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"Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system"-Dorothy Day
By Eileen Fleming (about the author) Page 1 of 5 page(s)
For OpEdNews: Eileen Fleming - Writer
Lately I have been accused of being "too hard
on the church" but my issue with the institutional churches is that too
many are more about socializing, NOT much about the social gospel and
then there are those that even 'worship' the State.
However, Good News came this morning in an email from The World
Council of Churches (WCC) central committee which "called on the Israeli
government to freeze and begin to dismantle settlements in occupied
Palestinian territories. It also encouraged a commitment to
non-violence and peace negotiations, and reiterated the need for an
international boycott of products and services from settlements.
In
a public "Statement on Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian
Territory" passed today in Geneva, Switzerland, at the end of its 26
August â€" 2 September meeting, the WCC central committee called "upon
the government of Israel to urgently implement an open-ended freeze in
good-faith on all settlement construction and expansion as a first step
towards the dismantlement of all settlements".
The committee
considered some 200 settlements with more than 450,000 settlers in the
occupied Palestinian territories to be "illegal, unjust, incompatible
with peace and antithetical to the legitimate interests of the state of
Israel".
Even as "Israel's own right to exist in security evokes
sympathy and solidarity around the world", the committee states, "its
policies of expansion and annexation generate dismay or hostility". For
the committee there is a clear distinction to be made "between the
legitimate interests of the state of Israel and its illegal
settlements".
The central committee reiterated its call to WCC
member churches "to accompany and encourage the commitment to
non-violence and active engagement in peace negotiations". It also
invited "member churches and faithful to give moral and practical
support to non-violent acts of resistance to the confiscation of land,
the destruction of Palestinian properties and the eviction of people
from their homes and lands".
The statement "reiterates the need
for an international boycott of settlement products and services". WCC
member churches "must not be complicit in illegal activities on
occupied territory" and therefore should "practice morally responsible
investment in order to influence businesses linked to the Israeli
occupation and its illegal settlements", the statement says.
The
illegal settlements "and their corresponding infrastructure including
the separation wall" have dire consequences on the life and dignity of
Palestinian people, the WCC statement says.
Settlements deny
Palestinians access to "land and water resources", "restrict their
freedom of movement, diminish their basic human dignity and, in many
cases, their right to life", impede their "right to education and
access to health care", and "destroy the Palestinian economy". In these
ways they increase "the sense of dispossession and despair".
In
addition to that, "illegal settlements in and around Jerusalem endanger
the future of the holy city", which "should be open to all and shared
by the two peoples and the three religions".
The WCC central
committee calls on member churches to "pray for and assist people who
are suffering" as a result of settlement activity and "hear the call of
the churches of Jerusalem for concrete actions by the international
ecumenical community toward a just peace for both Palestinians and
Israelis".
With that now being said from many pulpits, I am led to repeat myself regarding:
Failures of Intelligence has reaped the Militarization of Christianity
"The
Crusade for a Christian Military: Jesus Killed Mohammed" by Jeff
Sharlet in HARPER'S May 2009 edition is a chilling clarion call
regarding the entrenchment of Christian fundamentalism in the USA
military beginning during the Cold War that accelerated during the
Vietnam era which has wrecked havoc on the very soul of our nation.
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