World Episcopalian leaders are recommending that the church withdraw investments from Israel to pressure the country to ease the "draconian conditions" imposed on the Palestinians, a church official said Thursday.
Those recommending "divestment," or taking capital out of the country, include church leaders from the United States, Australia and New Zealand, said Nancy Dinsmore, director of development for the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem.
Twenty-nine representatives of the church toured Israel and the West Bank this week before drawing conclusions about the 4-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Their recommendations will be made to a meeting next year in Wales of the Anglican Consultative Council, the church's ruling body.
Dinsmore said she did not know how much the worldwide Anglican Church had invested in Israel.
The Rev. Canon Brian Grieves, the leader of the U.S. church, who is based in New York, believes divestment could be a way to bring an end to the conflict, Dinsmore said. Many Palestinians and Arabs around the world support the idea of divestment, which was used against South Africa to help end apartheid.
The tour exposed the church leaders "to the draconian conditions of the continuing occupation under which so many Palestinians live," the group said on its Web site.
The statement did not include a mention of divestment, since not all 29 leaders signing it support divestment as an option for their country's church, Dinsmore said.
Israeli officials were not available for comment on the church position.
Jenny Te Paa of New Zealand, who led the delegation, said the church had become increasingly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause recently, and the ruling council was likely to accept the idea of divestment.
The group toured the West Bank, meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Palestinian church representatives. The group also met with an Israeli social activist and several Israeli Arabs, but no government officials.
Dinsmore said Israeli Foreign Ministry officials were unable to meet the delegation because of the Jewish holidays.
The delegation's statement urged Israel to implement U.N. resolutions that call for an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian areas it captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
The group condemned all violence, but concluded "it is the occupation in its many facets that foments the violence and fuels the conflict."