Middle East Council of Churches in its Humanitarian Work: Resisting Evil with Love
Part of the Secretary-General's speech to the meeting of the MECC-DSPR
Dr. Michel E. Abs
The Secretary of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC)
In the present times, all entities of the Middle East region are facing geopolitical situations that require readiness and full presence. In this context, the activities of the Middle East Council of Churches are developing in all fields, and we thank God for the trust that the MECC enjoys from both local and international partners alike. The Council is highly credible in its fieldwork and its financial and programmatic reports.
The Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees (DSPR), which has been serving Palestinians for decades, deals with the challenges it faces professionally based on historical memory and a renewed institutional culture. Its employees treasure their memory, culture, and knowledge, gained through their long history of work, and it opens the way for innovation and creativity—essential for relief and development work among people under occupation, which end we have not yet seen.
The work of the MECC, through the DSPR and other departments as well, is a form of peaceful resistance rooted in the Christian faith, embodying the values of the Master who overcame annihilation, as witnessed in the land of Palestine, irrigated by the blood of its sons. The Council's work is to resist by helping the afflicted to continue their lives as naturally as possible, even when this seems impossible. Are they not the weary and heavy-laden mentioned by the Master?
By providing food, medicine, clothing, water and awareness, vocational training, advocacy, and all forms of activities of the Department, you help them to withstand, which is the basis of resistance. International partner institutions are increasingly aware of the seriousness of what is happening in Palestine, the south of the Antiochian Levant, the land of the Incarnation, the First Evangelization, Calvary, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. They recognize the systematic extermination of the people and their historical roots, a people who have shown steadfastness and solidity.
The cohesion between our people in Palestine, both displaced from their land and those who remain, and the rest of the peoples of the region, whose homelands turned into camps and who live similar destinies, writes the epics of heroism. Part of this heroism is the tireless work carried out by health and social workers in the service of those afflicted by war.
The free and systematic killing of unarmed civilians, most of whom are elderly, women, children, and people with special needs, can only be described as crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes of genocide, and ethnic cleansing. These are four-dimensional crimes.
However, what the countries supporting the occupying entity do not want to understand, or choose to ignore, is that resistance is not a crime but a right preserved by the Bill of Human Rights and protected by international conventions. It goes beyond the right to self-defense in the legal sense.
No one accepts civilian casualties, wherever they may be, but no one accepts that a people live in socio-political conditions ranging from daily humiliation and expulsion from homes to killing.
We do not know what the future holds for us, and we hope for a settlement, even partial, that will return the people of Gaza to their homes, villages, and cities. We must then be motivated to participate in the process of reconstruction and development, which may last years and form a set of programs that the Department will undertake. All the MECC’s departments will be present and ready to support. This is a thin thread of hope to which we cling, although we believe that the destruction practiced is aimed at driving us to despair of any promising future.
In this country, it seems that our destiny is to resist, and each of us resists in our own way. We resist with the good word and with healing wounds.