WASHINGTON (EJP)---US pro-Israel groups slammed this week’s announcement by the Presbyterian Church that it had adopted a divestment policy against three Israel companies that helped “violate Palestinian human rights”.

Americans for Peace Now (APN) and J Street called on the Church to reconsider after its US General Assembly’s Middle East Committee voted 36 to 11 votes in favour of halting trade links with Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solution, recommending instead the church invested in “engaging in peaceful pursuits in Israel and Palestine”. The assembly is expected to vote on the motion in full at the end of this week.

APN President Debra DeLee slammed the divestment initiative by the church a “misguided and counterproductive”, adding that “by targeting Israel rather than the occupation, this divestment campaign creates the impression that the church...is virulently anti-Israel...and a perception they reflect a deep-seated hatred for and rejection of Israel”.

J Street President Jeremy Ben Ami meanwhile stated the BDS movement’s “rhetoric and tactics are not only a distraction, but a genuine threat to conflict resolution”, as it places “blame entirely on one side of the conflict”. “Such an approach encourages not reconciliation , but polarization...(and fails to consider) the right of the Jewish people as well as the Palestinian people to a state,” he concluded.

According to a spokesman for the Jewish Council of Public Affairs, its vice president Ethan Felson was present at the convention, where he was engaging church leaders in dialogue about moderating the resolution, which follows a church report last year that concluded that Caterpillar supplies bulldozers for the demolition of Palestinian homes, Motorola provides cell phone technology to West Bank settlements and Hewlett-Packard manages information technology for the Israeli Navy.

The American Methodist and Presbyterian Churches have proposed divestment policies on numerous occasions, but this is the first time the resolution has passed a committee stage vote. In 2008, the United Methodist Church rejected a BDS motion. Speaking of the affirmative committee vote, Rev. Dr. Walt Davis, Co-chair of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network called the decision “an encouraging step”.

"We hope plenary voters will follow the lead of Committee 15 and the recommendations of the Mission Responsibility Through Investing committee and support divestment from these companies that are profiting from Israel's violations of Palestinian human rights. It’s been a long and thorough process and it’s finally time for the church to stop profiting from the suffering the peoples of the Holy Land,” he added.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) responded to continuous calls for divestment from the church as “an unfortunate tradition”.

Director of Interreligious relations for the AJC, Rabbi Noam E. Marans, warned that “this battle has wider implications for Presbyterian-Jewish relations in particular and Christian-Jewish relations in general”.  “The fact that so much time and energy are expended within the church and the American Jewish community on this constant assault on Israel threatens interfaith comity,” he continued.

“The last 50 years of post-Holocaust Christian-Jewish dialogues should have made these themes unacceptable, and yet they have resurfaced in a nefarious contextualisation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. We dare not let these strident voices drag Christians and Jews back into that discredited mire,” he concluded.