The nine-day Assembly focused on the rapidly worsening realities Palestinians encounter over the past decade.
The Assembly stressed on the policies and actions of Israeli occupation such as displacement of Palestinians from their homes, increased Israeli forces presence, and increased systematic harassment and attacks by settlers.
The assembly summed up its concerns in the following paragraph:
Recently, numerous international, Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations and legal bodies have published studies and reports describing the policies and actions of Israel as amounting to “apartheid” under international law. These reports conclude that the state of Israel is implementing an illegal system of separation or segregation based on race, creed or ethnicity, and committing human rights violations and denial of freedoms. They have described this system as designed to maintain domination by one racial group over another and the systemic denial of freedom and forced ghettoization of the Palestinian people. This should be a matter of concern, enquiry and further discernment for the WCC
However, the assembly did not proclaim clearly that Israeli occupation is an apartheid country.
“The church would never use the word ‘Apartheid’ to describe Israeli occupation even though the statement only referred to the studies that concluded that Israeli action fit the definition.
