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NEWS ANALYSIS
Bulldozing divestment in Caterpillar
By Mark Tooley

United Methodist officials are urging their 7.9 million member denomination to divest from Caterpillar, Inc. stock to punish Israel. Meanwhile, the chief of United Methodism’s Washington lobby office, which is the divestment campaign’s main proponent, recently traveled to Peoria, Illinois, to meet with Caterpillar’s CEO and to explain his agency’s divestment idea to skeptical local church members.  

“It tears me up to see the pain and suffering in the Middle East,” said the Rev. Steven Sprecher, a director on the United Methodist Board of Church and Society.  On January 25 he was addressing leading delegates to the church’s governing General Conference, which meets in April, and where the divestment issue will be decided. The United Methodist Church’s pensions fund has at least $5 million in Caterpillar stock in its $17 billion portfolio.

Sprecher pointed at Caterpillar’s sale of bulldozers to Israel, which he said deploys them to build the “illegal” security wall. He did not mention that the wall’s purpose is to protect against Palestinian suicide bombers. He also complained that Israel bulldozes Palestinian homes, while not mentioning that homes are targeted for housing weapons depots or terrorist activities. Caterpillar is “involved in suffering caused by its products,” Sprecher asserted. “We also condone it if we do nothing.”

Representing United Methodism’s New England Conference, Susanne Hoder joined with Sprecher in alleging that their church’s investments with Caterpillar help “sustain the occupation.” She alleged that the church is “deriving income from the persecution of Christians,” because a small minority of Palestinians is Christian. “This is a legitimate American response to injustice,” Hoder claimed, warning against “powerful Israeli lobby groups.”

In the few moments he was allowed to speak, Rabbi Gary Greenebaum of the American Jewish Committee more plausibly represented American Jews when he implored: “Don’t give in to the demonization of Israel.”

The Rev. Tim Bias, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Peoria where Caterpillar is headquartered, asked Sprecher whether the Board of Church and Society had ever talked to Caterpillar before endorsing divestment. Sprecher regretted that there had not been any approach to Caterpillar before the divestment vote in September 2007. “We would serve ourselves better if we had conversation before passing resolutions,” Bias responded.

On January 11, the chief of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, Jim Winkler, spoke at Bias’s church and privately met with church member Jim Owens, the chief executive officer of Caterpillar. Winkler was confronted with mostly hostile questions during his time at First United Methodist Church. Israel is the only country against which Winkler’s agency is urging a substantive divestment.

Winkler reminisced about United Methodism’s stance against South African apartheid. But according to Dave Zellner of the United Methodist Pensions Board, the denomination never specifically divested from any U.S. firm doing business with South Africa. “It’s uncharted territory to divest from a particular company,” Zellner told the same audience before which Sprecher and Hoder had urged anti-Caterpillar divestment.

When asked what exactly he wants Caterpillar to do to merit United Methodist investments, Winkler struggled to answer. But eventually he suggested the company require moral behavior of its customers and that it invest more among the Palestinians.

Reportedly, the audience at First United Methodist Church in Peoria was less than persuaded by Winker’s boasts of peacemaking. In all likelihood, the denomination’s governing General Conference, which meets in Fort Worth, Texas starting on April 23, will likewise be unimpressed with a divestment policy that exclusively villainizes Israel and Caterpillar.

Mark D. Tooley directs the United Methodist committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy.



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