Dear General Assembly Mission Council and General Assembly Commissioners,

We are a diverse group of individuals and organizations united in our support for the PC(USA) Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) recommendation to place Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, and Hewlett Packard on the General Assembly Divestment List until such time as they have ceased profiting from non-peaceful pursuits in Israel-Palestine.

For more than six years, MRTI has attempted meaningful engagement with Caterpillar and Motorola Solutions, and attempts have been made to engage Hewlett Packard for almost as long. MRTI's requests for meetings and calls have been rebuffed, cancelled, or rendered futile by inadequate representation, as documented extensively by MRTI.

MRTI is just one of many groups that have tried unsuccessfully to engage with these companies. For example, Caterpillar has been adamant in its refusal to end its involvement in Israel's occupation in spite of outreach from Jewish Voice for Peace, the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice (founded in honor of Rachel Corrie, a young American woman who was killed by the Israeli military with a weaponized Caterpillar D9 bulldozer as she nonviolently protected a Palestinian house from demolition), and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (a coalition of more than 380 organizations around the United States supporting corporate accountability and an end to U.S. support for Israel's oppressive policies). Motorola Solutions and Hewlett Packard have been equally unresponsive to engagement to align their actions with international law by ending their involvement in Israel's illegal occupation.

Given six years of refusal to comply with international law and change corporate behavior and culture, divestment from these companies is a moral imperative. The activities of companies like Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlett Packard in the occupation are well documented by the Israeli research organization, Who Profits?, along with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and countless other human rights organizations and institutions. At this very moment, by investing in these companies, the PC(USA) is helping to fund the illegal demolition of Palestinian homes, uprooting of olive groves; land confiscation; expansion of the separation wall; technology to blockade the people in Gaza and deny Palestinians access to medical care, school, and crucial services; biometric technology used only on Palestinians at checkpoints within the West Bank, and the construction of Jewish-only settlements and segregated roads.

Since PC(USA) already prohibits investment of Foundation and Pension Funds in military contractors, and since these corporations are furnishing military equipment to the Israeli military, divesting from them is already consistent with Presbyterian policy. Divestment from these three companies is the next step following two decades of General Assembly resolutions calling for Israel to "cease the systematic violation of the human rights of Palestinians" (190th GA, 1988); for an "end the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem" (215th GA, 2003); for an end to "construction of the separation wall by the State of Israel in the West Bank" (216th GA, 2004); for the Mission Responsibility through Investment Committee (MRTI) "to initiate a process of phased selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel, in accordance to General Assembly policy on social investing, and to make appropriate recommendations to the General Assembly Council for action" (216th & 220th GAs, 2004, 2008); and for corporations doing business in Israel, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank "… to confine their business activity solely to peaceful pursuits, and refrain from allowing their products or services to support or facilitate violent acts by Israelis or Palestinians against innocent civilians, construction and maintenance of settlements or Israeli-only roads in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territory, and construction of the Separation Barrier as it extends beyond the 1967 'Green Line' into Palestinian territories" (218th GA, 2008).

We know very well that the backlash against this recommendation is strong. We know that opponents of corporate accountability will do everything they can to intimidate you and dissuade you from taking the next step. They will encourage you to try to engage for another six years, and then another six after that. They will tell you that divestment from Israel's discriminatory policies is anti-Semitic, implying that action against oppression is action against Judaism -- a very dangerous claim. They will tell you to instead invest in Palestinian infrastructure while you simultaneously invest in the corporations that help to systematically destroy that same infrastructure. They will tell you that the status quo is neutral and divestment is taking sides, when in fact the opposite is true -- remaining invested in occupation is taking the side of oppression.

Churches have been at the forefront of many modern social justice struggles, including the civil rights movement and the anti-apartheid movement. Divestment is a long-established, respected, and nonviolent tactic that has played a crucial role in the Presbyterian Church's proud history of leading the way on human rights issues, even when doing so was not necessarily popular yet.

We proudly join thousands of courageous leaders and people of conscience around the world in supporting divestment from these and other companies involved is the occupation, including South African anti-apartheid leader Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Maguire, and many others. We hope you will do the right thing and join them too by honoring the Presbyterian Church's legacy in helping to end injustices by rendering them no longer profitable.

We urge you to support MRTI's recommendation and make 2012 a landmark year in promoting justice and peace in the Holy Land.