The Episcopal Church's national Executive Council received and commended a recommendation from its Social Responsibility in Investments Committee (SRI) which called for corporate engagement rather than divestment in companies doing business on land in the Middle East that has come under control of the Israeli government as a result of the 1967 and 1973 wars. Council met Oct. 7-10 in Las Vegas.

“Despite the fact that this was a committee project, it does not read like it,” said Edgar “Kim” Byham of Newark, Executive Council liaison to the 10-member appointed group charged with advising the Church on ethical issues surrounding its investments. In its 12-page report to council, the SRI committee sought to address a complex issue in an even-handed manner while emphasizing the State of Israel’s right to exist and prosper economically within recognized borders, Mr. Byham said.

Israeli settlements and infrastructure built on land acquired since 1967, as well as the security fence the Israeli government is constructing around Palestinian settlements are another matter. The National and International committees were shown an audio-visual slide presentation made during the SRI committee’s April 29-May 6 fact-finding visit to the so-called “Occupied Territories,” which Mr. Byham and the Rev. Canon Kathleen J. Cullinane, an SRI committee member and associate dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis, undertook. The SRI committee has concluded that the occupation is an obstacle to a peaceful two-state solution.

The security fence and Israeli army-supervised checkpoints virtually imprison the Palestinian population and entangle them in a maddening bureaucratic maze, the video reported. In the video, some of the Palestinian Christians interviewed compare the security fence to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp and the Israeli occupation with the system of Apartheid under the South African government.

“We consider this a far more radical proposal than divestment,” said Canon Cullinane during plenary discussion. “The purpose of corporate engagement is to disrupt the economy of the settlements by targeting companies profiting from the violence in the occupied territories.”

Council unanimously approved the report by voice vote.

Steve Waring

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