Israel Defense Forces bulldozer

The United Methodist Church's official lobby office is urging church agencies and members to divest their holdings in Caterpillar Inc. because the company sells bulldozers to Israel.

United Methodist General Board of Church and Society sponsored the resolution, accusing Caterpillar of facilitating Israel's destruction of Palestinian property.

Caterpillar, along with Israel, was the target of a lawsuit by the family of Rachel Corrie after the activist was crushed by a bulldozer in 2003 while attempting to block the destruction of a Palestinian home used to facilitate arms smuggling.

The resolution will go before the United Methodist General Conference in April 2008.

The 7.9 million member church's pension agency reportedly has $5 million in Caterpillar stock out of $15 billion in assets.

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Other mainline churches, including the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Church of England, recently have rejected similar measures.

However, WND reported earlier when the Presbyterian Church hosted a three-day meeting to justify to denomination leaders its decision to divest from Israel, presenting what one church elder described as a panel of "full-time, paid, anti-Israel propagandists."

The denomination's General Assembly had voted 431-62 to divest from the Jewish state. At the time, the PCUSA was believed to be the largest organization or institution to join the divestment campaign against the Jewish state. It was the first Christian denomination to do so, but later decisions reversed that.

As WND reported in June, the United Church of Christ's General Synod adopted a resolution "in support of a renewed and balanced study and response to the conflict between Palestine and Israel."

Previously, the United Church of Christ had approved resolutions calling for the tearing down of walls constructed by Israel to protect itself from terrorist attacks coming from the Palestinian Authority territories and for divestment from the Jewish state.

Mark Tooley of the IRD, said the Methodist Church is out of step.

"How bizarre that the United Methodist Board of Church and Society now is jumping aboard a long-stalled bandwagon by endorsing anti-Israel divestment against Caterpillar, when other churches are moving in the opposite direction," he said. "And does anyone really think that punishing Caterpillar will help create a peace in the Middle East?"

Tooley urged the Methodist board to examine a 2006 resolution approved by the church's Pacific Northwest Conference noting "some church groups have selectively advocated divestment of firms doing business with Israel while ignoring severe human rights abuses by the governments of Israel's neighbors."

The Northwest resolution affirmed the Jewish state as "nearly the only long-standing democracy among its neighbors in the Middle East" and declared that "selective attention to Israel's mistakes will not create peace in the Middle East."

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