The World Council of Churches, an organization clearly defined far more by its leftist political agenda than by any religious or spiritual considerations, has rendered its verdict on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Its conclusions, while utterly absurd and completely divorced from reality, are hardly surprising.
Failure to comply with international law and consequences thereof has pushed the situation on the ground up to a point of no return. The disparities are appalling. One side is positioning itself to unilaterally establish final borders on territory that belongs to the other side; the other side is increasingly confined to the scattered enclaves that remain. On one side there is control of more and more land and water; on the other there are more and more families deprived of land and livelihoods. On one side as many people as possible are being housed on occupied land; on the other side the toll mounts of refugees without homes or land. One side controls Jerusalem, a city shared by two peoples and three world religions; the other—Muslim and Christian—watches its demographic, commercial and religious presence wither in Jerusalem. From both sides, military forces or armed groups strike across the 1967 borders and kill innocent civilians. On both sides, authorities countenance such attacks.
Finally, the side set to keep its unlawful gains is garnering support from part of the international community. The side that, despairing at those unlawful gains, used legitimate elections to choose new leaders is being isolated and punished.
All parties to the conflict and the foreign powers implicated in it now face a world dangerously divided over this conflict, a world increasingly convinced that the goal of peace for all has been traded away for gains by one side.
How fascinating that the World Council of Churches regards as sacrosanct those "1967 borders" that the entire Arab world resolved to sacrifice not so much as a single "yes" to regain after its attempt to annihilate the State of Israel in the Six Day War. How revealing that the World Council of Churches chooses to confuse aggression with self defense and to measure legitimacy and lawfulness by the yardstick of which side it finds more politically sympathetic.
How pathetic that such a body commands any respect among thinking people in this day and age.
Update: Boker Tov Boulder has more on this.
