On June 27 the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted to focus on truth and fairness in relation to Israelis and Palestinians—perhaps a little inconsistently and schizophrenically at times, but nonetheless choosing again the diplomatic evenhandedness that had been mandated in 2006. However, in the hours and days following the Assembly, that vote has been systematically ignored and mischaracterized by the very parties required to enact rather than nullify the will of the Assembly.
The systematic perversion of General Assembly intent is too widespread and prominent to be a simple oversight. No one could be so thoroughly heedless by accident. The distortion must be no less than a calculated attempt to characterize the Assembly vote in a way that is intended to prolong unabated the very kinds of egregious statements and actions an Assembly-adopted resolution intended to prohibit. In fact, the defiant response to the resolution turns out to be proof positive of the need for the resolution.
In the musical Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table grow tired of being good, in a milieu where might no longer makes right. In a wicked spoof, the rebellious knights sing “Fie on Goodness, Fie!”
Fie on goodness, fie!
Fie on goodness, fie!
Eight years of kindness to your neighbor,
Making sure that the meek are treated well,
Eight years of philanthropic labor–
Derry down dell
Damn, but it’s hell!
Oh, fie on goodness, fie
Fie, fie, fie!
It appears that the powers that be in the Presbyterian Church (USA) are intent on singing “Fie on fairness, fie!” at the top of their lungs. No matter what General Assembly decrees, there are well-entrenched leaders within this denomination who simply will not alter their biased and even devious practices of always lionizing Palestinians while incessantly villainizing Israelis. Fie on fairness! Fie on the full truth! Fie on correction by the General Assembly. Fie, fie, fie!
I do not write such accusations lightly. I realize the gravity of doing so. However, the evidence is clear, abundant, and ongoing. This is not a sudden, acute eruption of unfairness; it is rather a continuing, chronic sickness that demands a cure.
How We Got Here
Coming into this Assembly, a long history of bias toward Palestinian causes had supposedly begun to be corrected by a resolution approved by the 217th General Assembly in 2006. That resolution replaced a 2004 resolution that had been approved with little consideration and had sought divestment from corporations doing business in Israel. In true candor, the 2006 commissioners confessed in their replacement resolution that “[w]e are grieved by the pain that this [the pointed 2004 divestment resolution] has caused, accept responsibility for the flaws in our process, and ask for a new season of mutual understanding and dialogue.” The resolution ruled that investments should “be invested in only peaceful pursuits” and it affirmed that “the customary corporate engagement process [focusing on corporations, not a country] of the Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investments of our denomination is the proper vehicle for achieving this goal.” The statement took pains to be positive toward the benefit of all parties in the region.
However, from the moment of the press conference following the vote in 2006, the message from Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick and Bill Somplatsky-Jarman, staff resource person for the Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment, was that “nothing has changed.” A fair and positive statement worked out painstakingly and approved overwhelmingly by the commissioners was treated by the staff leaders as a warrant for more of the same old favoritism in an effort to divest from companies doing business with Israel.
Weak, inconclusive efforts were made to invest in Palestine, but Israel remained the denominational whipping boy in prejudicial statements by mission personnel, the Presbyterian News Service, the Presbyterian Middle Eastern Caucus, and the Israel-Palestine Mission Network. Lenten materials on Israel-Palestine in 2007 so accented the biased perspective that Presbyterian Action felt compelled to write balanced materials as a counterbalance to the denominational prejudice. Members of the Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment showed open contempt for Israel. The General Assembly intention for balance and fairness had rough going, due to entrenched interests intent on favoring Palestinians at all costs.
The Road to Plenary
Leading up to General Assembly in June 2008, a number of overtures and reports flooded the docket of the Committee on Peacemaking and International Issues. Several items were written to try to wrest the official intent of General Assembly back into the pre-2006 spirit of ganging up on Israel, such as by removing its military support or hastening retributive divestment. Similarly, the report from the General Assembly Council and the Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment reflexively condemned Israel alone, while overlooking the 2006 resolution’s focus on evenhanded fairness.
Three overtures, however, were a breath of fresh air, due to their fairness, humility, and lack of partisan spirit. Interestingly, while the overtures were similar in nature, they came from two presbyteries considered quite unlike. National Capital Presbytery in Washington, D.C.—characteristically liberal as a whole, both socially and theologically—sent Item 11-06. Santa Barbara (CA) Presbytery—on the whole, conservative and evangelical—sent Items 11-25 and 11-26.
The gist of the three overtures was political neutrality in order to be true peacemakers. Item 11-06 sagely pledged that “we will not over-identify with the realities of the Israelis or Palestinians.” It cautioned against “taking broad stands that simplify a very complex situation into a caricature of reality, where one side clearly is at fault and the other side is clearly the victim.” Item 11-26 promised that “we will defer from taking actions or making statements that align the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) with unilateral support for any of the specific parties involved in the struggle.” Further, it asked for General Assembly Council “to ensure that employees, entities, affiliated organizations, and networks abide by these directives,” aware that there continue to be widespread abuses. Item 11-25 seemed similar to Item 11-06.
After committee hearings with a parade of 90-second sound bites pro and con for various business items, the committee had heard from activists, special-interest groups, Jewish leaders of mainstream and splinter groups, pastors, and other interested parties. The committee itself took on a stated goal of hearing from all sides and apparently trying to appease all sides. After long discussions and maneuvers, when the dust settled, the committee had approved both Items 11-06 from National Capital and 11-26 from Santa Barbara.
The problem, however, was that the committee also had approved a hostile overture: Item 11-01 from Atlanta. This overture commended some of the same materials that were so contrary to the spirit of the 2006 resolution about fairness. It endorsed the Amman Call by the World Council of Churches—a document that puts Israel to blame and sides with the Palestinians, a flawed resolution that would lead to two states: one without any Jews (Palestine) and one with a minority of Jews (Israel). This overture is pretty much an omnibus resolution to endorse and promote the biased materials and methods that Item 11-06 sought to restrain out of fairness and truth.
The committee recommended to the full General Assembly that all other overtures except the two good ones—11-06 and 11-26—be answered by the approved overtures. Thus from the committee came not fairness and all sides heard, but rather absolutely conflicting items of business: two counseling restraint in taking sides and one to run hog wild in biased Palestinian advocacy. IRD vice-president Alan Wisdom explained the situation in a briefing paper, asking if the PC(USA) really wanted to “take a partisan role in the dispute, acting and speaking as if all justice resided on the side of the Palestinians and all blame should be cast upon the Israelis.”
What General Assembly approved
The Israel business items came to the plenary session of General Assembly on Friday, when the Assembly was well experienced in handling the business before it, but growing weary or item after item of import but insufficient time to truly consider that import. The handling of the Israel matters was perhaps the most rushed and confusing of the entire assembly. Issues of substitute motions and minority reports seemed to get far more attention than the substance of the main motions, so that most or all of the energy was spent handling amendments and little to none was spent debating the merits of the motions.
First up was Item 11-01, the Atlanta omnibus overture containing the Amman Call. This overture, carefully crafted to use the people, statements, and other resources most hostile to Israel and biased toward Palestine, seemed to be the committee’s main answer to most of the other overtures it received.
Commissioner Bob Henley from Sun Valley, Idaho, sought to remove the Amman Call by amendment. The committee moderator, Nancy Kahaian, quickly stepped in to take the debate out of the hands of commissioners, where debate belonged at this point, and place it where it definitely didn’t belong: in the person of a staff member, Victor Makari, whose role is to answer questions when called upon and certainly not to promote actions of one kind or another. Makari proceeded to argue for the Amman Call, which was highly out of order—a power play disadvantaging commissioners.
After a little spotty and confusing debate, the amendment was defeated. Then, without the opportunity for any further consideration of the main motion and without even a call for the question, the moderator immediately brought the main motion to a vote. Item 11-01 was approved by about a 75% vote, many, if not most, of whom could not possibly have had a decent understanding of what it was they were doing.
Next up was Item 11-06, which was the modest overture that said that General Assembly would not do exactly what it had just done in approving the hostile Item 11-01. You would think that this abrupt and contradictory proposition would give General Assembly a little pause. It didn’t. In fact Item 11-06 was moved for approval, not debated at all, and approved on a voice vote without as much as a pause for commissioners to take a deep breath after the first item. I had not even been able to open the papers to settle into observing the discussion before the matter was approved immediately without discussion, without comprehension, without the dignity even of consideration.
Thus, the General Assembly passed resolutions that were mutually contradictory, and it passed both of them without consideration at all sufficient for commissioners to begin to understand either resolution. Item 11-06 said that General Assembly would not make broad decisions that simplify complex situations, and yet Item 11-01 did exactly that. The committee chair, Nancy Kahaian, even stopped to make a little speech about the committee choosing breadth over uniformity in its recommendations. Thus, in the name of breadth, the Presbyterian Church (USA) now has two resolutions, and one contradicts the other.
How Not to Understand an Item of Business
The General Assembly also dealt—rather irregularly—with Item 11-26, which was attempting to call for reasonable neutrality and fairness, and to hold Presbyterian entities to observe the will of the Assembly. The committee, in its double mind, had recommended this overture for approval, but a minority report sought instead to answer it with hostile Item 11-01. The way consideration of this action transpired provides a prime example of how unfair General Assembly procedures can be.
The minority report signer made an emotional speech for essentially disapproving Item 11-26, and then it came time for the committee moderator to speak just as forcefully in favor of the committee’s vote to approve it. However, moderator Nancy Kahaian said nothing in support of the item. If she did not favor it, the proper response would have been to stand aside to allow a genuine advocate to speak for the committee, but Kahaian did no such thing. Item 11-26 had no official advocate.
A question was asked about whether General Assembly Council could actually “ensure that employees, entities, affiliated organizations, and networks abide by these directives.” Hunter Farrell, Director of Global Missions for the General Assembly Council, was called to the podium microphone. Amazingly, he reported straightforwardly that General Assembly Council is not able to direct affiliated organizations and mission networks. Apparently these groups that operate under the Presbyterian roof and carry the name and authority of the PCUSA are completely free to do whatever they jolly well please, unhindered by General Assembly!
Thus it was suggested that the section about making entities abide by the directives was actually out of order, and Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick was quick to agree that the overture did need “perfecting,” in other words that the overture’s asking General Assembly Council to see to it that the will of General Assembly is followed needed to be dropped!
Commissioner Steve Frank from Wyoming had the awareness to ask Farrell a second time if the whole sentence needed to go. Frank deduced that at least the employees and official entities of the denomination could be held under the authority of General Assembly Council. Farrell confined his reply to the reiteration that affiliated groups and mission networks were not governable. He failed to say that two of the four groups mentioned in the disputed sentence were accountable.
There was an immediate move to end debate, and the vote on the amendment to strike the entire accountability section passed. Thus, no one would be held accountable to General Assembly’s policy.
As debate continued on the larger question of whether in essence to disapprove the overture or approve it, the discussion was filled with confusion and even untruths. The merit of the overture hardly got talked about, since the overture was falsely accused of being confusing and of counseling a do-nothing approach, both claims being false but nonetheless damaging. One commissioner asked, “Why both 11-01 and 11-26? Doesn’t 11-01 say everything we want to say?” (She must have missed the action that also approved the contradictory 11-06!)
This question gave committee moderator Nancy Kahaian another opportunity to speak in support of the merits of her committee’s recommendation of 11-26, which is her responsibility as chair. Again she failed to support her committee’s decision. “If 11-01 is everything you want, then you should vote for the minority report,” she advised. That would be excellent counsel from the General Assembly Moderator or the Stated Clerk, but Kahaian’s role as committee moderator is to advocate for the committee’s recommendations. She apparently had no desire to do so in this case and no desire to allow someone else to assume that function in all fairness.
Eventually the vote was taken on whether commissioners favored the majority report (to approve Item 11-26) or the minority report (to answer Item 11-26 with Item 11-01). The minority report won, receiving 60 percent of the vote. Immediately the Stated Clerk spoke up, giving directions. “The minority report has become the main motion,” he ruled, correctly. “Therefore we need to move immediately to vote on the main motion.”
That second part is not true. Once a main motion has been determined, it is in order to debate the merits of the main motion. But because of the Clerk’s erroneous instructions, there was to be no more discussion of this item. The Assembly voted to throw Item 11-26 in among the many other overtures answered by Item 11-01. This was one of perhaps only two items before this Assembly in which the plenary vote went against the recommendation of the committee.
Two Statements, One Ignored
Following General Assembly, it has become quite apparent what was going on. The committee and then the full General Assembly (being taken in by the committee, which the Assembly thought must know what it was doing) passed resolutions that would separately satisfy a certain camp. Those wanting to take only the Palestinians’ side would love Item 11-01. Those wanting to bend over backwards to be fair and reasonable peacemakers, taking neither side but advocating for all the victims, would love Item 11-06. Never mind the absolute contradiction of the two resolutions. Maybe people won’t notice.
The not-noticing part became readily apparent in the immediate aftermath. To hear the Presbyterian News Service and groups like the Israel/Palestine Mission Network speak, there was no Item 11-06 that requires fairness and modesty in statements. They have failed to acknowledge Item 11-06’s existence or its bearing on the situation. Item 11-01 has been treated as if it were the only resolution approved.
The General Assembly news report mentioned 11-01 but said not a word about the very different 11-06 that was every bit as much approved.
The Israel/Palestine Mission Network illustrated precisely its own bias by the way it reported on General Assembly actions in its press release, which was first issued and then revised. The statement goes on at length about Item 11-01—many paragraphs and 626 words about all the sections of this “bias as usual” resolution. In contrast, its coverage of 11-06 was only two brief sentences, 41 words: “An overture from National Capital Presbytery was adopted which called upon the church to be a voice for the victims of violence in Israel and in Palestine, focusing on peacemaking activities. It also condemned all acts of violence against innocent civilians.” If one but reads the actual Item 11-06, one can see the mission network’s penchant for telling only part of the truth—the part useful for its propaganda purposes. This report went into great depth even reporting on disapproved items it had favored, rather than reporting on an approved item it would rather not acknowledge and certainly hasn’t begun to follow.
Thus, in following up General Assembly, the very parties for which Item 11-06 and 11-26 were needed and written are choosing to act as if 11-06 were never approved, as if General Assembly didn’t ask “PC(USA) members, congregations, committees, and other entities to become nonpartisan advocates for peace” and as such to “not over-identify with the realities of the Israelis or Palestinians.” It appears that the guilty parties are conveniently forgetting to “[f]ocus our energy on the United States government” or to “avoid taking broad stands that simplify a very complex situation into a caricature of reality where one side clearly is at fault and the other side is clearly the victim.” Immediately, a General Assembly resolution is being rendered null and void by simple refusal to comply.
Firm Vigilance Required
The situation of egregious spinning of the General Assembly results is not lost on vigilant observers. The Religious News Service got the story right, reporting on Item 11-06 and its implications. It definitely was possible to understand what truly went on, even when the Presbyterian News Service missed it.
A very accurate and insightful article titled “Presbyterian Dissonance” and written by Roberta P. Seid, a University of California-Irvine historian, appeared on the Stand With Us web site. This article from outside the typical Presbyterian news stream provides excellent context to help one understand the decisions made.
Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles is no stranger to Presbyterian machinations concerning Israel and Palestine. He observed the 2006 General Assembly in Birmingham and was also in attendance and testifying this year in San Jose. He is a keen observer with the ability to understand both the actions on the surface and the underlying intentions and guiding hands behind the scene. His article in The Jewish Journal, “Good Friends and Implacable Foes,” outlines well what happened.
Alderstein reported on the Wiesenthal web site that “The lights at the San Jose Convention Center had hardly gone out before the Israel/Palestine Mission Network issued a press release claiming that calls for neutrality had been defeated.” He concluded that “It will take constant vigilance from our indefatigable friends within the church to insure that the will of the people is not ignored by the PCUSA leadership.”
So what can Presbyterians do when those in authority in the denomination simply neglect or actively resist the command of the General Assembly? First, we can make sure that the misdeeds do not happen unnoticed. We need to help people know what is required of our leaders and make it known when the leaders fail to act responsibly. Second, if infractions continue, we will need to bring pressure on the offending parties. This would begin through intervention with the offenders themselves, and if that fails to produce the proper results, it would need to extend to supervisors and others in authority. Finally, if the situation continues, Presbyterians everywhere need to know that their leadership is failing them, acting in direct rebellion against the constituted authority of the General Assembly. Measures could be taken to remove persons from office or to disband offending groups or remove their affiliation with the denomination.
Of greatest utility is sunshine, knowledge. People need to be able to see what is transpiring and who is behind it. There is a place for shame when shameful actions are done, and there should be shame when truth is blurred, fairness is jettisoned, and legitimate instructions are frustrated.
General Assembly approved Item 11-06 from National Capital Presbytery. Shame on those who willfully spite it!
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