Anti-Israel activists like David Wildman at the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries and the caucus group United Methodist Kairos Response are claiming the United Methodist General Board of Pension and Health Benefits divested from British firm G4S because of its work for Israeli prisons.

This claim is conveniently timed to precede the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly, which will consider anti-Israel divestment next week.

The United Methodist General Conference in 2012 voted by two to one against divesting from firms doing business with Israel.

Wildman told The New York Times that the sale of about 0,000 worth of G4S stock holdings was, as the article paraphrased, “intended to have a larger symbolic impact, adding to the pressure on Israel to stop building settlements and end the occupation.”

Wildman is quoted in a Kairos news release: “This is the first time that a United Methodist general agency has included human rights violations related to Israel’s illegal settlements and military occupation in a decision to divest from a company. We celebrate this strong human rights message both to G4S specifically and to other companies whose business operations support longstanding human rights abuses against Palestinians.”

Kairos claims a “top executive of GBPHB contacted United Methodist Kairos Response (UMKR) leaders this week about the sale of G4S stocks, informing them that this decision was due in large part to the serious concerns about G4S activities raised by United Methodists seeking a just and peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

But the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits has so far said nothing publicly to confirm these claims. Instead the pensions board, in a statement it reports already sharing with Kairos, attributes divesting from G4S to its work in the prison industry, in which the pensions board resolved in early 2012 to avoid investing.

Here’s the pensions board statement:

While we did not have the opportunity to see the UM Kairos Response press release in advance, we shared the information below with them:

“The General Board of Pension and Health Benefits sold its G4S shares for reasons related to a number of that company’s business activities. Our decision was specific to G4S. Our rationale for selling G4S was that we felt the inherent nature of the company’s products and services—which are tailored to the prison industry—may not align with UMC values. We are waiting to conduct additional research after our board of directors meets in July to review and discuss the broad range of our investment policies—we may have additional comments after their deliberations.”

Please attribute this statement to Chief Investment Officer David Zellner of the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits of The United Methodist Church.

The United Methodist Church’s pension board clarified that a divestment move claimed as a victory by boycott-Israel activists was actually about the targeted company’s work with prisons in general.

Supporters of divestment targeting Israel had hailed the pension board’s decision to divest from G4S, which supplies security equipment used in Israeli prisons and elsewhere.

But in a statement issued Friday the pension board stressed that the divestment action was specific to the company’s involvement with prisons.

“The General Board of Pension and Health Benefits sold its G4S shares for reasons related to a number of that company’s business activities. Our decision was specific to G4S,” said David Zellner, chief investment officer of the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits of the United Methodist Church. “Our rationale for selling G4S was that we felt the inherent nature of the company’s products and services — which are tailored to the prison industry — may not align with UMC values. We are waiting to conduct additional research after our board of directors meets in July to review and discuss the broad range of our investment policies — we may have additional comments after their deliberations.”

A news release issued by United Methodist Kairos Response, a movement within the church that advocates on behalf of Palestinian Christians, had said the decision to divest from G4S was “due in part to concerns about the company’s involvement in human rights violations in the Israeli prison system and the military occupation of Palestinian territories.”

The New York Times published an article about the vote Thursday titled “Methodists to Sell Shares as a Protest Over Israel.”

The move comes just days before another mainline Protestant denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), is scheduled to consider five resolutions that would advance divestment from companies that deal with Israel’s military and one that would reconsider whether the church supports a two-state solution.

But Noam Marans, director of interreligious and intergroup relations at the American Jewish Committee, who has been closely following the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, said the decision on G4S does not reflect the United Methodist Church’s position on Israel divestment. In 2012, the church voted 685-246 against divestment from U.S. companies doing business with Israel.

“This is a transparent media stunt on the eve of the Presbyterian Church USA General Assembly trying to prejudice that deliberation of anti-Israel and pro-divestment resolutions in Detroit next week,” he said regarding the effort to link the divestment decision to Israel.

First, believe it or not, the BDSers have decided to get back into the divestment hoax game by declaring that simple business decisions or investment choices based on non-financial issues having nothing to do with Israel are actually successes for their “movement.”

This was a favorite technique the boycotters used years ago which was dropped once people caught onto them, leading to fraudulent stories related to organizations like TIAA-CREF, Blackrock and other financial firms being exposed within hours.

But recent claims that Bill Gates has turned on Israel by divesting from the security company G4S at the behest of the BDSers seems at odds with the massive investments he and Microsoft continue to make in the Israeli economy. And the existence of a perfectly reasonable explanation for Gates’ sale of G4S stock (that he bought it when the price was low and sold it soon afterwards when the price rose) means it is the boycotters’ responsibility to prove that a politically motivated divestment decision took place (by following the same guidelines used for every other divestment project in history, save theirs, described here), rather than our job to prove that it did not.

G4S was involved in a second recent hoax, this one involving the Methodist Church selling off shares in the company due to their general involvement in the management of prisons. And, once again, the BDSers were firing off their press releases declaring the Methodists to now be in their camp, despite the fact that the church has explicitly said their decision had nothing to do with Israel.

While I’ve come to believe that many BDS hoaxes are designed to fuel the Israel haters delusions of potency and effectiveness (even at the cost of being exposed as liars to those who do not share their fantasies), the obvious political motivation for pushing fraudulent stories about the Methodists onto the front pages now is to influence upcoming PCUSA votes via lies that say “The Methodists have joined our movement and so should you!”

Given the sheer number of lies that are being fed to members of the Presbyterian General Assembly: lies about who has divested and who has not, lies about previous church decisions on the matter, and lies about the Middle East itself, it’s clear that the BDSers are going into battle assuming that the people they plan to convince are a bunch of ignoramuses. And while I expect many Presbyterians are unaware of how much pap they are being fed by church leaders working in collusion with internal and external groups like the Israel Palestine Mission Network (IPMN) committee and Sabeel, I’m hoping GA voters maintain enough awareness (and self-respect) to realize the degree to which others are taking advantage of their good nature.

In a second story, here’s a taste of what the church can expect if they decide to undo decisions made by previous General Assemblies in 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012 and return the church to bad old days of 2004 when divestment was official church policy.

That 2004 decision nearly shattered interfaith relations between Jews and Presbyterians, relations that continue to be strained by the church’s incessant attacks on the Jewish state, culminating this year in their ghastly Zionism Unsettled document produced by the aforementioned IPMN and happily distributed by the church itself (to the cheers of David Duke).

Well one Jewish group – The Wiesenthal Center – has finally had it, declaring that relations with PCUSA to be at an end. And if the church decides in the coming days that its true constituency is the BDS movement, they can expect the rest of the Jewish world to deliver a similar message, demonstrating that even the Jewish community is not ready to be slapped in the face for one more decade.

Now in a normal political debate, those pushing for a decision that will unquestionably have such long-term negative results for the church should at least be explaining why those consequences are worth it to participate in the glorious divestment project. But, sadly, those who are BDS activists first and Presbyterians second (working in collusion with a thoroughly corrupted church leadership) are doing all they can to ensure that the voters they hope will rubber stamp their propaganda campaign remain in the dark about where such a move will unquestionably lead.

..all posted within 3 minutes of eachother



poor hasbara troll

So these posers present themselves as being opposed to the Zionist's "illegal" occupation of Palestinian lands, Well, what about the Zionist's "legal" occupation of OTHER Palestinian lands, such as Tell Aviv???

Just what is it that makes the Zionist's murderous theft of SOME Palestinian lands illegal, while some would (those posers for instance) rationalize that the Zionist's chosen murderous theft of OTHER Palestinian lands is "legal".

I can tell you. Shall I???

It is because rich white men said so.

Yep. that is it.

There was a movie called "Amistad" about how SOME Africans were enslaved "illegally". Oh, they didn't focus on the Africans who were enslaved "legally" , because they were the people who legally enslaved the OTHER Africans. Supply and demand. Africans enslaved illegally lowered the monetary value of those enslaved legally. The suffering of those Africans enslaved "illegally was no less the suffering of those Africans enslaved "legally". The ONLY difference was that rich white men "legally" decided that the enslavement of some was somehow less of an offense of the enslavement of others.

Zionists are murderous thieves of Palestinian lands, no matter if it is illegal ( rich white people said it was NOT LEGAL) or if it is "legal" (rich white people said it was LEGAL).

Zionists are nothing more and nothing less than a hoard of murderous thieves. The fact that a bunch of rich white men once drew a line across a map of the Palestinian's homeland and gave Zionist invaders their blessing for Zionists to be murderous thieves of SOME Palestinians lands, ohhhh but NOT those other Palestinian lands is never (NEVER) going to change the fact that Zionists are a bunch of murderous thieves of Palestinian lands, legal or not legal.

Maybe it is time for you to stop accepting the side view as anything other than a load of dung.

But that is your choice, isn't it???

..like pretending to be concerned with Palestinians while simultaneously expressing extreme racist sentiments against African-Americans - parroting right-wing hate talk radio talking points, then going right back to pretending to be concerned with Palestinians..

however a quick google search of "PrionPartyy " shows actual anti-Semitic sentiments (including holohoax denial) on "white pride" forums, showing the concern for Palestinians is simply..

posing



'my map is better than your map' not withstanding

Well, I googled PrionPartyy, and got stories about prison parties. Went back and put quotation marks around PPyy and saw I had over 1600 choices to search through. I only did the first 9 pages.

I looked and could find no false flag PrionPartyy pretending to be me and making any anti-Semitic statements in an attempt to denigrate the real PPyy.

"simultaneously expressing extreme racist sentiments against African -Americans"...

...Well, you are just going to have to point that out to me, because I am not a racist.

So either point it out or we can move on to your future lies, that you can't back up any better than this time.

Holohoax denial? Me? I do not deny the alleged holocaust happened. I wasn't even born until the 1950s. There is no way I could have known what happened or what didn't really happen 20 years be fore I was born.

As far as I know, the "holocaust" happened the exact same way the Hollywood movies suggest. But I don't believe maybe 98% of the allegations. And that does include gas chambers killing millions or any attempt of genocide by NAZIs against anyone.

People pushing the holocaust allegations present what they call evidence of holocaust, but every time you examine the alleged evidence, it comes up short of substance. And only the people who are prejudiced to believe the vacant allegations buy into the story. I am not prejudiced to believe the story because the people pushing the alleged evidence have been caught in too many lies. I once believed them, found out they were lying, and now I am more critical in accepting what passes as evidence to some people as opposed to actual evidence that has actual substance and not just vacant allegations.

Here is one example...Photografs of Hungarian Jews arrive at Auschwitz, and get off the train, but they are marched not into the camp, but to someplace else. People pushing the holocaust story suggest without a single shred of evidence that means they were marched to gas chambers and never made it in the camps. Well, where to start, NAZI camps were going through a typhus epidemic, and the Hungarian Jews had just traveled hundreds of miles in cramped box cars. If even only one person had typhus infected flees, by the end of the trip, they would all have them. These people would have to be processed, just like in the Shawshank Redemption. Stripped down hosed off and dossed with DDT. then they would have been given prison uniforms, just like the movie. You don't see many photos of Auschwitz prisoners wearing street clothes. Do you.

To prejudiced ignorant people, the Hungarian Jews not being marched right into the camp passes as evidence that they were sent to gas chambers. But with the slightest scrutiny, that evidence turns out being not so much evidence, but a test of if you are prejudiced enough to see evidence that doesn't really exist.

No, I don't deny the holocaust happened. I just haven't seen any evidence to support the allegations. And I point out that what passes as evidence to some doesn't pass as actual evidence of any substance.

And I certainly don't deny you the opportunity to present evidence that it did happen just like Hollywood says it did.

And how could not believing the holocaust happened the way Hollywood says make someone anti-Semitic? That makes NO sense what so ever. Who could be upset to learn that NAZIs didn't really murder millions of people in gas chambers??? What kind of sick perverted mind would find that the least bit upsetting???

But is was fun looking up old threads on my google search. And I learned that people were no smarter or had anything of substance to post 5 or 6 years ago than they do today.

wasn't born until the 1960s, not the 1950s

over the years.



the line about "someone false flag .. pretending to be me" was rich



but we are in agreement about the holohoax - just not for the same motivations

your motivation is to justify racist hatred of jews, while mine is simple curiosity over what the've been trying to hide so aggressively they've actually made it illegal in some countries.

heavy handed attempts at censorship pique my interest..

you on the other hand, google searches clearly show, are merely using both Palestinians and the holohoax as cover - the very posing you attempted to cite others on here about.

hypocrisy doesn't suit you especially when no one else's posts are ever good enough - say maps for example - while failing to provide better maps of your own.

your purpose here is trolling and bitching, while ignoring anything of substance - an american version of a hasbara troll..

parroting and repeating the same script over & over serves nothing, zio-con trolls need to be hit with citations and illustrations at the very least

their latest craze is pinkwashing - here's how to effectively address it ^