United Church of Christ Barb Powell, press contact 216-736-2175 powellb@ucc.org On the web: news.ucc.org
For immediate release June 14, 2006
Innovative UCC resource helps churches promote peace in Middle East
CLEVELAND -- Buy olive oil direct from Jerusalem. Sponsor a school in East Jerusalem. Help a soccer association for Israeli Arabs and Jews. Contribute to the interfaith Hands of Peace, the YMCA or YWCA of Palestine. All these actions can help promote peace in the Middle East and are listed in a new United Church of Christ resource, available online (<http://www.globalministries.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=908&Itemid=36>).
"Opportunities for Positive Contributions" was created to give UCC settings, including Conferences, local churches and members tangible ways to help implement the resolution, "Concerning the Use of Economic Leverage in Promoting Peace in the Middle East," passed in July 2005 by delegates to the UCC's 25th General Synod in Atlanta.
The catalog is aimed to help identify groups and partners committed to the nonviolent resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It lists organizations, projects, churches, and church-related groups to support or sponsor, as well as organizations that sell goods produced by people who have no other outlet for sales than the global market.
"This resource is a tool to help pastors and lay leaders engage their congregations in implementing the resolution," said Peter Makari, Middle East and Europe executive. "The positive contributions we make are a kind of investment: the return is the strengthening of the work and presence of people who are working to end violence and promote peace."
"An end of the conflict is essential to real possibilities for economic growth for both Israelis and Palestinians," Makari added.
The resource includes partners of the UCC and the Common Global Ministries of the UCC and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) as well as other interfaith and ecumenical groups working toward improving the living conditions of Israelis and Palestinians who have suffered as a result of the conflict. Among these groups are the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, Al-Ahli Hospital of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, and the Ramallah Society of Friends.
Other programs and groups include housing projects and several human rights advocacy and research groups.
The Global Ministries website, www.globalministries.org/mee, also contains background papers about the conflict, videos for older youth and adult church school classes, and news from partners.
The General Synod resolution on economic leverage also calls upon different settings of the UCC to advocate "the reallocation of US foreign aid so that the militarization of the Middle East is constrained." A new resource on the militarization of the Middle East is available online (at <http://www.globalministries.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=908&Itemid=36>). This resource offers background on the topic and ways to engage in such advocacy.
The UCC is in the process of research and study related to the implementation of other aspects of the resolution that include "challenging the practices of corporations that gain from the continuation of the conflict; and divesting [not from Israel itself, but] from those companies that refuse to change their practices of gain from the perpetuation of violence."
The 1.3-million-member United Church of Christ was formed by the 1957 union of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church.
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