METHODIST CONFERENCE INDICATES SUPPORT FOR PRINCIPLE OF DIVESTMENT
As posted at http://mrandyc.care4free.net/YorkPSC/news.html
30th June 2005

Breakthrough in Israeli Occupation Divestment Campaign The worldwide campaign for church divestment from the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine, received a major boost on Thursday, with a supportive response from the UK Methodist Conference. Responding to a near unanimous vote of its York and Hull District, to support this campaign, the conference voted to recognise the need for a divestment strategy to highlight the “desperate plight of Palestinians living in the occupied territories”. A committee of the church, which has previously looked at the ethics of investments in the arms trade and Apartheid South Africa, has been asked to review church investments in the light of this vote and the “need to show a concern for the vulnerable and oppressed”.

The Methodist Church is the latest in a series of churches and Christian organisations to take seriously the call for divestment from the occupation. In February 2005, the World Council of Churches called on all its members to use their funds “responsibly in support of peaceful solutions” to injustices in Palestine. It specifically endorsed the actions of the Presbyterian Church of the USA to establish a strategy for divestment, a model the Methodist church has indicated it will follow. It will encourage supporters of divestment in a vote of the United Church of Christ in the USA and in similar calls at the Church of England General Synod, both in July.

Today the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) claimed this vote as a major success in its campaign for church divestment, launched earlier this year. Methodist Local Preacher and York PSC member Stephen Leah said, “This is a tremendous encouragement to all those seeking peace and justice in Palestine. It places the question of whether it is ethical to profit from companies which support the illegal occupation, firmly on the agenda for all churches. I feel proud to be a member of a church which is unafraid to recognise he suffering of the Palestinian people”.

Responding from Palestine to the vote, Jamal Juma, Co-ordinator of the Palestine Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign thanked the Methodist Church for its stand. “We welcome this vital decision by the Methodist church to take up the call of the Palestinian people for divestment – a decision that will help bring justice to Palestine. Israel is cementing its brutal occupation by imprisoning the Palestinian people in ghettos surrounded by concrete walls and military gates. Israel must be made to understand that it cannot continue to flout international law. The need for action has never been more urgent and economic pressure such as this sends a clear statement that the world in the 21st century will not tolerate the apartheid anoccupation that is enslaving our people”.