الائتلاف الوطني للمؤسسات المسيحية في فلسطين

NCCOP

National Coalition of Christian Organizations in Palestine

June 21, 2018

Dear Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and the esteemed bishops and deputies of the Episcopal Church,

We, the member organizations of the National Coalition of Christian Organizations in Palestine
(NCCOP), are glad to see that you have decided to engage in open and productive debate on issues relating to Israel and Palestine. We appreciate Bishop Michael Curry’s strong words of support for the Palestinian people after his witness visit during Holy Week. He heard our cries for justice. We see now you are ready to deepen your commitment with follow-up actions.

We appreciate the Episcopal Church’s formation of the Israel Palestine Working Group and the ongoing advocacy of the Palestine Israel Network of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship in its longtime activism for seeking a just peace.

We particularly appreciate and support your understanding that the church must be an ethical investor and must take social responsibility for its investments.

Toward that end, we appreciate your 2005 report asking the church to divest from Motorola Solutions and Caterpillar for their ongoing work with the illegal annexation wall and settlements. We also appreciate the vote the church took to invest in the region in 2012, leading to investing in the Bank of Palestine.

However, we, along with many others within your denomination, were disappointed when your 2015 resolution calling for the Episcopal Church to divest from companies profiting from the occupation failed.

We hope this year your diverse resolutions dealing with the many issues relating to human rights violations will pass. We are particularly interested in your resolution from the Executive Council Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility on developing criteria for Israel and Palestine based on human rights investment screens as well as actions previously taken by your General Convention and Executive Council.

We also wish to support your resolution to add Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, and Trip Advisor to your no-buy list. In addition to these companies, please also add Hewlett- Packard to your no-buy list or investment screen. Other U.S. churches that have recently voted for targeted divestments include Hewlett-Packard in their divestment plans.

In addition to investing in the Bank of Palestine, we would also like you to add to your screening process those Israeli banks that are doing business in the illegal settlements. For this, we invite you to look at the Methodist Church’s pension fund, which made a decision in 2016 to withdraw funds from the following five Israeli banks: Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, Israel Discount Bank, and Mizrahi-Tafahox Bank. For more information we recommend you review the recent Human Rights Watch report “Banking Abuse: Israeli Banks in the West Bank Settlements.”

Finally, toward fulfilling your Christian duty to invest responsibly and to divest from businesses supporting or profiting from the illegal settlements, or violating international law, we would like to recommend that you also investigate the development of the High Commissioner of Human Rights’ new database for businesses breaching international law. These businesses should be evaluated in your screening process for future ethical investments.

In our June 2017 Open Letter to the World Council of Churches we stated under principle 7, “We ask that you speak in support of economic measures that pressure Israel to stop the occupation.” We see the Episcopal Church at the threshold of beginning a new era of accountability. Your actions will not only support your own statements but also demonstrate to us the costly solidarity that we need so desperately at this time.

Again, thank you so much for your loving support.