The Churches, Palestine and BDS

3 October 2012 / Electronic Intifada / BDS key to a “just peace,” says Palestinian Christian boycott activist

Over three years since the Kairos Palestine Document was published in 2009, and it has “infused church-based activism for Palestine with focus and clarity. Church websites and newspaper editorial pages were filled with debates on apartheid and divestment [this year].

At the center of these efforts lay a document with the full title A moment of truth: A word of faith, hope, and love from the heart of Palestinian suffering. Known as the Kairos Palestine Document, this December 2009 appeal from Palestinian Christians asks the world’s churches to use “boycott and disinvestment as tools of non-violence for justice, peace and security for all,” and the international community to begin “a system of economic sanctions and boycott to be applied against Israel.”
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Selection of church statements from around the world:

• Australia – National Council of Churches: Resolution on Palestine & Israel (July 2010)
• USA – Quaker Friends Fiduciary Corporation:
  – Quakers divest from Caterpillar (Aug. 2012);
  – Quakers divest from Hewlett Packard and Veolia Environment (Sept. 2012);
  – Quaker socially responsible investment fund divests $390,000 from Hewlett-Packard, Veolia (Sept. 2012)
• USA – Presbyterian Church:
  – Guidelines for implementation of a phased, selective divestment related to Israel and Palestine (June 2006)
  – Press Release endorses Palestinian BDS call (Oct. 2011)
  – Divestment vote fails, but Presbyterian Church (USA) resolves to boycott Israeli settlement products (June 2012)
• USA – United Methodist Church: United Methodist Kairos Response
• UK – Church of England: Church of England votes to divest from Caterpillar (Feb. 2006)
• UK – Methodist Church in Britain: Methodist boycott of goods from illegal Israeli settlements (June 2010)
• Canada – United Church of Canada:
  – Press Release: United Church approves boycott as official church policy (Aug. 2012)
  – United Church of Canada adopts resolution to boycott Israeli settlement products (Aug.2012)