Groundbreaking Report: EAPPI and the World Council of Churches’ Training Camp for Anti-Israel Advocacy - NGO Monitor

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by NGO Monitor

 Upon returning to their home countries, many activists engage in anti-Israel demonization including promoting BDS campaigns and comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany.

On Monday, January 14, NGO Monitor published a new report on the World Council of Churches’ (WCC) Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). Our research details the funding for and activities of EAPPI, a program that markets itself as focusing on human rights, but in reality emphasizes anti-Israel political advocacy.

NGO Monitor research documents the ways EAPPI misuses tourist visas to enter Israel, where the group has no legal status. Upon returning to their home countries, many activists engage in anti-Israel demonization including promoting BDS campaigns and comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany. EAPPI rhetoric at times draws upon theological rejection of Israel’s existence as the Jewish state, and crosses into overt antisemitism.

Our analysis shows that government donors for EAPPI have included the UK, Ireland, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, and Japan. In 2017-2019, Norway contributed nearly $2 million, while in 2017-2018 Sweden gave $500,000. Support is also provided by UNICEF and by church organizations.

In response to our exposure of the WCC’s promotion of antisemitism and BDS, the WCC absurdly sought to shift the focus, and falsely deflected by stating that “the definition of antisemitism adopted and promoted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which is described by the IHRA as a ‘non-legally binding working definition’…WCC does not promote boycotts based on nationality in this or any other context. Nor does WCC promote economic measures against Israel.” WCC published its response in seven languages (including Hebrew!), but none actually addresses the evidence of antisemitism and BDS raised in NGO Monitor’s report.

NGO Monitor’s report was featured in The Jerusalem Post, Israel Hayom (Hebrew), JNS, Audiatur (German), Dagen (Norwegian), Enlacejudio (Spanish), and Christian Broadcast Network (English). Our experts were interviewed on a number of Israeli and international platforms including Israel’s Galatz radio (Hebrew), Israel’s Kan radio (English), Israel’s Channel 20 (Hebrew), and ILTV (English). The Christian Broadcast Network also featured the story in a detailed TV nightly news segment viewed by millions of people around the world.

Watch NGO Monitor Vice President Olga Deutsch on ILTV and Senior Researcher Shaun Sacks on Israel’s Channel 20:

On this week's episode of Human Rights and Hot Coffee, Prof. Gerald Steinberg discusses our report on EAPPI in detail. To listen, click here.

NGO Monitor

Source: https://www.ngo-monitor.org/

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