commissioner of the presbyterian church and we're going to talk about what the presbyterian church did in june this is we're taping in july two thousand and fourteen what they did two thousand june two thousand and fourteen when they divested from american companies that operate israel so first of all welcome doctor thank you thank you diane so let me start with give us a little bit a little back or brought ground on who you are ok i am a presbyterian minister i've been for over thirty years i'm a member of the presbyterian philadelphia and i've spent most of my career in ministry in specialized ministries so i'm trying to surpass traill counselor in a psychoanalyst and so i practiced therapy and consulting within the context of my my work as a ministry i also teach at newman university in their pastoral masters in pastoral counseling program and they're masters of overall mission that presbyterian church is a large mainline protestant denomination we have one hundred one point seven million members and ten thousand congregations they're organized in one hundred seventy two presbyterian and the presbyterian church has a tradition of focus on peace and justice as well as many many other issues and for many years the presenter church has been concerned about the conflict in the middle east it's been concerned about the behavior of the complicity that we as members of the church have in that by way of investments that our church have holes in american companies that in certain cases profit from involvement in that that conflict the church our church meets every two years as a whole as a representative body called the general assembly and that general somebody is a body that sets policy and direction for the denomination as a whole and so what does that mean  church of votes such as this is a vote that is to represent the the the people who come to that assembly are commissioned by their  presbytery so that's the role that i k been commissioned by their presbyterians which then represent local congregations so people who come as commissioners come from local congregations commissioned by their their ensure many presbyterians were involved in the early shaping of our constitutional form of government and there are many many similarities between how we operate the polity of the presbyterian church and the polity of our our national national government so how long have you been a commissioners this year was this your first time you were elected took a minute to be a commissioner to particular general assemblies so this assembly meets  every two years and we used to meet annually and so i'm elected to be a commissioner to the assembly therefore i participated in this vote but i remain a commissioner until the next general assembly and during that time part of my job is to help interpret the actions of the assembly and to and to help in other ways to to represent the general assembly and our presbyterian local congregation now i understand there was a vote not the vote in june of two thousand and fourteen where the assembly voted this but there was a vote prior to that that was very close for and they did not vote to divest do you do you have any background or history happened then that's very important this that's by way of saying that this issue has been on the minds of the presbyterian church in presbyterians for a long time and the issues have centered around  concerns about the moral integrity of our investment investing and being sure that our investments in american corporations do not in any way contribute to hurt or harm to hurt or harm in in this terrible terrible conflict it has been a very difficult and hard discussion right from the beginning because of concerns that we also have about our jewish friends and partners with whom we have very close relationships with the nomination and and there has been a real worry that any effort any action of this kind could damage our relationships with our jewish cause you're not really taking the point is not to take sides that in fact the point is not to take sides the point is to in this case to divest from corporations who in the case of caterpillar motorola solutions and the third corp which i'm blanking on right now are very much factored packard are very much involved in activities that are contribute directly to to the worst aspects of the occupation from demolishing in the case of caterpillar providing the vehicles for demolishing palestinian homes and farms making ways for settlements to in the case of of the hewlett packard and motorola solutions their contribution to high highly sophisticated conversations as shareholders and for very for many many years two years ago there was the question of voting for divestment at that point the church voted narrowly to not do that and instead to focus on positive investment in other words to encourage our we have two two organizations that really hold whatever holdings financial holdings we have as a presbyterian church one is the pit the presbyterian foundation which holds anything that that the church as a denomination accumulates in varieties of ways and the other is our board of pensions which provides for health care and for pension funds for clergy and other people who work for our church so the concern was to be sure that we are the funds that we are with that those two bodies are investing are not put to use that works against our concern for peace and there's a wonderful video actually on the there's a website for the presbyterian foundation which shows some wonderful examples of investments that the foundation made  entrepreneurial efforts among palestinians to help themselves and rise above the terrible trauma and to be able to advance themselves economically in ways that have been very difficult for them to so the idea was as an alternative to divestment to invest positively early and also to invest and shift their investments in the direction of corporations are behaving in very responsible and responsive ways in the midst of all this and we'll put the website up at the end of the show so radical can all look at it so what happened between that vote and this and before we get to that i understand you were not a commissioner in the first but you were on the second vote and what did you do and terms of preparing yourself to really make and be involved in the conversation to make this th was an alternate so i was aware that i was going to be the commissioner of this time had some level of awareness of these issues and concerns but really didn't have the context personally for considering how i would respond until by coincidence i was also invited a year ago a little more almost a year ago to and i went to attend a conference below conference and so the it was an organization of primarily palestinian christians who are really seeking and searching to raise awareness of their struggle and to advance peace and justice through nonviolent this is very important because the stereotype i'm afraid that many americans concern is peace and justice being able to raise their children families and security and health just as that is the concern of most israelis and  palestinian christians are forgotten often forgotten group of folks who have been there for a long long time and who are able and who because in part because of what their fa requires of them really are searching for nonviolent approaches so this conference was about that and as a part of this conference we the most important part of it was times that we had time that we spent outside of the conference center early we visited a prison where palestinian children under the age of twelve or are routinely arrested after rock throwing episodes often to be made examples of we visited sites where it was easy to see the what the effect that the wall has which from the point of view of israelis provides security but from the point of view of palestinians cut through oftentimes farms family farms and divides people in ways that really emphasize and reinforce the inequalities between between the those two two two groups we saw checkpoints we saw what i heard stories from palestinian women that i talked to who talked about how they used to be able to go to work or visit their relatives would take them a five minute walk and it now can take them three hours to get from place to place probably the most important day for me it was a day we spent some of us spent part of the group divided in one different place was the conference but but i went with a group to bethlehem and we saw villages we saw all the things that i've already mentioned to you but our guide on that visit was someone who was very impressive to me and whom i have maintained a relationship with since my was a maz and come see and that is funny because i spent an email before this interview to say that i was i wanted to talk about him and could i have his permission and  i'm going to remind him that he didn't know i grew up in the world in the panhandle of texas so i can pronounce as well you can send him a copy of this of this show and then he can tell you where and how well you know you did this witness to and then you're in the general assembly and this boat is earth on the ice in the agenda to tell us about how it came about and why it came about and what the church hopes it was accomplished or break open our process with doing a number of things in response to the action of the previous assembly to work on the positive investment and to increase in gauge mode with respect to these corporations to to increase  stockholder in gauge meant to keep trying because one of the concerns about divestment besides how it would be perceived by our our jewish friends and others was that it might be ineffectual and self defeating to you know to take our funds so the simply said work harder at all try harder and so that committee and other groups who are working on middle east issues in this one wasn't the only one on the on the table were busy between between the assemblies presbyterian foundation for example with were busy in their conversations busy in these p positive investment efforts and so they then come to the assembly with reports of what they have done and with recommendations and in this case the recommendation to divest came own to hear these various reports and we dealt with many many issues in this assembly and to hear the recommendations to hear testimony people come and talk about why we shouldn't do this why we do this so it's like a congressional hearing and so we need an committees congressional committees have compressional hearings about about what we should the date is you came to us and we did and we did and then this the committees then vote to the assembly that we should or should make a recommendation to the assembly so the first three if through about about the first half of the general assembly we spend in committees  doing this up close work and and then those recommendations come to the assembly and we have to vote we we have today we have to take action on them so the the report that came the recommendation to divest from these three corporations that we divest it from the case was that that committee had been faithful and the foundation and other entities had been faithful in their attempts at positive engagement to shareholder engagement with these corporations and that frankly there had been no progress and if anything in some even even entrenchment and that it really came down to her in one of the one of the presentations somebody kept using the word stewardship it really came down to the principle and stewardship and i speak of moral integrity comes down to the moral integrity of our church as advocating and standing for peace and justice in the middle of these east how can we then be investing in corporations that are involved on the on peaceful napco to peace and justice right right so you're really not taking a political position it's not taking up peace and justice because absolutely and can soap some people say all you know splitting hairs why is that important well it's important because it is important to understand that ethical use of our resources as a church matters were not very big are the amount of money that we have in these three corporations is not going to cause a hick up but it matters in terms of who we are and what we are and what we represent  we say to the world that our concern is for peace and justice that we cannot then be on the other side investing our  i have to say and it's important to frame it that way as a way of emphasizing what this vote is not this vote is not a condemnation of israel this vote is not intended as an insult or hurtful gesture toward israel and certainly our our jewish american ecumenical partners it was a day and that was why was so difficult and that's why at the end of that vote it was close i think it's good that it was close because it shows how hard and wrenching such a decision was and the amount of struggle that goes into it  moderate or stop meeting at the end of that vote and spoke directly from you know from his position to our american jewish community to say clearly this is not of that is intended to be an insult or our expressed lack of support for our jewish jewish ecumenical partner and as we know certainly after that we had the tragedy of the three israeli young men who were kidnapped and then since then even now it's it's everything is escalated what what is your view of what's going on there now and how does that how do you reconcile that with the position of peace and justice and what would you say to the israelis and say to the palestinians  getting our feet back on the ground that the murder of these three children israeli children occurred reprehensible app and inexcusable and what was  disturbing was that i wish it had been treated as a represent reprehensible murder and crime was i wish it had been i wish authorities had responded to it in terms of the intention to seek justice and to seek comfort and help for the families that the and to seek justice for those who perpetrated this instead of immediately began to clamor for vengeance and i do think that the language of justice and the language of vengeance are fundamentally different and they fundamentally shape the context in which things unfold from there so once things are framed in the language of vengeance i'm afraid it wasn't surprising to me that there would have been the deaf the horrible murder murder in all wiser than me long for and work hard for is finding some way to change that dynamic and to and this is a fundamental theological issue because you know conviction and with a willingness from time to time to take a hard stance and and then to be humble and share in people's pain and suffering as  as we have to live in the world we still live in they have you been in touch with some of the people that you met on the witness to war and had an opportunity to kind of get their impressions of what's going on now i have i mentioned the the person who was our guide in bethlehem was in come see me going to pronounce his name is often i can't he is a an accomplished geneticist and he teaches a to him i wrote to him last week and advance of this partly in response to his description of some of the pain in his own family about what's what's going on there right now and so i wrote him with consul to console and express support but also to ask him if he would like to say something about what this vote meant to him so i'm just going to read to his his response he says dear friend thank you for your kind words here's how i felt after i heard of the concern for the p c u s we empower stein are not alone people have good conscious act on their beliefs action speaks louder than words like in south africa under apartheid and in all colonial anti colonial struggles peace only comes through actions of just i spread the word and encouraged others to take more steps i prayed that i will see the day when all these actions coalesce together and palestine is free twelve million of those five million refugees or displaced five million under brutal regime and freedom and peace here will mean freedom and peace in all parts of the world including the us which is occupied in its own way as i have to ask the very brief time that we have left and i i really appreciate you coming what would you suggest that we as americans do when we look at the middle east and how we can help really peace and justice how we can really get to that point peace and justice i think one of the things that we all as americans need to do is to search and make ourselves aware of the narrative the various narratives and how they compete and how ignorance and a lack of respect for both the israeli narrative and the palestinian narrative how both matter and how and how we need to learn more about both so that we can come at issues and participate in these difficult conversations and in more helpful ways if you can go there go when i was invited i will admit to having some fear and trepidation trepidation but i really could there's nothing like seeing certainly there's nothing like seeing and  talking to people i think it is important for isn't it as in many other areas for us to not only educate ourselves but then to to participate in conversations would participate in actions who are do contribute and support people who are who are trying to promote peace and justice the nonviolence ducked of flats or it was a pleasure for you being here and i just hope that the your church has taken can help advance peace and justice because as we talked earlier in our life time is always think conflict there so i want to thank you ben thank you very much and thank you for joining us and off the front page