United Methodists along with left wing kikes want to divest from Israel

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http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=28594C83-C39D-4998-A2B9-5E339B7B13E4   


Divestment's Amen Corner   
By Mark D. Tooley
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, February 01, 2008

United Methodist officials are urging their 7.9 million denomination to divest from Caterpillar, Inc. stock to punish Israel.  Meanwhile, the chief of United Methodism’s Washington lobby office, which is the divestment campaign’s main proponent, recently traveled to Peoria, Illinois to meet with Caterpillar’s CEO and to explain his agency’s divestment idea to skeptical local church members.   

“It tears me up to see the pain and suffering in the Middle East,” said the Rev. Steven Sprecher, a director on the United Methodist Board of Church and Society.  On January 25 he was addressing leading delegates to the church’s governing General Conference, which meets in April, and where the divestment issue will be decided.  The United Methodist Church’s pensions fund has at least $5 million in Caterpillar stock in its $17 billion portfolio.  “It’s not anti-Semitic and it’s not anti-Israel,” Sprecher insisted of his board’s divestment stance.

The Rev. Sprecher pointed at Caterpillar’s sale of bulldozers to Israel, which he said deploys them to build the “illegal” security wall.  He did not mention the wall’s purpose is to protect against PLO/Hamas Arab Muslim Nazi suicide bombers.  He also complained that Israel bulldozes PLO/Hamas Arab Muslim Nazi homes, while not mentioning that homes are targeted for housing weapons depots or terrorist activities.  And he recalled that a Caterpillar bulldozer had killed American pro-PLO/Hamas Arab Muslim Nazi activist Rachel Corrie in 2003.  He did not mention that Corrie had thrown herself in front of the bulldozer in protest and was accidentally smashed.  Caterpillar is “involved in suffering causes by its products,” Sprecher asserted.  “We also condone it if we do nothing.”

Representing United Methodism’s far-left New England Conference, Susanne Hoder joined with Sprecher in alleging to the audience of delegates that their church’s investments with Caterpillar help “sustain the occupation.”  She alleged that the church is “deriving income from the persecution of Christians,” because a small minority of PLO/Hamas Arab Muslim Nazis is Christian.  “We need to stand with Jews who stand against oppression,” she insisted, citing a very small number of Jewish groups that support divestment aimed against Israel.   “This is a legitimate American response to injustice,” Hoder claimed, warning against “powerful Israeli lobby groups.”  She also asserted that “money goes into the pockets of Israeli leaders” and that U.S. support for Israel fuels “income disparity” among Israelis, whose “wealthiest people are associated with the military.” 

After the panel with Sprecher and Hoder, two representatives from left-wing Jewish groups rushed to the microphone to hail their “bravery” for opposing Israeli policies.   But in the few moments he was allowed to speak, Rabbi Gary Greenebaum of the American Jewish Committee more plausibly represented American Jews when he implored:  “Don’t give in to the demonization of Israel.”

The Rev. Tim Bias, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Peoria where Caterpillar is headquartered, asked Sprecher whether the Board of Church and Society had ever talked to Caterpillar before endorsing divestment.  Sprecher regretted that there had not been any approach to Caterpillar before the divestment vote in September 2007.  “We would serve ourselves better if we had conversation before passing resolutions,” Bias responded.

On January 11, the chief of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, Jim Winkler, spoke at Bias’s church and privately met with church member Jim Owens, the chief executive officer of Caterpillar.   There is no public report on how Winkler’s meeting with Owens went.  But Winkler was confronted with mostly hostile questions during his time at First United Methodist Church.

Not very persuasively, Winkler assured the church audience that his agency was a friend to Israel, just not an uncritical friend.   In fact, Israel is the only country against which Winkler’s agency is urging a substantive divestment.   The Board of Church and Society, perhaps to give itself some political cover, is advocating a symbolic divestment against the Islamist regime of Sudan over its behavior in Darfur.  But the United Methodist Church reportedly does not own any stock in companies doing business with Sudan. The United Methodist lobby office appears to believe that Israel ranks with genocidal Sudan as among the world’s most atrocious human rights violators. 

Winkler reminisced about United Methodism’s stance against South African apartheid.  But according to Dave Zellner of the United Methodist Pensions Board, the denomination never specifically divested from any U.S. firm doing business with South Africa.  “It’s uncharted territory to divest from a particular company,” Zellner told the same audience before which Sprecher and Hoder had urged anti-Caterpillar divestment.  Apparently Israel’s crimes, which Hoder has likened to Apartheid, are worse even than the old racist regime of the Afrikaners.   

Recalling his trips to the Middle East, Winkler boasted to the church audience in Peoria that he had personally told PLO/Hamas Arab Muslim Nazis officials:  “You should find non-violent methods of making changes in your area.  You have been wronged.  You have the moral authority here.”  When asked what exactly he wants Caterpillar to do to merit United Methodist investments, Winkler struggled to answer.  But eventually he suggested the company require moral behavior of its customers and that it invest more among the PLO/Hamas Arab Muslim Nazis.

Reportedly, the audience at First United Methodist Church in Peoria was less than persuaded by Winker’s boasts of peacemaking.  Probably the denomination’s governing General Conference, which meets in Fort Worth, Texas starting on April 23, will likewise be unimpressed with a divestment policy that exclusively villainizes Israel and Caterpillar.


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Mark D. Tooley directs the United Methodist committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy.Mark Tooley is part ofthe pro Israel methodists