Episcopal Church defers resolutions labeling Israel ‘apartheid’ state to 2024 convention

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Thursday, July 21, 2022

The Israeli flag made from steel placed at Matan Lookout overlooking the hills of Samaria also known as Nablus Mountains located on the Gidonim ridge (a hilltop on which several Jewish settlements are located), above the Israeli settlement of Itamar in the West Bank. | Getty Images

The Episcopal Church has deferred three resolutions labeling Israel an apartheid state until its next General Convention, scheduled to occur in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2024.

The progressive mainline denomination held its 80th General Convention in Baltimore, Maryland, from July 8-11, having limited its attendance and agenda due to COVID-19 concerns.

Out of over 400 resolutions proposed, the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops deferred 17 to the 2024 churchwide gathering.

Three of the deferred agenda items were measures that labeled Israel an apartheid state, according to a report from Episcopal News Service published Tuesday.

Pennsylvania Bishop Daniel Gutiérrez, chair of the Social Justice and International Policy Committee, said there was a desire to give adequate time to debate the issue.

"We wanted to give it the importance that it deserves and needs," Gutiérrez said, as reported by ENS. He is optimistic that it will get that attention in 2024.

The Episcopal Church has debated the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at general conventions for years and previously entertained resolutions to divest from Israel.

In 2012, then Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori denounced divestment campaigns against Israel, arguing that they were counterproductive and would "only end in punishing Palestinians economically."

At the 79th General Convention in 2018, the House of Bishops rejected a divestment resolution that passed the House of Deputies earlier in the gathering.

"Divestment will not move us one inch forward in the peace process," stated retired Bishop Ed Little of the Diocese of Northern Indiana at the 2018 gathering.

"It will not bring an end to the occupation. It will not lead us to the solution that we all yearn for, which is two states living side by side in peace within secure borders."

Although the Episcopal Church deferred its apartheid resolution until 2024, another mainline Protestant denomination passed a similar measure at their churchwide gathering this month.

Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly delegates voted 266-116 to pass an overture saying Israel was an apartheid state due to its treatment of the Palestinian territories.

The move was criticized by the Jewish human rights organization Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Anti-Defamation League and Presbyterians for Middle East Peace, which felt that both sides were not presented during the debate on the resolution.

"Nary a Jewish voice was heard at the GA, experts offering countering opinions were not allowed to speak, only a select few of the Louisville staff had standing," a statement from Presbyterians for Middle East Peace decried.

Last July, the United Church of Christ passed a resolution at its 33rd General Synod accusing Israel of using “an imperialistic theology” to oppress the Palestinian Territories. The resolution also compared Israel’s actions in the Palestinian Territories to Jim Crow segregation in the United States and rejected the idea that Israel has “a divine right to the land.”

The American Jewish Committee criticized the resolution, saying it “demonizes Israel, fails to offer a credible path to Israeli-Palestinian peace, and undermines advances in Christian-Jewish relations.”

The resolutions come as Israel has been criticized by the United Nations and other international actors for allowing Jewish settlements in territories it controls in the West Bank and Gaza Strip captured in the Six-Day War of 1967.

Michael Gryboski released the novel titled "The Enigma of Father Vera Daniel." For more information, click here.