Evangelical Lutheran Church in America: Stop US aid to Israel if settlements allowed to stay
According to the Jewish Telegraph Agency: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America approved a resolution calling on the U.S. government to end all aid to Israel if Israel does not stop building settlements and “enable an independent Palestinian state.
Voting at its triennial assembly in New Orleans that ended Saturday, the church also sought a halt to all investment in companies that profit from Israel’s occupation and called on the president of the United States to recognize the State of Palestine.
The aid vote, which passed 751-162, urged church members to “call on their U.S. Representatives, Senators and the Administration to take action requiring that to continue receiving U.S. financial and military aid, Israel must comply with internationally recognized human rights standards as specified in existing U.S. law, stop settlement building and the expansion of existing settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, end its occupation of Palestinian territory, and enable an independent Palestinian state.”
The ELCA publication, Peace Not Walls, explains it position within its mission purpose:
Advocacy: We invite you to join our advocacy efforts to bring about a just and lasting negotiated resolution to the Palestinian Israeli conflict.
- Call for equal human dignity and rights for all people in the Holy Land.
- Call for an end to Israeli settlement building and the occupation of Palestinian land, both of which violate international law;
- Call for a two-state solution, with two viable, secure states living side-by-side.
- Ask individuals to invest in Palestinian products to build their economy and to utilize selective purchasing to avoid buying products made in illegal Israeli settlements built on Palestinian land.
- Call for an examination of U.S. military aid to Israel to ensure compliance with U.S. and international human rights law and a possible withholding of aid for noncompliance with those laws.
Editor CEC
This is an interesting proposal by an American Lutheran church. I do not know the Lutheran church but it is evidently a schism . Are there other churches who could demonstrate unity? I should think not.
his should be encouraging but this Evangelical Lutheran fails to recognize all their representatives would loose their coveted positions if they would even hear the proposal of sanctions against Israel.
There should be no aid to Israel anyway for any reason. Help may be given to Palestinians but they were self sufficient before advent of Israel. This is a compromise and Heaven and Earth should abhor this refusal of resolution.
Remember the parents of Rachel Corey , whose supplication to Israel was rebuked and further appeal to the US Representatives was ridiculed.
Is it not yet time to see! ? This is blindness with a feeble pretense and it will not impress the Jews wherever the may be be.
Ron Paul: End ALL foreign aid(Including Israel)(2012) .