World Council of Churches Urges EU Sanctions on ‘Israel’ In Case Annexation Goes Ahead

By Staff, Agencies

The World Council of Churches is asking European diplomats to punish the Zionist entity with sanctions if it annexes West Bank lands. The request has triggered a heated debate in Christian circles.

The call to punish the Zionist occupation entity came last month in a letter to EU foreign ministers from the Geneva headquarters of the council, an umbrella body established in 1948 that now has 350 member churches with about 500,000 followers among them. The Catholic Church is not a member.

If the Tel Aviv regime annexes land, the letter said, “the EU must surely suspend the EU-‘Israel’ Association Agreement,” a reference to a 1995 contract that promotes trade between the bloc and the Zionist entity. In addition, the EU should apply sanctions on ‘Israel’ “at least commensurate with those adopted by the EU in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.”

The EU has blacklisted hundreds of Russian individuals and firms over alleged involvement in the Crimea annexation from 2014, subjecting them to entry bans and freezing of EU properties.

“The unilateral annexation of yet more of the territory that remains to Palestinians cannot lead to justice or to peace, but only to greater injustice,” the church body wrote.

In recent years, the council has been accused of pursuing an anti-‘Israel’ agenda, a claim rejected by its leaders.

In 2019, it emerged that the council had gathered information for years on the ‘Israeli’ military’s actions in occupied lands.