10,000 Activists Joined SWC Campaign To Rescind PCUSA’s Anti-Israel Resolutions…Ex CIA Chief: “A Vote For Divestment Is A Vote For Hamas”

June 16, 2006

10,000 Activists Joined SWC Campaign To Rescind PCUSA’s Anti-Israel Resolutions…Ex CIA Chief: “A Vote For Divestment Is A Vote For Hamas”

10,000 Simon Wiesenthal Center supporters added their voices to the growing campaign to urge the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) to rescind its anti-Israel resolution at its National Assembly currently underway in Birmingham, Alabama. Each of four candidates for Moderator of the major mainline Protestant denomination received the online pleas urging divestment be shelved and replaced with proactive humanitarian efforts to benefit both Palestinians and Israelis. Rabbi Cooper and Adlerstein met briefly with each candidate on this urgent matter. Rev. Joan S. Gray was elected to lead the Church.

Senior Wiesenthal Center officials also convened a press conference at the gathering with END DIVESTMENT NOW Presbyterian activists and Jewish leaders as the grassroots effort to rescind the anti-Israel initiative gained fresh momentum.”  There is no question that maintaining this policy will deeply impact the traditionally friendly relations between our faith communities,” Rabbi Cooper said.

Gary Green, Executive Director of END DIVESTMENT NOW wants to see the divestment policy replaced with “positive, fair and balanced initiatives.” “I just don’t see how our Church can, in the face of an overwhelming negative response, maintain any credibility whatsoever without correcting this seriously ill-conceived policy,” Green said, adding, “I, and the END DIVESTMENT NOW- are absolutely committed to seeing the Church’s divestment policy rescinded.”

On the first full day of the Assembly Ex-CIA Chief James Woolsey, himself a Presbyterian, spoke in Birmingham and asserted, “A vote for divestment is a vote for Hamas.”  Mr. Woolsey was CIA Chief under President Bill Clinton.

The Wiesenthal Center also sponsored the trip to PCUSA’s national gathering of renowned scientist and activist Professor Judea Pearl, father of slain Wall Street Journal journalist, Daniel Pearl who was murdered in Pakistan because he was an American and a Jew. Dr. Pearl, who has publicly dialogued with Muslim leaders across North America, was a keynote speaker at an interfaith gathering Friday and lobbied Presbyterian leaders on the eve of the crucial vote.

Meanwhile, Dr. Pearl and Rabbi Adlerstein both spoke at an official public forum against the divestment policies. Earlier, 700 Presbyterian commissioners and advisory delegates received letters from the Wiesenthal Center urging a reversal of the unfair measure.

Photo: June 2006 - The PCUSA and Wiesenthal Center delegations at the Jaffa Institute in Tel Aviv which distributes food to needy Jews and Muslims.

For more information, contact the Wiesenthal Center’s Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036.