Mark Silk | Jul 6, 2012 | 11:01am
Hey man, it’s a blog post.
LaoWombat | Jul 7, 2012 | 8:32am
And all blog posts have minimal thought, consideration, accuracy, wit and grace to them.
Rebecca | Jul 7, 2012 | 6:10pm
Agree with Eric - it doesn’t matter if it’s a blog post or investigative journalism. You need to pay attention to your words because they have meaning. Saying “the Jews” won the divestment fight this time is pretending that all Jews feel the same way about Israel, divestment, or honestly, anything. Try asking M. J. Rosenberg or Richard Silverstein (both of whom are Jewish, and both of whom are highly critical of Israel) if they supported the Jewish organizations working against the divestment resolution at the PCUSA meeting - you’ll get an incredulous laugh.
Mark Silk | Jul 8, 2012 | 5:29am
I surrender. Instead of “the Jews” I should have written “the Jewish organizational world.” OK?
gilhow | Jul 9, 2012 | 12:47pm
This is a sad, sad, unholy day for Presbyterians! And Rebecca, of course the Jews won this divestment fight. Do you really think they don’t work to influence the economic activities of groups that are not Jewish when it’s their businesses that are at stake?
Check out all the unholy investments Pope Pius XII permitted by his Vatican Bank during his tenure. Then come back and try to join his church in its public, contradicting hypocrisy that “the end does not justify the means.” Pius invested in the production of contraceptives, among other things.
I don’t know where Vatican Bank investments are now. That’s always top-secret with the Vatican and they are having all kinds of problems with the Bank, but Benedict’s bishops are trying to divert attention from the sex scandals of themselves and their clergy by waging a war against contraceptives even though 90% of their members use them.
frequentwind706 | Jul 9, 2012 | 1:18pm
Yes, you should have written “the major Jewish organizations,” or something like it, not “The Jews.” It’s sad that an author for what is otherwise a well-written religion news site is not realizing that the use of that term conjures up bigoted images of an evil cabal.
Lauren Markoe | Jul 9, 2012 | 11:25pm
Yes, disconcerting that a well-respected voice would play upon stereotypes of “the Jews” as conniving puppeteers.