I've wanted to share the good reports from the World Council of Churches at UN Advocacy Week in Geneva. Got a little behind, but these worth reading.
Nigerian and Palestinian keynote speakers provide a focus for UN Advocacy Week
See the full story at this link - http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-management/eng/a/browse/1/article/1634/nigerian-and-palestinian.html
“We hope to learn from the lessons of history,” Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of Nigeria told activists gathering for the sixth annual United Nations Advocacy Week (27 September to 1 October) organized by the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs of the World Council of Churches (WCC). For the first time, UN Advocacy Week is being held in Geneva rather than New York City, in conjunction with the 15th session of the UN Human Rights Council in the Swiss city.
About 120 people representing various ecumenical, ecclesiastical and interreligious bodies and networks are attending the week-long event at the WCC’s central offices in the Ecumenical Centre, Geneva.
Akeredolu, formerly the president of the Nigerian Bar Association, shared the podium with fellow keynote speaker Afif Safieh, a former Palestinian ambassador to the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the USA and the Vatican.
(...) Ambassador Safieh remarked that the problem faced by Palestinians is not the legacy of past colonialism but “the process of accelerating colonization” evident in the occupied territories today. Speaking in the immediate aftermath of the Israeli government’s decision not to extend a 10-month freeze on the building of Jewish settlements on the West Bank, Safieh acknowledged that “Palestine faces a difficult decision – whether to return to the peace table.”
Up until now, Safieh said, the national will of Israel has tended to prevail rather than the international will as expressed by UN resolutions or the road-map supervised by the “Quartet” charged with leading the peace process. The Quartet is made up of the UN, the European Union, the Russian Federation and the USA.
“But the Quartet is now really a One-tet,” said Safieh, “a uni-polar or mono-polar system” dominated by the United States. And in terms of Middle Eastern politics, he added, “the United States suffers from a self-inflicted impotence. It is left with all the political weight of Luxembourg or Liechtenstein.” The Israel-Palestine peace negotiations, he warned, are “a continuous test of political courage.” And while Palestinian negotiators have been “unreasonably reasonable” in the immediate past, he warned that “we have no more elasticity.”
Safieh asked the world’s churches to “lobby American society” for a just peace in Israel-Palestine. He saw signs of “reawakening American idealism,” of a world Jewish community uncomfortable with Israeli policy in the occupied territories, of a Pentagon deeply concerned that conditions in Palestine provide the principal “recruiting sergeant for extremists” in Muslim nations.
Asked about the demand for a Palestinian “right of return,” he replied that such a right may be interpreted to mean return to a home, return to a hometown or return to a homeland (like the Palestinian homeland envisioned in the two-state solution). “We will exercise those three rights,” he said, “in differing degrees.”
In their concluding remarks, both speakers hailed signs of hope. (...) Safieh, who admits that “history, unfortunately, is a cemetery of oppressed people,” nevertheless affirms that “history needs our help to make the right decision” in regard to pending outcomes. He concluded by telling an audience made up largely of Christians, “In the end, though, I believe that Palestine will resurrect. And as you know, in Palestine we have had experience of resurrection!”
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Here are links to related stories:
KAIROS Palestine, a Moment of Truth - http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-management/eng/a/article/1634/kairos-document-a-moment.html
Gaza Panel report - http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-management/eng/a/article/1634/gaza-panel-calls-for-free.html
Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem - http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-management/eng/a/article/1634/tveit-encourages-christia.html
Boycotts and divestment - http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-management/eng/a/article/1634/boycotts-and-divestment.html
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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 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.
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