In a joint letter to heads of states that are part of the European Union, the World Council of Churches (WCC) and Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) appealed for a firm and principled stance by the European Union against any annexation by Israel of occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank.The organizations are “calling on the EU to ensure that any such annexation is met with real consequences, at least commensurate with those adopted by the EU in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.”
The letter also expresses the WCC and MECC’s commitment “to the vision of a just peace for all people in the Holy Land.”
The unilateral annexation of yet more of the territory that remains to Palestinians cannot lead to justice or to peace, but only to greater injustice, dispossession, escalating tensions, regional destabilization, and the further erosion of respect for international law, the letter notes.
“The EU must not be complicit – by inaction or inadequate reaction – in this outcome,” the letter concludes.
The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 350 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 550 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC acting general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, from the Orthodox Church in Romania.
Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press
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World Council of Churches
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