This is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
We’re entering the church convention season again and divestment, Israel-Palestine style, is on the agenda. In the coming days, Christians of various denominations will struggle with and against one another on the most vexing of issues, how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once and for all. Jews will also be involved on both sides of the issue and at the conventions themselves. This is a new phase of Jewish-Christian partnership and, depending on which side you’re on, it bodes well or ill for the future of the Jewish-Christian dialogue.
But the devil is in the details of divestment. Not one of the churches that has approved divestment or who might in the days and weeks ahead has truly sacrificed on behalf of Palestinian freedom. In a common sense view, divestment means getting rid of something at a personal or communal sacrifice. Divestment as it plays out in the churches is simply shifting stock in their portfolios, usually with the guarantee, often vocalized in the convention debate, that the church’s portfolio won’t suffer at all. In fact, the accountants often raise the possibility that higher yielding stocks or bonds might be found. Instead of sacrifice, divestment might be profitable!
Divestment or, rather, shifting stocks should be supported if those involved realize that such shifting is symbolic. Symbolism is part and parcel of politics and religion. Shifting stocks is important. But more than symbolism is involved. The church shifting of stocks is decades behind the political curve in Israel-Palestine. What could have been revolutionary in the 1970s or 1980s, is now taken for granted by Israel and the American Jewish establishment. Though they won’t admit it, shifting stocks is known by both as a given. Symbolically, they have to fight it, of course. Any Israeli or Jewish establishment analyst worth their salary has to know that “divestment” has left the station.
The anniversary of the Gaza war shows that the international community and the churches have avoided the reckoning needed for the Palestinian struggle. Paradoxically, the shifting of stocks in the upcoming church conventions is part of this avoidance. Rather than divesting, the churches remain too heavily invested in Israel-Palestine and too dependent on the government of Israel. Church personnel, equipment and their institutions are all vetted and approved, or disapproved, by Israel. The churches continue to be heavily invested at how they appear to Israel, Jews and the American Jewish establishment. Rather than the Palestinian struggle, the churches are invested in not being labelled as anti-Semitic.
The churches are looking through the wrong end of their involvement. They can make a difference. It will be costly. Their stock portfolios are only the beginning.
What to do? By all means, cheer on the forces that seek to shift the stock holdings. But in doing so, call on one church at least to go all out and dedicate the next five years of its corporate life specifically to Israel-Palestine. Declare Israel an apartheid state. Pour church resources from a true divestment into the Palestinian struggle. Stop hedging church bets on a two state solution, security for Jews etc., and declare Israel a rogue state, supported by an unjust, imperial, United States. Publicly end the Jewish-Christian dialogue/deal with the Jewish establishment. Announce a new dialogue/vision of solidarity with Jews and Palestinians of Conscience.
Will this tip the scales of an unjust Israel? I doubt it. But it would be a real rather than a symbolic commitment to a just future for Palestinians and Jews in Israel-Palestine.
Call it divestment with a bite. Witness with a purpose. At a sacrifice.
Marc, thank you for this. I agree.
I believe the first thing churches need to do is to explain in their sermons that when the Holy Bible and the Blessed New Testament talk about Israel and Jews, they refer to Israel and Jews of 2,000 years ago. In today’s world, those Jews are the Christian’s of today. Not the zionist entity.
A major challenge we Palestinians face today in the west and primarily USA, is the MISS-ASSOCIATION of the zionist entity with Christianity. This Judeo-Christian perspective must be put in historical context and in today’s Palestine. Palestinian Christians everywhere must play an active role in this mission. A mission of justice, equality, and freedom.
I already see major changes in the Church and the Christian world. The Holy See Pope Francis is really making great and significant steps forward towards Palestine. Not only will this help Palestine, it will also start to address the focus of Moslem extremists on Christianity, and will strip neo-conservatives of a key argument they use to support zionists. We need to make sure that ISIS is not driven by, or uses the Christian/Islam line as their cause. It is not. It shouldn’t be. Take Palestine out of that equation.
MARC ELLIS- “…declare Israel a rogue state, supported by an unjust, imperial, United States.”
An “unjust, imperial, United States?” Aye, there’s the rub! The churches of empire openly confront the ugly reality of empire? Good luck on that! As long as Israel enjoys imperial support, the mainstream churches will continue to be mostly concerned with their portfolios while making moralistic noise from time to time.
I agree that selling stocks, shares and property – a one-off thing that will not be remembered for long and which actually makes money for you to some extent – seems half-hearted by itself. It works only if accompanied by a sustained campaign of moral pressure, which means enduring the answering cries of ‘anti-Semitism’, remembering that these cries will be raised very loudly by many Christians, not just in the ultra-Evangelical fringe. The Vatican will stick to its diplomatic traditions.
The Church of England, my lot, is not known for decisiveness, but Archbishop Welby has recently backed the Bishop of Guildford in crushing the vocal, perhaps eccentric Reverend Stephen Sizer who has long opposed Zionism and had ventured fatally into the jungle of 9/11 conspiracy theories – not a topic on which Christian theology has implications. I mean really crushed.
Not that any authentic Christianity can forget that it was to Jewish people that, as the Epistle to the Romans remarks, the oracles of God were committed.
Sizer posted a link on his Facebook page to an article entitled “9/11: Israel did it”. Does posting a link to an article even constitute a public statement of agreement?
My own suspicion about 9/11 is that it was masterminded by the powers that be in this country, and that other countries like Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan operated as junior partners assisting the plan masterminded in this country. I can’t prove that. But is there any reason why I shouldn’t be allowed to state my suspicion? And, if I can do so, why should Sizer not be allowed to?
Has this new populist Pope said anything about Gaza, Israel, the Palestinian plight?