Meeting earlier this month in Geneva, the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC) issued a statement charging that Israel’s “discrimination against Palestinians is overt and systemic, and the ongoing half-century-long occupation continues to contradict the equal human dignity and human rights of Palestinians living under this system of control, while the response of the international community continues to reflect egregious double standards.”
The WCC’s governing body said that “recent events in Israel and Palestine have highlighted the mounting obstacles to a just peace in the region.”
The committee expressed its “deep concern” regarding the “rapidly deteriorating situation,” citing Israel’s recent disruption of Christian religious observances, the Israeli Supreme Court’s decision that gave Israeli settlers the right to expropriate church properties near the Jaffa Gate, the impunity enjoyed by Israeli extremists, and the threat of forced displacement which has begun in many West Bank Palestinian communities.
The statement also pointed to “the lack of accountability for the IDF personnel considered most likely responsible for the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh,” contrasting it with Israel’s “response to recent attacks on Israelis, in which Palestinians responsible for such attacks were killed, their homes demolished and their families displaced.”
In addition to calling upon the government and authorities of Israel “to ensure equal human rights for all people living under their responsibility, and to ensure accountability for attacks and violations against Palestinians, against the holy places, churches, Christian communities, Muslims and other groups…,” the Central Committee appealed to the international community “to speak out against the looming evictions in Masafer Yatta and other threatened displacements of Palestinian communities in the occupied territories.”
The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of 352 churches from more than 120 countries representing over 580 million Christians worldwide.
This fall, over 4,000 participants are expected to gather in Germany for the WCC’s General Assembly which meets every eight years for prayer, conversation and celebration. Observers will watch to see if the General Assembly will affirm the Central Committee’s statement, name Israel’s discrimination, and call on its member churches to work in concrete ways to end Israel’s occupation.
What are the US, UK, and the EU waiting for?
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and BT’selem have declared Israel an Apartheid nation.
The discrimination and human rights violations against the Palestinians have been so obvious, and we have many international organizations, including Churches, all confirming what we should call evil and brutal crimes, against civilians, which can be all verified by documents, videos, and witnesses. We all have been disgusted by the above countries responding indifferently, minimizing the crimes, and sometimes even calling the proven crimes as “anti-semitic” accusations. What more do they want to do the right thing, accept these findings/statements, and do the right thing by the Palestinian people?
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/06/1119912
U.N. report, posted in June:
Occupation, discrimination driving Israel-Palestine conflict, recurring violence…“The findings and recommendations relevant to the underlying root causes were overwhelmingly directed towards Israel, which we have taken as an indicator of the asymmetrical nature of the conflict and the reality of one State occupying the other,” said Navanethem Pillay, the Commission’s chair, who also served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2008-2014. …“It is only with the ending of occupation that the world can begin to reverse historical injustices and move towards self-determination of the Palestinian peoples,” he added. However, it is clear that Israel has no intention of ending the occupation, according to Commissioner Chris Sidoti.
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Apartheid: How a Reluctant UN Official Was convinced to so Describe Israeli Policies toward Palestinians (juancole.com)
“Apartheid: How a Reluctant UN Official Was convinced to so Describe Israeli Policies toward Palestinians” by Juan Cole, June 27/22Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – “Dawnmena (Dawn in the Middle East & North Africa), the democratization site founded by the late Jamal Khashoggi, carries an important column this week by Michael Lynk, who was the seventh United Nations Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, serving in that position between 2016 & 2022. It is about how the mild-mannered professor of law at Western University in Ontario — who came into office with a distaste for using the term ‘Apartheid’ to describe Israeli rule over the Occupied Palestinians because he felt it was undiplomatic & unhelpful in securing the cooperation of the Israeli authorities — in the course of six years made a 180-degree turn & used the term himself in his last report to the U.N.
“Sometimes apologists for the over 50-year Israeli military Occupation of what are now about 5 million Palestinians try to argue that their situation is not exactly like that in South Africa. Well, for one thing, many South Africans who have been to the West Bank have said that it is worse than their Apartheid or racial segregation policy.
“But an exact comparison with South Africa is by now beside the point. I observed elsewhere, . . the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court adopted a universalized definition of Apartheid practices unconstrained by the South African historical model, which is intended to be applied to other societies in the world.
“As HRW [Human Rights Watch] notes, the Rome Statute defines Apartheid as ‘inhumane acts… committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression & domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups & committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.’ That language clearly does describe Israeli activities in the West Bank and Gaza.” (cont’d)
“’Discrimination against Palestinians is overt and systemic,’ says World Council of Churches Central Committee.”
Another example of Zionism in action:
Israel shoots boy, leaves him to bleed | The Electronic Intifada
The Electronic Intifada, Rights and Accountability June 27/22 “Israel shoots boy, leaves him to bleed” By Tamara Nassar.
“A 16-year-old boy died after being shot & left to bleed by Israeli forces on Friday.”
“Israeli occupation forces were deployed near Route 60, south of the occupied West Bank village of Silwad, when Muhammad Abdullah Salah Suleiman was shot. Route 60 is a highway used by Israeli settlers.
“Many Palestinians have been killed by Israeli gunfire in this area.
“Muhammad was shot ‘from a distance of 50 meters, from a military watchtower, ‘where no events took place,’ according to an investigation by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR).
“An Israeli ambulance transported Muhammad to the Shaare Zedek medical center in Jerusalem after he bled for 45 minutes, according to a field investigation by Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP).
PCHR’s investigation says he was left to bleed for two hours.
“Israeli occupation forces ‘left Muhammad to bleed for about two hours, prevented Palestinian ambulances from reaching him & indiscriminately & heavily opened fire to prevent anyone from approaching him as well,’ PCHR stated.
“Soldiers know no bounds””The child later died from his wounds, & his parents were informed of his death in the early hours of Saturday.
“Muhammad’s father, Abdullah Suleiman, told PCHR that Muhammad was shot with a live bullet to the chin.
“’It is unclear exactly where on his body Mohammad sustained gunshot wounds because Israeli authorities have not yet released his body to Palestinian authorities or to Muhammad’s family,’ DCIP said.
“Israel’s withholding of the teen’s body hampers an investigation into his death & prevents his family from holding a burial.
“’Israeli soldiers know no bounds & kill Palestinian children with impunity,’ Ayed Abu Eqtaish from DCIP said.
“Muhammad’s killing brings to 15 the number of Palestinian children killed by Israeli fire since the beginning of the year.
“The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF posted a tweet about the killing, omitting the fact that Israeli occupation forces were responsible.”
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“The crime of apartheid under the Apartheid Convention & Rome Statute consists of three primary elements: an intent to maintain a system of domination by one racial group over another; systematic oppression by one racial group over another; & one or more inhumane acts, as defined, carried out on a widespread or systematic basis pursuant to those policies.
“Among the inhumane acts identified in either the Convention or the Rome Statute are ‘forcible transfer,’ ‘expropriation of landed property,’ ‘creation of separate reserves & ghettos,’ and denial of the ‘the right to leave & to return to their country, [and] the right to a nationality.’
“As the Israeli Human Rights organization B’Tselem also pointed out, between the Jordan River & the Mediterranean there are now 6.8 million Jews & 6.8 million Palestinians, all of them ruled over by the Israeli state. They are systematically & intentionally treated differently, with the Palestinians given far fewer rights & treated much more harshly on the basis of race & ethnicity. Even inside Israel, the Knesset or parliament passed a measure in 2018 declaring that sovereignty solely resides in the Jewish people, formally making Israeli citizens of Palestinian extraction, over 20% of the population, second class citizens. What then of the militarily Occupied Palestinians in the Territories, who labor under martial law administered by Israeli officers?
“That Human Rights Watch & Amnesty International both came to the conclusion in 2021 – 2022 that Israel is practicing Apartheid as defined in the UN Apartheid Convention & the 2002 Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court at the Hague, helped convince Lynk that the term was inescapable.
“The newsletter of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights quoted Lynk’s final conclusions after six years of visiting the area and reporting on it,
“’There is today in the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 a deeply discriminatory dual legal & political system that privileges the 700,000 Israeli Jewish settlers living in the 300 illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem & the West Bank. Living in the same geographic space, but separated by walls, checkpoints, roads & an entrenched military presence, are more than three million Palestinians, who are without rights, living under an oppressive rule of institutional discrimination.”