Presbytery of St. Augustine Overture on Israeli/Palestinian Conflict

            Those of you who were present at the February stated meeting of presbytery will recall that we drafted and passed an overture to the General Assembly calling for the Assembly to communicate the church’s concern over the increasing violence of the conflict in Israel between Israeli troops and Palestinians, encouraging the US government to do all it can to restart the stalled peace negotiations, and requiring the Board of Pensions to divest itself of stock in companies doing business of $1million or more in Israel until the matter is resolved. The matter was referred to the Committee on Peacemaking. Rev. Glenn Dickson, pastor at our Westminster Church in Gainesville, represented us in advocating for the overture. 

            The Peacemaking Committee responded to our overture with favor, but noted that, by the time the Assembly was meeting, some of the things we had called for (namely, the Geneva Accords) were no longer viable as pathways to peace. It noted several prior statements made by previous assemblies that were in the same vein as ours. Finally, it encouraged the referral of the matter of divestment to the Mission Responsibility Through Investment Committee to initiate a process of “phased selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel.”  The committee’s recommendation was adopted overwhelmingly (431/62) by the General Assembly. The full text of the response is: 

At the time the Presbytery of St. Augustine approved Item 12-01, support for the “Ge-neva Accord” urging Israel and the Palestinians to implement the Accord seemed a practi-cable way forward in light of the derailed “road map,” especially in light of action taken by the 215th General Assembly (2003) strongly urging Israeli and Palestinian leaders “to be serious, active, and diligent about seeking peace for their peoples; or, if they are unwilling or unable, to step down and make room for other leaders who will and can” (Resolution on Israel and Palestine: End the Occupation Now, Recommendation D, Minutes, 2003, Part I, p. 636.).  

At this time, however, several months since the approval of the proposed item by said presbytery, the situation and the prospects for a negotiated just peace have so deteriorated that people in the region generally, and particularly the Palestinians, have been driven to the edge of despair and hopelessness. Therefore, the 216th General Assembly (2004) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) does the following:  

1. Confesses the sovereignty of God over all nations, states, governments, and peoples, acknowledging God’s supreme act of love for the whole world manifest in Jesus Christ so that by faith the world might not perish but be saved. In Christ, God has called us to show love, seek peace, and to pursue justice, so that the world might be transformed into a fore-taste of God’s peaceable kingdom.  

2. Continues to be inspired by the tenacity of hope of our Palestinian Christian partners in the face of ominous, cumulative gloom and foreboding; it affirms that God has not given us a spirit of timidity, nor have we been called to surrender hope to an attitude of despair.

3. Commends the Presbytery of St. Augustine on its concern for a just resolution of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and for moving the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to persist in voicing this concern. The assembly, therefore, welcomes the possibili-ties for peace contained in the “Geneva Accord,” as a useful and practical approach. It would also be encouraged by other inspired initiatives that could advance the prospects of peace in the Middle East.  

4. Reiterates and reaffirms the call of last year’s General Assembly on the Israeli gov-ernment to “end the occupation now,” asserting that:

a. The occupation must end; it has proven to be at the root of evil acts committed against innocent people on both sides of the conflict.

b. The security of Israel and the Israeli people is inexorably dependent on making peace with their Palestinian neighbors, by negotiating and reaching a just and equitable so-lution to the conflict that respects international law, human rights, the sanctity of life, and dignity of persons, land, property, safety of home, freedom of movement, the rights of refu-gees to return to their homeland, the right of a people to determine their political future, and to live in peace and prosperity.

c. Horrific acts of violence and deadly attacks on innocent people, whether carried out by Palestinian “suicide bombers” or by the Israeli military, are abhorrent and inexcus-able by all measures, and are a dead-end alternative to a negotiated settlement of the con-flict.

d. The United States needs, now more than ever, to become an honest, even-handed broker for peace, and should review its approach to the problem, allowing more room for the more meaningful participation of other members of the U.N.-designated “Quartet” (the United States, Russia, Germany and France) and others; June 30, 2004, 10:20 PM

e. The international community has an obligation to provide physical protection for those isolated by fear and/or by physical and psychological barriers, thus making space for the restoration of security and creating a climate for the resumption of negotiations be-tween the Israelis and Palestinians. We support the Palestinians’ persistent request to the United Nations to send a peacekeeping force.  

5. Vigorously urges the U.S. government, the government of Israel, and the Palestinian leadership to move swiftly, and with resolve, to recognize that the only way out of this chronic and vicious impasse is to abandon all approaches that exacerbate further strife, lay aside arrogant political posturing, and get on with forging negotiated compromises that open a path to peace.  

6. Endorses the letter sent on April 19, 2004, by the Stated Clerk, reiterating concerns of our denomination for Christian partners and their institutions that serve as agents of reconciliation and hope, as well as for their Palestinian and Israeli neighbors, in the Holy Land, in the framework of previous statements of the General Assembly.  

7. Refers to Mission Responsibility Through Investment Committee (MRTI) with in-structions to initiate a process of phased selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel, in accordance to General Assembly policy on social investing, and to make appropriate recommendations to the General Assembly Council for action.  

My sense of the response by the Peacemaking Committee and the Assembly is two-fold: First, there was genuine gratitude in the committee for our effort to keep this matter before the mind and heart of the church. Second, the response of the committee is actually a better, more detailed, and coordinated action that the one we drafted in February. The Assembly statement seems to me to satisfy the impulses that led us to adopt the Westminster overture in the first place, but to do so with greater specificity and care.

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