In the midst of peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, several organizations have been criticised for trumpeting divestment in companies involved in the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Moshe Fox, an Israeli embassy official in the United States, was quoted by the Jerusalem Post as saying: "While maintaining that this recommendation is neither one-sided nor anti-Jewish, it is clearly both."
The controversial strategy was first publicized by the Presbyterian Church (USA), when the church's stated clerk, Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, announced the decision that was made at their general assembly last summer.
More recently, the World Council of Churches urged its 347 member churches at a Feb. meeting in Geneva to consider similar economic measures. "This action is commendable in both method and manner, uses criteria rooted in faith, and calls members to 'do things that make for peace'," the WCC committee said, referring to a biblical text (Luke 19:42).
"We are very troubled by this decision," said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mark Regev. "We don't see this sort of one-sided decision as being at all helpful and constructive when there is new hope, and when Israel has decided to pull out of Gaza and take down settlements in part of the West Bank."
The U.S.-based Presbyterians Concerned for Jewish and Christian Relations urged PC(USA) to reconsider the decision. While affirming the use of divestment as a social justice strategy in some situations, the group argues that such actions single out Israel as the object of the divestment policy.
Presbyterian leaders have denied such accusations. Rev. Marion McClure, director of PC(USA)'s worldwide ministries division, said the divestment guidelines "allow us to look at any company profiting from the violation of human rights and international law, whether Israeli, Palestinian, or anyone else."
The US-based Anti-Defamation League said the WCC statement was "based on a biased one-sided interpretation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," and that divestment policies were "counterproductive and detrimental to the newly revived peace initiative".
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