Methodists Reject Divestment Resolutions

Washington — After nine days of meetings, The United Methodist Church rejected five proposed resolutions urging divestment from companies doing business with Israel.

The church’s National Conference, which convened in Fort Worth, Texas, last week, overwhelmingly turned down anti-Israel measures, though it included a statement declaring that “Israel continues to violate the international law” by building the separation fence. The conference added a call for both sides to uphold the United Nations’ resolution.

Rejection of the divestment resolutions is seen as a significant achievement for the mainstream organized Jewish community, which launched a massive effort both on the grass-roots level and within the leadership to fight against the divestment trend within mainline Protestant churches.

“This is another piece of evidence that many people in the church do not support a one-sided approach to the Israel-Palestinian conflict,” said the Jewish Council for Public Affairs’ associate executive director, Ethan Felson, who was among the activists who went to Fort Worth to fight the divestment initiative.


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I have no idea.

Israeli intellectuals, researchers, physicians, technical experts, engineers, and the like have developed so much that is in use throughout the entire world.

It would be very difficult to completely boycott all Israeli products and services.

I'd welcome people to try, but you'd better not need your cell phone for voicemail or you computer for firewall or instant messenger, for starters.

Other Israeli advances boycotters would have to do without:

An Israeli company has developed a device that helps nurses locate hard-to-find veins.

An Israeli system to help dyslexic readers is being used throughout the US and Europe.

Hawaiian singer Don Ho underwent an Israeli-developed stem cell treatment to strengthen his heart.

The Israeli-developed Ex-Press shunt is providing relief for glaucoma sufferers.

Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized, no-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer.

An Israeli company developed a computerized system for ensuring proper administration of medications, thus removing human error from medical treatment. Every year in U.S. hospitals 7,000 patients die from treatment errors.

Israel's Given Imaging developed the first ingestible video camera, so small it fits inside a pill. Used the view the small intestine from the inside, the camera helps doctors diagnose cancer and digestive disorders. Over 65,000 patients worldwide have swallowed the M2A capsule, the incredible 'camera in a capsule' technology.

Researchers in Israel developed a new device that directly helps the heart pump blood, an innovation with the potential to save lives among those with congestive heart failure. The new device is synchronized with the heart's mechanical operations through a sophisticated system of sensors.

A new acne treatment developed in Israel, the ClearLight device, produces a high-intensity, ultraviolet-light-free, narrow-band blue light that causes acne bacteria to self-destruct - all without damaging surroundings skin or tissue.

Israeli researchers are playing an important role in identifying a defective gene that causes a rare and usually fatal disease in Arab infants.

Israeli stem-cell technology is being used in the U.S. to regenerate heart tissue.

An Israeli company has developed a device that could enable millions of American diabetics to painlessly inject themselves with insulin.

An Israeli medical delegation from the 'Save a Child's Heart' project recently spent two weeks in China performing open heart surgery on children.

Scientists in Israel have used strands of DNA to create tiny transistors that can literally build themselves.

A week-old Iraqi infant underwent an emergency operation in Israel to correct a congenital heart defect.

An Israeli has invented a 'bone glue' that will reduce the need for bone transplants and heal bone defects caused by cancer.

Israeli scientists have created a DNA nano-computer that not only detects cancer, but also releases drugs to treat the disease.

Clinical trials of a specially designed trainer which alleviates knee-joint pain in osteoarthritis. Its designers are Israeli and plan to set up a treatment centre in the UK.

RSA cryptography and Intel Pentium chips are Israeli innovations.

An Israeli company has developed a simple blood test that distinguishes between mild and more severe cases of Multiple Sclerosis. So, if you know anyone suffering from MS, tell them to ignore the Israeli patent that may, more accurately, diagnose their symptoms.

An Israeli-made device helps restore the use of paralyzed hands. This device electrically stimulates the hand muscles, providing hope to millions of stroke sufferers and victims of spinal injuries. If you wish to remove this hope of a better quality of life to these people, go ahead and boycott Israel.

Young children with breathing problems will soon be sleeping more soundly, thanks to a new Israeli device called the Child Hood. This innovation replaces the inhalation mask with an improved drug delivery system that provides relief for child and parent.

A researcher at Israel's Ben Gurion University has succeeded in creating human monoclonal antibodies which can neutralize the highly contagious smallpox virus without inducing the dangerous side effects of the existing vaccine.

Two Israelis received the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Doctors Ciechanover and Hershko's research and discovery of one of the human cells most important cyclical processes will lead the way to DNA repair, control of newly produced proteins, and immune defense systems.

For women who undergo hysterectomies each year for the treatment of uterine fibroids, the development in Israel of the Ex Ablate 2000 System is a welcome breakthrough, offering a noninvasive alternative to surgery.

Israel is developing a nose drop that will provide a five year flu vaccine.

Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.

Chat technology for the AOL Instant Messenger ICQ was developed in 1996 in Israel by four young Israeli whiz kids.

Cell phone technology was also developed in Israel by MOTOROLA. Most of the latest technology in your mobile phone was developed by Israeli engineers.

Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.

Israel produces more scientific papers per capita - 109 per 10,000 - than any other nation.

Israel has the highest number of startup companies per rata. In absolute terms, the highest number, except the US. Israel has a ratio of patents filed.

Israel has the highest concentration of hi-tech companies outside of Silicon Valley. Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds, behind the USA.

Israel has the second highest rate of publication of new books per capita in the world.

I had no idea.........

'I'd welcome people to try, but you'd better not need your cell phone for voicemail or you computer for firewall or instant messenger, for starters.'

without them I'd have to stay in bed all day.

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I do think that people need to think about what they say.

If you want to boycott Israeli products, go ahead.

But it's more than saying you won't buy an Israeli orange or piece of produce.

Israeli products include life saving medical technology, computer chips and software, other technology that you all use every day.

I am pointing out that it's nonsense to say that people will divest from Israel, because there is no way people are giving up their computers, their cell phones, medical advances that could save the life of a loved one.

Or are you willing to do that?

Divesting against what you "want" to divest against will hardly impact Israel at all.

on edit: If my posting about Israeli advances that benefit the entire world somehow "creates animosity and deepens antiIsraeli statements from us Leftists" that is your problem and not mine.

Note how many of those advances help Palestinians too, and in fact people from all walks of life.

compiling of your posts as a whole not just the one I was replying to, which BTW had a rather gloating "let 'em try" tone to it.

even if I supported a boycott of Israel (I don't), I would not consider that a Christian Church was the appropriate group to lead such a boycott.

gospel into practice.

Jews have had reasons over the years to be suspicious of Christian churches' attitudes to them.

By the same token, it would be inappropriate IMO for a church to take the lead, as an organized group, in opposition to, and especially in sanctions against, a Muslim group or country.

are called to stand for justice, even if those being called to account don't want to hear it.

I am very clear that it's entirely consistent with the gospel for Western Churches to stand with their sisters and brothers in Palestine who are being oppressed, and engage in this nonviolent resistant to oppression.

Denominations like the Quakers and Mennonites have a long history of working for justice in the region. It's part and parcel of the religion.

religious groups, *in their capacity as a religious organization*? Is it likely to be effective, for that matter?

To clarify: I am not talking about individuals or political groups who may be influenced by their religion, but about groups that directly represent organized religion.

It may be 'consistent with the gospel' - but what if one's dealing with countries or groups that don't follow or believe in the gospel? Especially if those countries/ groups have experienced direct religious prejudice from those churches in the past? Would you accept the Methodist Church *in that capacity* promoting sanctions against a Muslim country for breaches of human rights, even if you supported the sanctions on principle? What do you think of churches getting involved in politics in America: e.g. Catholic and some Protestant churches pressing lawmakers to oppose gay marriage and abortion?

And the entire matter much more complex than some would have us believe.

We may begin with the tremendous variety of belief among Christians who take their religion very seriously concerning what they are called to do by it. As it has developed in the West, Christianity is basically a religion of personal salvation, attained by belief on and identification with a god who dies and rises again. This has no social component, and is poor ground on which to erect one. In its ultimate origin, Christianity was simply a Messianic 'End Times' cult arising in a wholly Jewish milieu, and its sole concern with 'Justice' was what justice the deity would soon wreak on unbelievers. The disappointment of the first generation's expectations has occasioned a great deal of mental gymnastics down the years. The broad gap between these two things is obvious enough to require no great belaboring. In order to rope any sort of social concern into Christianity, it is necessary to depend on extracts from the Prophets of the Jewish Testament, and even Jewish law. Such extracts necessarily must be very selective, for while there are large swathes of commentary by prophets, and elements of Jewish law, that could be dropped handily into leftist literature where economic matters and questions of government corruption are concerned, there are also great swathes of commentary by prophets, and elements of Jewish law, that are radically reactionary where questions of personal conscience and behavior, and nationalist attachments, are concerned. The nearest thing to a 'social program' that can be got by plain reading of the Christian texts amounts to little more than obey the law and the authorities, avoid contact with the authorities to the best of your ability, avoid wickedness, particularly of the sexual sort, believe nothing but what your Christian leader says, and donate to your congregation, and to other congregations, particularly those in Jerusalem. Beyond this, spreading the word the Messiah is come and has risen, and waiting for the deity to ring down the curtain on this wicked world and exalt believers, is pretty much the actual extent of it. There are exhortations available to personal pacifism, that have never found much footing in actual practice over the years, advice to concentrate on one's own faults rather than those of others, and sundry other bits of good advice, and a rejection of wealth that is based on a rejection of the material in favor of the spiritual, rather than anything that could be properly considered 'justice' from a social reformer's point of view. People select from this steam table what suits them, and having put it on their plate call the meal "True Christianity'. Often, they fall to fighting those who have made a different selection with more energy than they eat, but that is a further element beyond what is worth addressing at this moment.

Since the hatred of Jews, and persecution of Jews, that has disfigured Christendom down the many centuries it has been a dominant ideology in the West, finds its root in explicit statements in the Gospels and Epistles of the Christian Testament, it behooves persons who proclaim they are acting as taking their Christianity seriously requires them to act to exercise a good deal of care and caution in feeling their religion calls them to denunciation of and opposition towards any phenomenon that involves a great many Jews. It is odd the way history spirals, since these denunciations of Jews that have wrought such havoc over the centuries were written originally to establish distance between the Christian sect in the West and the attempts by Jews to gain an independent state free of Roman rule on about the present ground of Israel, the failure of which led to widespread repression by the Roman authorities that Christians of mostly non-Jewish background were anxious, understandably, not to be caught up in the toils of.

but in the context of the here and now a question needs to be asked; was the proposed divestment against a religion or against a nations governmental policies, a nation with a majority populace of a given religion, in this case Jews. Given LB's model Israel is then no longer a nation but in it self a religion, that religion being Judaism and from that perspective it becomes for the same reasons improper for any other nation or body who has a majority population of any other religion to impose boycotts or divestments, taken to its fullest it then also becomes improper for international bodies to impose sanctions.
This is not a question of are boycotts effective or do you approve of the use of such tactics, it s a question of does Israel or any other country equate to the religion of the majority population, does the US equate to Christianity, does the the UK equate to the "Church of England", does Iran equate to Islam? Is Israel somehow different?

Israel and the UK do not equal their predominant religions (both are relatively secular in fact); but both have 'baggage' that might make criticisms from certain religious bodies less effective (at best) than from other sources.

If for example a Muslim group or a fundamentalist Protestant group attacks the UK for its 'immorality' (both happen from time to time), this will probably be less effective than such a criticism coming from a non-religious body.

A perhaps closer analogy might be if the Church of England as a body set out criticisms of the actions of the Republic of Ireland and called for sanctions. Of course the Republic of Ireland does not equal the Catholic faith; but given the long history of Protestant/Catholic, English/Irish political and religious strife, an attack from this source would probably be counterproductive.

is far more recent, and to a degree on going. There is also the fact that it is an interfaith matter as both religions fall under the umbrella of Christianity. While there is much baggage between Christians and Jews, the over whelming amount of that baggage is carried by the Catholic Church, not all boycotts and actions commited by religious organizations are ineffective, MLK did most of his civil rights work in the US from a religious organization that being The Southern Christian Conference I believe.

My point is the quicksand that is the footing for any attempt to proclaim taking Christianity seriously requires some particular action, and the peculiar suctions of that quicksand when the action it is said taking Christianity seriously requires is taking sides in a conflict in which one party is comprised of Jews. Since it is evident from the range of proclaimed 'True Christianities' that people pick and choose what suits them and call the result by that name, the question of what guides the individual's choices from the possibilities available naturally arises. Inferring backwards from choice to the tastes that guided that choice is a delicate matter, of course, that cannot be pursued to any certainty without claims to psychism at a distance. But it is clear enough that tastes dictate doctrine, rather than doctrine dictating tastes.

When one proposes an action be taken on religious grounds with the aim of altering other persons' behavior, and the persons whose behavior is to be altered are persons who do not share the religion of the persons one proposes should undertake this action, then the matter becomes one of requiring others to act in accord with one's own religious beliefs, whether these are shared by those others or not, and questions of nationality and government and even of whether these are blurred with or into religion are not part of it.

In point of fact, since the overwhelming preponderance of people in the United States identify themselves as Christians when they are asked, it is correct to refer the United States as a Christian nation, in the sense that most of its inhabitants are at least nominally of that religion. A great many other nations can be classed similarly as Christian (or Catholic or Protestant), or Moslem, or Hindu, or Buddhist, or what have you. Nations where the state recognizes as favored by law a particular religion, which even the U.K. does in a now vestigial degree, are a somewhat different matter, as are nations where a particular religion is officially considered the basis of the national government, which extends elements of that doctrine over its people with the force of civil or criminal law. Iran is a such an instance, and enforces its Islamic doctrine as both civil and criminal codes. Israel falls into this class, though not as firmly, since Judaism does not provide its criminal codes, but only some of its civil code, and otherwise the country's government is firmly secular.

any religion,, there are choices to made this is because there is no established religion that I know where the sacred texts were written all at once; all religion is a "work in progress" if you will, with differing and sometimes conflicting sects all proclaiming they are the "true believers" to some extent. Even Judaism has a strain of this do the Haredi not believe that they are "better" Jews than Reform or Conservative Jews? The same can be said of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, even Wicca for that matter. Taken from that POV one has a hard time taking any religion seriously or at least or most sincere in its intent.

The problem I am having here is a nation donning the cloak of religion as protection against the consequence of civil actions, if the US were to come under sanction or disvestment from a Muslim country for the invasion of Iraq would it be then fitting for the US to say "but we are a Christian country, and there is a bad history between Christians and Muslims"?

I found this statement interesting however

"Israel falls into this class, though not as firmly, since Judaism does not provide its criminal codes, but only some of its civil code, and otherwise the country's government is firmly secular."

Sir, some of the criminal and civil code of every western nation including Israel is rooted in Judaism, as are portions of those same codes in Muslims countries.

My comments are confined to Christianity here because the claim is being made that 'taking Christianity seriously' requires some particular action or attitude regarding the present situation in the Near East. After all, there are a great many people in the U.S. who certainly take their Christianity very seriously, and believe firmly this requires them to support and actively aid Israel. On what grounds a hard old infidel like myself might choose which of these is the true expression of taking Christianity seriously is unclear, and likely to remain ever so....

Doubtless if a Moslem country were to take some action against the United States on the basis Islam required this, there would be a great deal of agitation here focusing on the religious difference. That is pretty much one side of the history of our country's hostile relation to Iran already, after all. What opens the line of attack is not the predominant religion of the country the action is aimed at, but the claim the action is required by the different religion of the body executing the action. Take the action without proclaiming it is required by one's religious belief, and the whole thing goes away.

The influence of the Old Testament codes on civil and criminal law in the West is much over-rated. Roman Law, and the various common laws of the peoples who over-ran Rome, existing prior to their conversion, are the bulk of the base on which our present systems are erected. Nowhere in the modern West is any element which it could be claimed originated in the Old Testament recognized as law solely because of its purported religious authority. In Israel, some aspects of civil law that are wholly irreligious in the U.S., such as marriage and divorce, are defined by the religious codes. That is something not to my liking, personally, but in the founding days of the state was seen as a necessary compromise with politically important elements of the population.

religious aspect but I do think this is applicable re Israel, Jews, the west and Christianity.

The Christian Bible teaches that God said of Israel "I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curse thee". Many will scoff at that but amongst Christians this particular passage is of utmost importance.

So, I do believe this is why when it comes to the ME, religion and politics are an issue that we cannot pretend does not exist.