ACT Alliance

Activities

• Defines itself as “a coalition of more than 140 churches and affiliated organizations working together in over 140 countries to create positive and sustainable change in the lives of poor and marginalised people.”
• According to its website, “Members are associated with the World Council of Churches (WCC) or the Lutheran World Federation.”  At the 2010 Act Alliance launch event in Geneva, Olav Fykse Tveit, General Secretary of the WCC described the relationship of WCC to the Act Alliance as “parenthood.”  Both the WCC and the Lutheran World Federation play roles in the international demonization of Israel.

Political Advocacy

• The ACT Palestine Forum (APF) is an alliance that cooperates in Israel and the Palestinian Authority under the Act Alliance network.
• “Members and observers of APF who cooperate with national actors and are actively engaged” in the region include: Christian Aid (UK), Church of Sweden, Dan Church Aid, Diakonia (Sweden), Norwegian Church Aid, Finn Church Aid, Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission, Inter-Church Organization for Development Cooperation, Act for Peace, and Church World Services; “Actors who are service providers and have headquarters or main offices in the geographic area” include:  Lutheran World Federation, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan & the Holy Land, International Orthodox Christian Charities, Middle East Council of Churches- Department of Service for Palestinian Refugees, and the East Jerusalem – YMCA.
• As the local chapter of the ACT Alliance, APF coordinates and implements ACT Alliance funding. After 2012, the majority of the funding was directed to the Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees (DSPR), a local body of the WCC.
• APF promotes a highly politicized and biased narrative of the Arab- Israeli conflict; international BDS campaigns; and the Kairos Palestine document, which denies Jewish historical connections to Israel.
• Published a February 2013 Advocacy Paper, “The ‘Permit Regime’ and Israeli Attacks on Palestinian Freedom of Worship,” alleging that “Under Israeli military occupation, repression has become the worst of history compared to that of South Africa. It’s a sophisticated form of social, economic, political and racial dicrimiation, strangulation, and genocide, incorporating the worst elements of colonialism and apartheid as well as repressive dispossession, displacement and state terrorism to separate Palestinians from their land and heritage, deny them their rightful civil and human rights, and gradually remove or eliminate them altogether. The ID/permit  system is one of many elements designed to make greater Israel an ethnically pure Jewish state.”
• Targets “Christian communities on the International level through highlighting the general violations of the Israeli State against the Palestinians’ human rights and their continuous breaching of Human Rights Resolutions, International Law, and International Humanitarian Law by stressing Christians’ suffering in the Holy Land and seek to preserve Christians (sic) presence in Palestine.”
• Supports the Palestinian initiative to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) and states that “the United States should support such non-violent means of pursuing justice in accordance with international law,” omitting that the bid is a political maneuver to “internationalize” the conflict against Israel.
• Encourages followers to “Sign the Kairos Palestine ‘Moment of Truth’ document to show your solidarity with Palestinians,” “Boycott settlement products and organize for campaigns in your country to pressure Israel to comply with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights,” and “Become an Ecumenical Accompaniers (EA) by joining the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) programme.”
  • EAPPI frequently uses inflammatory and demonizing rhetoric against Israel; engages in BDS campaigns; participates in activities commemorating the Palestinian “Nakba” (catastrophe); and promotes a Palestinian “right of return,” meaning the end of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.
• Website links to the 2012 report, “Trading Away Peace: How Europe helps sustain illegal Israeli settlements,” which repeats the BDS agenda, calling on the EU and national governments to wage political warfare through various forms of economic sanctions on Israel.
• Website also promotes a number of highly biased and politicized publications by EAPPI, WCC, Kairos Palestine, Badil, and others.
  • Palestinian NGO Badil promotes the Palestinian “Nakba” and “right of return and regularly exploits human rights terminology, accusing Israel of “genocide” and “slow genocide.”  On May 5, 2010, Badil awarded a prize to a blatantly antisemitic cartoon, featuring a grotesque caricature of a Jewish man standing over a dead Arab child and holding a pitchfork dripping with blood.

Appeal Funds