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To this end, the WCC proposes three modes of action. The second of these acts calls on all churches to pay for the damage caused by Hezbollah terror. The WCC says:

Let us help. 500,000 people have already been uprooted by the attacks on Lebanon, the UN reports. Gaza lives under collective punishment, incursions, and siege. Dwellings and workplaces in Israel have been destroyed. Churches and related agencies are serving some of these needs.

While Israel is mentioned in this list of damages, it has yet to receive a penny from WCC member churches or related agencies. The damage to the State of Israel is enormous. A third of Israel's population, about two million people, have become dispossessed refugees in the middle of the summer heat. The land of Israel is destroyed by Hezbollah rockets. Business and harvest in northern Israel is severely ruined. Yet, not one of the member churches of the WCC has provided any kind of support geared toward easing the suffering of the Israeli people.

The WCC then condemns "the illegal 39-year occupation that is the vortex of the region's violent storms." The WCC is surely not ignorant that the bloodiest "regional storm" continues to be the inter-Muslim strife in Iraq. But  the WCC statement refers to Palestinians and Iraqis in one breath, as if it is on account of the Palestinians that Sunnis and Shiites are murdering each other daily in Baghdad.

Israel's enemies, ad nauseam, have called Israel the "illegal occupiers," well-knowing that this is wrong. Having won the war against the Arab attacks in 1967, Israel seized the territory legally. At dispute are the kinds of action permitted to Israel in the territory concerned.

This contrasts with the text of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 adopted unanimously on August 11. The U.N. Security Council calls "Hezbollah's attack on Israel on 12 July 2006" the cause of the "continuing escalation of hostilities in Lebanon and Israel." It further demands "the unconditional release of the abducted Israeli soldiers" and calls for the removal of non-governmental "armed personnel" south of the Litani river and "the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon."

Not only did the U.N. take the position of blaming Hezbollah for the current violence, the G8 summit statement in July and other international groups took similar positions. Hezbollah naturally complains and offers a well-known explanation, which it shares with Hamas, for why it receives the condemnation of the international community: The Jews control the whole world and manipulate events from behind the scenes.

Does the WCC have a better explanation for why its opinion is so out of line?

Rev. Dr. Petra Heldt, an ordained Lutheran pastor from Germany, has been the executive secretary for the Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity of Israel since 1987. She has a doctorate is in patristics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As with all "Speaking Out" articles, the views expressed do not necessarily represent those of Christianity Today.

Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

The Jerusalem Post profiled Heldt in 2005. The Post's website no longer has the article online, but it has been republished elsewhere.

Our full coverage of commentary on the Israel/Lebanon war continues.

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August (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50