Global Denomination United Methodist Church (UMC) Leads Divestment from Bonds of Israel and Other Occupying Governments
The church’s primary investment agency, Wespath, implements and expands the 2024 resolution of the denomination’s top legislative body. This Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) success follows many years of grassroots advocacy by United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR).
The United Methodist Church (UMC), one of the world’s largest Christian denominations, has become the first church globally to initiate historic action to divest from and exclude bonds of governments maintaining prolonged illegal military occupations, namely Israel, Turkey, and Morocco, thus fulfilling the call of the church’s General Conference in 2024.
That call was heard in a resolution written and led by the grassroots justice movement United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR). Inspired by that resolution, Wespath decided to expand its human rights investing framework to include other prolonged military occupations, authoritarian regimes, and more.
“This new investing framework reflects our church’s Social Principles quite well. We are proud and pleased that UMKR’s resolution has inspired even broader action for human rights by Wespath,” said Lisa Bender, co-chair of UMKR’s Steering Committee.
This fulfillment of the 2024 divestment resolution is a significant success for the Palestinian BDS movement, of which UMKR is a part, and will reduce United Methodist complicity in Israel’s genocide, apartheid regime, and its 77-year-old occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The announcement by Wespath comes amid growing international outrage over Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians in Gaza and the alarming expansion of Israel’s violence, ethnic cleansing, and annexation plans in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This outrage has been reflected in bolder actions by world powers and increasing calls for sanctions on Israel in the U.S. Congress.
