Between Sept. 18-24, 2016, activists and staffers associated with the World Council of Churches, an umbrella organization of 350 Protestant and Orthodox churches headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, will be participating in a “World Week for Peace in Palestine-Israel.”
It’s an annual event promoted on the internet and in WCC member churches throughout the world every September.
The WCC promotes a distorted view of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In this narrative, Israelis are responsible for the continued existence of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the suffering it causes. The misdeeds of the Palestinians, are generally not worth mentioning. (For a brief discussion of the propaganda that is being broadcast by the WCC this year, please see this CAMERA-produced article published in The Algemeiner earlier this week.)
As the articles linked below demonstrate, the World Council of Churches has repeatedly and regularly condemned Israeli actions, while remaining relatively silent about the misdeeds of Arabs and Muslim leaders and political movements in the Middle East.
This is particularly evident in the WCC’s failure to respond to the PLO’s massacre of Christians during the Lebanese civil war. Under the leadership of Yassir Arafat, the PLO killed thousands of Christians at Damour in 1976.
This did not stop the WCC from issuing a laudatory eulogy for Arafat when he died in 2004. It read in part, “On his long road as a leader, Yasser Arafat came to the recognition that true justice embraces peace, security and hope for both Palestinians and Israelis.”
At one point, the EAPPI published an editorial in its now defunct magazine (ChainReaction) calling for a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict (which would have meant the elimination of the Jewish state) and another article that called on supporters to break the law by hacking government websites. (This article has since been removed from the Internet.)
When it comes to addressing Muslim violence against Christians, the WCC does issue statements of condemnation, but typically these statements are much softer than the criticism WCC institutions direct at Israel. As an ecumenical body, the WCC has gone out of its way not to offend the sensibilities of Muslim leaders with whom it dialogues.
In 2015, the World Council of Churches issued a statement calling on unnamed outside actors to refrain from participating in the Syrian civil war, but for the most part, the WCC has remained silent about atrocities committed by actors in this conflict.
The UN conference in Durban was a watershed event that demonstrated that the international human rights community had been hijacked by a very ugly and hostile group of activists who were more interested in promoting hatred of Israel than promoting human welfare. Instead of standing up to this agenda, the WCC assisted it. In a press release, the WCC’s delegation to the conference stated that it “celebrates that such a forum was held, because it falls within the WCC’s long-cherished tradition of giving space, and supporting victims [of racism] to speak publicly.” The delegation also reported that it “was greatly helped by the sensitive explanations and support of its Palestinian members.”
Interestingly enough, the Durban conference said next to nothing about the violation of human rights in Muslim-majority countries. Predictably, the affirmed this distorted agenda before the conference started. In a background paper submitted to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on August 15, 2001, the WCC exhibited an exclusive focus on the impact of white colonialism on Third World peoples without acknowledging the impact Arab imperialism and expansionist Islam have had on minorities throughout the world. (For more information, please go here.)
But here’s the kicker. The WCC also moved for the deletion of a reference to antisemitism and efforts to delegitmiize the Jewish state from a resolution set to be approved by the conference. For more information, please go here.
Background
Here is a list of articles that document the WCC’s troubling hostility toward the Jewish state.
The World Council of Churches’ Ongoing Anti-Israel Obsession, The Algemeiner, Sept. 14, 2016.
Dignity… Or Dhimmitude? The Algemeiner, Sept. 14, 2014.
World Council of Churches attacks Israel to no gain, The Commentator, June 3, 2013.
The World Council of Churches Anti-Israel Policies, Arutz Sheva, Dec. 29, 2011.
The World Council of Churches Broadcasts a Lethal Narrative, CAMERA, Oct. 11, 2011.
The World Council of Churches Made Durban Worse, CAMERA, Sept. 13, 2011.
Broadcasting a Lethal Narrative: The World Council of Churches and Israel, Jewish Political Studies Review, Aug. 1, 2011.