EPF PIN member Vicki Gray, a deacon in the Diocese of California and a former deputy to General Convention, updates us on the work in the diocese around Palestine/Israel.

As a quick glance at a globe will confirm, California’s Bay Area is about as far from Jerusalem as one can get. But, over the past few years, it has become something of a cockpit of the discussion in the Episcopal Church around the deteriorating situation in an increasingly unholy Holy Land.

Two other characteristics of the Bay Area – beyond its geography at the edge of the Western World – are the insistence of so many locals that ours is the mother lode of progressivism in the United States – those reputed “San Francisco values” – and, more broadly, that all trends start in California and then spread to the rest of the country.

San Francisco “progressivism,” however, is often more akin to feel-good libertarianism than to any meaningful solidarity with the less fortunate beyond the horizon or even just arm’s reach. This is particularly true in the Bay Area vis-à-vis Palestinians, with regard to whom “PEP” – Progressive except for Palestine – takes on new meaning, given the local strength of the JCC/JCRC establishment and its willingness to threaten the inter-faith dialogue and to raise the canard of anti-Semitism whenever BDS is mentioned.

Such threats, accompanied by typically Episcopalian tendencies to avoid “rocking the boat,” to make-nice conflict avoidance, and, vis-à-vis Israel/Palestine, always to share-the-blame in “balanced” resolutions, had, over the years, made it difficult to move anything meaningful on Israel/Palestine through the Diocese of California Convention.
It was a bit of a surprise, therefore, when, in 2014, the convention, by a wide margin, passed Resolution 7 urging The Episcopal Church to divest from any investments it might have in certain companies whose products and/or actions support the infrastructure of the occupation and urged Episcopalians to boycott products that are manufactured in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Caterpillar, G4S, Hewlett Packard, and Motorola Solutions were cited as illustrative targets for disinvestment and, in the explanation, Soda Stream was mentioned as the sort of settlement-produced product that should be boycotted.

There were two factors that contributed mightily to passage of the 2014 resolution. One was the gruesomeness of Israel’s “Cast Lead” operation in Gaza that played out on TV screens as delegates were considering the resolution in the run-up to the October convention. It became inordinately hard to continue looking away. The other was a forceful letter in favor of the resolution from the forty members of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council, a copy of which was placed on the seat of every delegate the morning of the Convention.

Passage of Resolution 7 generated some local pride by playing to California’s claim to being a trend setter – pride joyfully spread with the passage of similar resolutions by the Dioceses of Hawai’i, Oregon, and Los Angeles, and sadly diminished by the stonewall all these resolutions encountered in Salt Lake City.

Sad as our experience was in Salt Lake City, it solidified the cooperation between JVP and EPF, cooperation that will be crucial as we move forward toward 2018 in San Antonio.

With an eye to San Antonio, several delegates to DioCal’s October convention sought a way to keep BDS on the mind of the Church. Then, serendipity – God’s way of keeping a low profile – the increasingly aggressive opponents of BDS presented us with a godsend vehicle – their campaign to push legislation in state legislatures, including California’s, to silence the voices of those who support BDS and to penalize those institutions who adopt such measures. Support for BDS had become a free speech issue, with organizations as diverse as B’nai B’rith and the ACLU emerging as potential allies.

In conversations over the summer with the Convention’s Resolutions Committee, we crafted a resolution “Free Speech with regard to Boycott, Disinvestment, and Sanctions”. By reiterating DioCal’s 2014 support, however limited, for BDS, the resolution seeks to give the Diocese of California particular standing in this matter as an institution that might well be targeted by such legislation.

With retrieval of our “trend setter” reputation in mind, we hope that passage of such a resolution might also provide encouragement for other dioceses to take similar stands against what has become a nationwide effort to criminalize free speech on this matter.

The term “such a resolution” is used intentionally, given the “movable feast” nature of AB 2844, legislation that has undergone repeated amendments, while the Diocesan Resolutions Committee has sought to nail down language vis-à-vis a variety of possible outcomes. As of this writing, passage is likely, a veto is possible, as is signature by Governor Brown, either of which must occur just before the Convention convenes. Thus, current language urging rejection, will probably morph into wording urging a veto, or, in the worst case, repeal. In any event, DioCal will have taken a principled position on behalf of free speech and BDS. And, in terms of setting trends, this, if passed, might be the first resolution explicitly using the term “BDS.”

Further potentially complicating passage of our BDS/Free Speech resolution is a completely non-controversial resolution submitted by the Chancellor of the Diocese, who is now on the board of the American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, urging people to study the situation in the Holy Land, make a pilgrimage, and contribute to AFEDJ. There is a fear that delegates, having voted for this resolution, will consider they have “done something,” and leave them with an excuse to avoid the conflicts inherent in ours.

An interesting sidebar in the discussion of this resolution was the question recently raised in comments on our 2014 resolution: “How will people know when a product is produced in one of the occupied territories?” That highlighted the follow-up failure by proponents of the resolution to disseminate a list of such products. Mea Culpa. In an act of contrition, I have offered to work with diocesan staff in disseminating the lists of such products that are available elsewhere. That’s probably something we should all do going forward.

Given the continued pushback, it is also clear that there is still a lot of education that needs to be done. To that end, several members of the diocese have gotten together to discuss revivifying a Bay Area EPF chapter to do the educational work that is otherwise not getting done.

Stay tuned.