Presbyterians Choose Potential Divestment Targets
Caterpillar, Motorola, ITT Industries, United Technologies and Citi Group were selected.
The Presbyterian Church U.S.A. on Friday announced that it will press four American corporations to stop providing technology and equipment to Israel for the use in occupying Palestinian territories, and that if the companies did not comply, the church would consider divesting stock from them.
Caterpillar, Motorola, ITT Industries and United Technologies were selected from dozens of possible companies by a church investment committee that met in Seattle on Friday. These companies were singled out because they provide military equipment, electronic and night vision equipment, and cell-phones to the Israeli military, the church stated.
“We have chosen these companies because we believe that they can make changes that will increase the possibilities for a just peace in the region. As shareholders of these companies, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) calls on them to act responsibly,” said Carol Hylkema, chairperson of the Mission Responsibility through Investment Committee.
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The policy is taken in response to a divestment resolution passed last year by the Church’s General Assembly. Similar resolutions calling for an end to the Israel occupation have since been adopted in several other church bodies, including the Anglican Consultative Council, the World Council of Churches, the United Church of Christ, and two regions of the United Methodist Church.
Jewish groups have widely accused the churches of singling out Israel as the cause in the Middle East conflict and failing to address the Palestinians’ role in the violence. Several have even called it anti-Semitic.
In an effort to take those criticisms to heart, the Presbyterian church committee also included Citigroup on its list of targets, alleging it had “moved substantial funds from charities later seemed to be fronts funneling money to terrorist organizations.” The church said it got the information from the Wall Street Journal on April 20, 2005.
A spokeswoman for Citigroup told New York Times that the accusation was "an outrage.”
Under the newly adopted policy, the corporations will be urged to end their involvement with the Middle East conflict, or face a divestment of church stocks.
Bill Somplatsky-Jarman, staff to the MRTI Committee, said that the next step will be to engage senior management of each company in a conversation aimed at persuading them to change practices that enable or support violence in Israel and Palestine.
"We are initiating a slow, deliberate process, designed to produce opportunities for engaging companies around the social witness policies of the denomination through dialogue, shareholder resolutions and public pressure, so that these corporations might change their business practices which inflict harm on the innocent, and delay movement toward a just peace,” he Somplatsky-Jarman said, according to the press release.
“If these dialogues fail,” said Somplatsky-Jarman “we may conclude that our investments are not being used for activities that support the broad mission of the Church. At that point, divestment is an option that the General Assembly may consider.”
The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the PC(U.S.A), told NY Times that the policy is not a campaign to divest from the state of Israel.
“We're fully committed to the state of Israel. But it is a campaign to divest from particular activities that are doing damage and creating injustice and violence, whether that's the building of the separation barrier, construction related to the occupation, or weapons and materials that lead to suicide bombings,” he said.
However, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, says the policy is a “brilliantly organized political campaign to hurt Israel, and it's not going to help a single Palestinian,"
"When you look at the list of companies, this is basically a recipe for Israel to disarm,” said Rabbi Cooper.
The Presbyterian Church owns hundreds of thousands of shares of stock in the five companies through its pension fund for retired church workers and through church foundations. While it did not say how much money it has invested in these companies, the NY Times estimates that PCUSA holds about $60 million.
