Ending Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories with boycott and divestment would be like “snails confronting a tsunami,” David Wildman, executive secretary for Human Rights and Racial Justice, general board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church in the United States, said last week during the United Nations Advocacy Week organized by the World Council of Churches in Geneva.
Wildman made the comment while speaking in an Advocacy Week session on Israel-Palestine dealing with “Strategies for ending Israeli occupation”.
“Justice work means praying with our feet and raising our voices in public confrontation with unjust authorities,” he said, citing how the Presbyterian Church (USA) took on Caterpillar, Citigroup, ITTI Industries, Motorola and United Technologies concerning investment in Israel in June 2004.
But the statistics Wildman presented in his case for divestment were enormously challenging to the audience.
Ninety-nine percent of children killed in the Israel and Palestine conflict are Palestinians. They fell to US-supplied weapons, he said. “We, US tax payers, have invested in them.”
“So, indirectly, I am funding terrorist attacks on my siblings.”
Wildman also said Israel is using sophisticated machines made by Hewlett Packard (HP) for screening its gates, so “indirectly we are also supporting this systematic discrimination”.
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