On April 11, the Columbia, Missouri, Tribune published a letter from a local rabbi against divestment. Columbia’s a big university town. The letter was clearly timed just as the Missouri delegation of Methodists was preparing for its General Conference in Florida (April 24-May 4).
My friend Andy Whitmore of Kansas City sent a letter in response to the rabbi’s, but it was not published. I’m publishing most of the rabbi’s letter, and Whitmore’s response.
Rabbi Yossi Fentuch:
“Churches should resist Israel divestment push”
The Methodist and Presbyterian churches are approaching their respective April and July national conventions, where it is presumed motions for divestment [etc.]…
Suffering in the land of the Bible is experienced sadly on both sides of the Arab Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Hence, if American Christian denominations indicted only Israel for the conflict, they would effectively paint her shamefully as a pariah nation solely responsible for frustrating peace.
It would justify the violence perpetrated against Israeli civilians, including children, as the unfortunate result of Israel’s “unilateral guilt.” In other words, Israeli victims would be responsible for their own suffering.
Divestment directed against Israel alone would be not only counterproductive but would divert efforts toward achieving a lasting peace that is based on the envisioned two-state solution: one Arab, one Jewish. Simply put, the bitter debate over divestment would drown out the really needed conversation about how to end the conflict. Efforts should rather be aimed toward reconciliation by investment in projects that are geared toward a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
Many of the major proponents of divestment deny Israel’s right to exist, a position not shared by either church.
Rabbi Yossi Feintuch
From Andrea Whitmore:
Rabbi Yossi Feintuch correctly notes the “suffering in the land of the Bible.” Israelis and Palestinians are yoked together in misery due to the decades long, illegal occupation of Palestine. What kind of church profits from such misery?
At this point, both the United Methodist and Presbyterian Church USA do. Both have pension funds invested in three American companies that directly profit from it. The upcoming resolutions would simply align church investments with their long-known official positions against the continuing devastation of an occupation condemned by virtually the entire world.
The divestment is not “directed against Israel.” Our churches have a right and a responsibility to remove equity from companies—in this case American companies–involved in blatant human rights abuses.
The rabbi wants “investment in projects that are geared toward a peaceful resolution to the conflict.” The people of Palestine cannot move from town to town to trade, are daily restricted from farming their own land or herding their flocks, and crops are held at Israeli checkpoints—in Palestinian territory, mind you—until they rot. Projects, such as a small swimming pool built for Palestinian children with USAID funds, are routinely destroyed by Israel. Investment? Yes–but not as a way of avoiding responsibility for the churches’ role in perpetuating an illegal and immoral occupation that is harmful to both peoples.
It is time to put our treasure where we say our hearts are. Surely Jesus would chase us from the temple for further oppressing an already burdened people.
Andrea Whitmore
Member, Citizens for Justice in the Middle East, Kansas City
Member, United Methodist Kairos Response
Member, Friends of Sabeel North America
Supporter, Jewish Voice for Peace
“many of the major proponents of divestment deny israel’s right to exist.”
israel’s right to exist as an apartheid occupying entity? where is such a “right” guaranteed in international law?
Thanks Phil. Rabbi Yossi Feintuch is a rejectionist and master hasbarist. Here he can be found in an earlier letter to the editor lauding the viewpoint that “the only hope for reconciliation between the two peoples of Palestine is to recognize Jordan as the historical ‘state of Arab Palestine’ “.
Here in another letter he denies the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank (he actually writes “the so-called West Bank”), Gaza and East Jerusalem since 1967.
“On April 11, the Columbia, Missouri, Tribune published a letter from a local rabbi against divestment… The letter was clearly timed just as the Missouri delegation of Methodists was preparing for its General Conference in Florida (April 24-May 4).” ~ Weiss
� UNITED METHODIST KAIROS RESPONSE �
Endorse the Resolution
Aligning United Methodist Investments with Resolutions
on Israel/Palestine
• Read the resolution here. https://www.kairosresponse.org/The_Resolution.html
This is a endorsement form for individuals, both United Methodists and all others. We welcome endorsements by everyone who would like to support this action for justice and peace in the Holy Land.
• ENDORSE THE RESOLUTION HERE.
Hey, that’s my rabbi!
I just sent out this e-mail to Rabbi Feintuch and some friends concerned about Palestine:
Friends:
Mondoweiss has a post about Yossi’s Columbia Tribune column of Wednesday 4/11/2012 (https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2012/04/a-dialogue-about-divestment-that-didnt-happen-in-the-columbia-tribune.html). The unpublished response letter by Andrea Whitmore (among other things a supporter of Jewish Voice for Peace) reflects views that are increasingly commonplace among American Jews, though certainly not yet a majority of them.
It should be noted that the proposed divestment on the part of the United Methodist Church (https://www.kairosresponse.org/The_Resolution.html) is very focused so as to avoid being a fundamental challenge to Zionism. It specifically targets three American corporations, Motorola, Caterpillar and Hewlett Packard, that profit from Israel’s occupation and colonization of Palestinian lands in the West Bank (or “the so-called West Bank” = “Judea and Samaria” in settler parlance), East Jerusalem and Gaza. Every country on earth apart from Israel condemns this settler colonial project, and the violent oppression that’s necessary to support it, as blatantly illegal under International law. That even includes occupation’s main foreign funder, diplomatic protector, and all-round abettor the United States, though our country has taken pains never to actually act on its supposed principles ever since the occupation began nearly 45 years ago.
Liberal Zionists who believe that Israel has a right to exist as an exclusivist Jewish state (I’m not one of them) should eagerly join with such divestment projects in resisting and undermining the occupation. As many mainstream Israeli leaders have argued, the occupation is by far the biggest threat to the Jewish state, and it’s at least arguable that an end to the occupation might rescue the Zionist project from the collapse it’s currently rushing toward. In November 2007, for instance, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert famously warned that unless Israel grants the Palestinians an independent state soon, it will “face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished.” This is indeed the terrible threat that Zionist Israel faces: that all the people it governs, all the inhabitants from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, should have equal rights. This form of government has a name: Democracy.
This tactic always slays me: “Simply put, the bitter debate over divestment would drown out the really needed conversation about how to end the conflict.”
IOW, because we protest so loudly about side issues, we will never have a conversation about the central issue. Hmmm… An accurate description and an accurate (self-fulfilling) prediction.
Are the people that spout this malarkey so totally non self-aware?