For Divestment, Existence Is Not the Issue

I taught a class a few years ago on "Faith and Theology in the Wake of Holocaust."  The class asked no new questions for the most part.  Most of what we considered had been covered in the years and decades following the revelation of Nazi atrocities and the questions, both theological and ethical, raised by the Holocaust.  After a few weeks of conversation, the discussion took an interesting turn when a question was posed.

"Can you hold to the lessons of the Holocaust, stand in solidarity with Israel's right to exist and still be opposed to Israeli policy toward the Palestinians?"

Any attempt to give a simple answer to that question belies its very complexity.  This is not a simple answer and its complexity was exhibited in the nearly 50/50 vote of the GA on the question of divestment.

Much of the publicity surrounding the GA this year has focused on the question of divestment.  Unfortunately much of the narrative surrounding the issue is less nuanced than the question itself.  The question of divestment is simplistically posed as a question of support or opposition to Israel or the Palestinians.  Under the simplistic formula, support for the one equals opposition to the other. If you vote to divest, you hate Israel.  If you vote to not divest, you do not stand with the Palestinians.  This is yet another place where both our parliamentary reductionism and our political divisions drive what should be a far more nuanced discussion.

I claim no expertise beyond having taken the time to read and pray about these issues to the extent a non-specialist can do.  For my part, I answer the question above by saying:

• We must hold the lessons of the Holocaust and keep them at the front of our minds in all things geo-political.  The ability of human communities to act on evil and sinful impulses on the scale provided by a technological age is staggering.  We must remember the lessons of the past.
• We must, as people of peace but also as children of Abraham, keep faith with the right of Israel to exist as a land of return.  As a community, Jews have suffered under the heel of history for centuries and the lesson of history is that the only way to ensure the security of the people of Israel is to ensure that the state of Israel is secure.  For my part, I stand firm in my belief that Israel as a state should and must continue.

So given those two positions, how can one stand opposed to Israeli policy toward the Palestinians and the occupied territories?  The answer, I believe, resides in those same positions.  We have learned from the past that any system of government that is predicated on the superiority in fact or in law of one group over another poses dangerous and dire consequences for the world. 

It would be an hyperbole to say that we are on the brink of an Israeli led Holocaust against Palestinians.  Such accusations are neither accurate nor helpful.  It would not, however, be such to say that Israeli policy is bordering on a brand of apartheid that is offensive to an understanding of history.

I stand with Israel and its right to exist.  I also stand with the Palestinians and their right to live outside a system of apartheid-style political oppression.  I stand with both and because I do, I believe that divestment is the right option for the church.  It says clearly that the church will not participate in these particular actions of your national policy, while rejecting extreme calls to repudiate or shun the Israeli government wholesale or to enact policies openly hostile to Israel and its right to exist in general.  Divestment simply says that we choose not to profit from certain actions.

With the limited money I have to save, I do not invest in tobacco or firearms companies.  My personal choice reflects my own view that these companies act irresponsibly in some ways (advertising, abuse of their products, etc.).  It does not negate their right to exist nor does it declare my hostility toward those who use their products.  It simply states that I refuse to profit off of what they do. 

For divestment to work, it will have to exist within a larger framework of engagement.  It is not and should not be a choice between Israel and Palestine.  That is the false choice devised by politicians.  As the church we have the benefit of serving not a political agenda but the agenda of the Prince of Peace.  That frees us to work with anyone in this conflict-Christian, Jew and Muslim, Israeli, Palestinian or other- who is also working for peace.  Peace is our common cause and it can and must know no political lines or nation-state boundaries.

I fear that the divestment question has fallen victim to our yes/no paradigm.  My hope is that the nearly 50/50 split in the GA reflects a growing and willing middle from which new ideas for engagement and honest critique might come.