Middle East Council of Churches (MECC)

Activities

• Consists of four ecclesiastical denominations: Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Evangelical/Protestant, and Catholic.
• MECC’S local division, the Department of Service to Palestine Refugees (DSPR) was formed as “an ad-hoc ecumenical group with both international and local spirited clergy and lay people to tend to the trauma of over 726,000 Palestinian refugees from the first Arab-Israeli war.”
  • The DSPR claims to work to “promote the socio-economic development and just rights of Palestinian refugees and communities in the Middle East.”
• The Near East Council of Churches Committee for Refugee Work (NECCCRW) was formed to “assist Palestinians who took refuge in the Gaza Strip following the establishment of Israel in 1948.”

Political Advocacy

• In January 2021, MECC, alongside a number of Palestinian organizations, issued a declaration that the “Vaccine Roll-Out Exposes Israel’s Inhumane Acts of Apartheid.” The NGOs falsely claim that Israel has “legal obligations” to “ensure that quality vaccines be provided to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and control,” while altogether ignoring that Palestinians residing in Jerusalem are part of the Israeli health care system; that under the Oslo Accords the PA is responsible for health care of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza; and that the PA has adopted its own vaccine policy for its population.
• In July 2020, MECC endorsed Kairos Palestine’s report titled “Cry for Hope: A Decisive Call for Action,” which called on Christian supporters to “take actions to end Israel’s occupation, including boycotts against Israel.”
• In May 2020, MECC was a signatory on a letter to the European Union calling for “sanctions against Israel in response to annexation” and “suspending [the] EU-Israel Association Agreement.”
• In October 2019, the MECC’s local branch Near East Council of Churches Committee for Refugee Work (NECCCRW) held a meeting with a delegation from Hamas to discuss “social relations, tolerance and fraternal relations.”
• In December 2017, MECC was a signatory on a letter to the African National Congress calling for South Africa to “downgrade its relations with Israel and [the] Embassy in Tel Aviv. Israel is a notorious violator of endless and numerous international laws and regulations not only today not only yesterday but since its creation in 1948. Downgrading your embassy is an important step for what South Africa carries of ethical weight due to your long struggle against Apartheid and racism.”
• In June 2017, MECC was a signatory to an “Open Letter” from the National Coalition of Christian Organizations in Palestine to the World Council of Churches, accusing Israel of “Discrimination and inequality, military occupation and systematic oppression.” The letter calls upon the WCC to “recognize Israel as an apartheid state,” and “unequivocally condemn the Balfour declaration as unjust, and that you demand from the UK that it asks forgiveness from the Palestinian people and compensates for the losses.” The letter also defends “our right and duty to resist the occupation creatively and nonviolently,” through “economic measures that pressure Israel to stop the occupation…in response to Israel’s war on BDS. We ask that you intensity those measures.”
• In a 2014 interview, Executive Secretary of DSPR Bernard Sabella stated: “‘We must defeat Hamas’. What does that mean? Do you want to destroy and raze Gaza to the ground? Is this a path that will lead to peace?…You say that Hamas is the problem. That is not true.”
• In a July 2014 update on the Gaza war, DSPR referred to Israel as a “war machine” and alleged that “the Israelis have gone crazy as they are incessantly bombing and shelling.”
• In May 2013, MECC released a “Statement on Christian presence and witness in the Middle East,” together with the World Council of Churches (WCC), in which the two organizations present a false and distorted narrative of Israeli aggression, alleging that “The persistence, after sixty-five years, of continuing dispossession of Palestinian people—Christian and Muslim alike—from their land by Israeli occupation, continuing settlement of land inside the 1967 borders by a nation empowered by overwhelming military strength and external alliances and influence, is central to the turmoil in the region.”
  • The WCC plays a key role in mobilizing churches worldwide to support the international boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS) campaigns against Israel.
• NECC is a member of the “Ecumenical Water Network,” which uses allegations regarding water rights and availability as part of larger campaign to delegitimize Israel. In 2012, Ramzi Zananiri, head of the NECC, called for an international ecumenical fact-finding mission on environmental problems in Gaza and how they are linked to the occupation.
• NECCCRW is a signatory to the 2005 “Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS” against Israel, which seeks to end the “occupation and colonization of all Arab lands” and promotes the right of “Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties.” These goals undermine the fundamental right of the Jewish people to self-determination.

Jerusalem Interchurch Centre

• Together with the WCC, the MECC co-founded the Jerusalem Interchurch Centre (JIC), which claims to “bring the voice and the concerns of Palestinian Christians to the wide ecumenical family and to the world.”
• JIC hosts the EAPPI Jerusalem Office and provides “guidance and coordination with the local churches.” The JIC arranges highly biased and politicized international ecumenical visitsto join Ecumenical Accompaniers for “short gatherings and solidarity actions,” including “observing checkpoints” and “gate watches at the wall.” The Israeli perspective is entirely omitted.
  • EAPPI sends volunteers to the West Bank to “witness life under occupation.” Upon completion of the program, the volunteers return to their home countries and churches where many engage in anti-Israel advocacy, including advocating for BDS campaigns in churches, comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany, and other delegitimization strategies.
• JIC is headed by Yusef Daher, one of the editors of “Faith under Occupation,” EAPPI’s core publication which placed sole blame on Israel for the difficulties faced by Christians in the Holy Land. It also sought to “disprove” what it called “unfounded Israeli and Christian Zionist propaganda that Palestinian Christians are depopulating due to Muslim fundamentalism in Palestinian society.” The document also contained a list of recommendations titled “50 Ways to Action for Peace and Justice,” including: “Strengthen network working on sanctions and suspension of US aid to Israel” and “Challenge Israel in local and international courts.”
• Daher is also a co-author of the Kairos Palestine document, which calls for BDS against Israel, denies the Jewish historical connection to Israel in theological terms, and rationalizes, justifies and trivializes terrorism, calling it “legal resistance.”
• In 2015, Daher spoke at a BDS event titled “ISRAEL: A Palestinian Christian Perspective.”
• In 2010, Daher spoke at a conference in Stockholm, where he stated, “We supported BDS we believed in the result that BDS can make and actually we… said that a full system of sanctions should have implemented on Israel long time ago…this is where we call our brothers and sisters to go for boycott. First personally and individually, and then convincing the churches and the churches to convince their governments…”