WCC head: Occupation is a sin against God

The following is an extract from a report given by the Rev. Samuel Kobia, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, to the WCC's Central Committee in August 2009.

“In my visit to the Middle East last year I was accompanied by the general secretaries of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) and the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA). We began our journey with a joint consultation on migration, meeting in Beirut, Lebanon with participants from the MECC, CCA, the WCC and the Conference of European Churches (CEC). Churches in the Middle East are seriously concerned that more and more Christians are leaving the region that has been home of some of the oldest churches. In the context of war and violence in the region, people are desperately searching for security for themselves and their families.

“To fully understand the gravity of the ongoing construction of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), we must see the situation within the broader historical context of ethnic upheaval in Palestine which paved the way for the creation of the modern state of Israel. Israelis recall “The War of Independence”, but for Palestinians this period will forever be the Nakba, the “catastrophe”, remembered by many as a form of “ethnic cleansing” that saw the largest forced migration in modern history.

"It is estimated that no less than a million people were expelled from their homes at gunpoint, civilians were massacred, hundreds of Palestinian villages deliberately destroyed, mosques and churches profaned, and convents and schools vandalized. What in 1948 was described by Palestinians leaders as “racism and ghettoizing the Palestinians in Haifa” has by the beginning of the 21^st century in  the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza become a full-blown apartheid system complete with its brand of “Bantustans”.

“Despite fresh signs of hope internationally, events in the Occupied Palestinian Territories demonstrate yet again the unyielding nature of Israel’s occupation and the endless creation of new obstacles to peace. The trend that speaks loudest about occupation policies is the multiplication and expansion of settlements on land taken from Palestinians. Even a settlement freeze requested by Israel’s strongest ally remains in limbo, along with the meaningful negotiations such a freeze could facilitate. Instead there are large urban settlement construction projects and many smaller projects taking place throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The current evictions of Palestinian families and demolition of their homes in East Jerusalem underscore the trend. Hundreds of church-owned properties are at risk. Such actions hobble the efforts by the new US administration to reach out to the Middle East as whole.

“Occupation along with the concomitant humiliation of a whole people for over six decades constitutes not just economic and political crimes but, like anti-Semitism, it is a sin against God. We have already said since 1948 that anti-Semitism was a sin against God. Are we ready to say that occupation is also a sin against God? Two hundred settlements with 400,000 inhabitants have been established in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, since 1967. I urge this central committee to adopt the public policy statement expressly addressing this issue because settlements have been and will remain incompatible with a just peace that must serve both Palestinians and Israelis and must secure viable and mutually recognized states for both peoples.

“At its meeting in Crete shortly after the 1967 war that began the occupation, the WCC central committee rejected any nation – including Israel – keeping or annexing the territory of another. At the Harare assembly in 1998 and many other times, the WCC has cited the problem of settlements. Our consistent appeal is for the governments involved to enforce the Geneva Convention’s prohibition against changes in the population and character of occupied territories. Our concern to end the occupation is urgent but not new.”

Read the full text of this report at: http://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/central-committee/geneva-2009/reports-and-documents/report-of-the-general-secretary.html