Presbyterians Vote to Divest From Israel

I have a feeling we're going to see a lot more of this.

This is a growing issue that is likely to keep growing, the more the Israeli government truly continues to eliminate the option of a two-state solution.

Right now, Palestinians are continually deprived of basic rights in what is supposed to be their own homeland. And more and more people are recognizing this, and objecting to it. That's only normal, and it's hardly the sign of rabid anti-Semitism that many Zionists want people to believe it to be.

In this case, Presbyterians have decided to divest from Israel in protests of these policies, and this obviously made considerable news headlines.

By a very thin margin (310 to 303), the General Assembly of the Church voted to sell stock owned by the church, because of the use of products from those corporations in the occupied territories. In a similar vote just two years ago, the General Assembly had rejected the idea of divestment.

In an article by Jeff Karoub and Rachel Zoll of The Associated Press (see link below), one prominent figure in the story clarifies why the Presbyterian Church did what it did:

"Because we are a historical peacemaking church, what we have done is, we have stood up for nonviolent means of resistance to oppression and we have sent a clear message to a struggling society that we support their efforts to resist in a nonviolent way the oppression being thrust upon them," said the Rev. Jeffrey DeYoe, of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network.

A church spokeswoman estimated the value of the church's stock holdings in those companies to be valued at around $21 million.

Due to how large the church is, the vote is seen as a huge triumph for the growing BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement, although it still receives strong criticism from those who strenuously object to the notion that Israel is somehow similar to South Africa during the days of apartheid, when a massive campaign of boycotting, divestment, and sanctions helped to apply enough pressure on white South African leaders that they, eventually, began the process of reform.

Omar Barghouti, a co-founder of the BDS movement, praised the vote as a "sweet victory for human rights."  
He said Presbyterian supporters of Palestinian rights have introduced divestment into the U.S. mainstream and have given Palestinians "real hope in the face of the relentless and intensifying cruelty of Israel's regime of occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid."  




Here is the link to the article that I got much of the information for this blog entry, and all of the quotes:

Presbyterians to divest as protest against Israel by Jeff Karoub and Rachel Zoll of The Associated Press, June 21, 2014:

http://news.yahoo.com/presbyterians-divest-protest-against-israel-002617938.html