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Greetings of the WCC general secretary on the occasion of the National Celebration of 500 years Reformation, 18 June 2017, Bern, Switzerland

This year, 2017, marks several historic anniversaries of great importance to the history and development of the situation in Israel and Palestine and to the ecumenical community’s response to this situation – including 100 years since the Balfour Declaration, 50 years since the Six Day War of 1967, and 10 years since the 2007 WCC International Peace Conference "Churches together for Peace and Justice in the Middle East" in Amman, Jordan.

In his report to the Executive Committee, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit noted that we are living in a time when the purpose and the objectives of the WCC are highly relevant.

Based on these realities, there is a need for a new search for unity, he said. “Through the many dimensions of its work, the WCC contributes to the unity of the church, and the unity that the WCC is able to express, in turn, contributes to the unity of humankind.”

Abram’s journey in Genesis 12 as a response to God’s guidance becomes a pilgrimage of blessings. The unnamed destination of his pilgrimage is encountering people and their land. Abram will become a a kind of “platform” of blessings among other peoples and nations, rather than an exemplar of the exercise of power and control over those peoples and their land. As God commissioned Abram to go forth as a source of blessings, God calls us to go in the pilgrimage of blessings.

Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit's panel contribution during a conference at a cultural center in Trondheim, Norway.

This document is a summary and synthesis of policy positions on key issues pertaining to the situation in Palestine and Israel adopted by governing bodies of the World Council of Churches (WCC) from 1948 to 2016. It addresses major themes in these policy positions, but does not pretend to full comprehensiveness. The document has no official standing itself; for the official authoritative positions, the original policy documents referred to should be consulted directly.

A greeting from the World Council of Churches

Speech by WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, in Bethlehem on 8 December 2016.

Statement on detention and deportation of WCC associate general secretary at Ben Gurion International Airport on 5 December 2016.

Speech by WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit on 27 October 2016, at the Peterskirche, the University Church of Heidelberg.

Address of Prof. Dr Isabel Apawo Phiri, WCC Associate General Secretary, at the World Mental Health Day event in Ecumenical Centre, Geneva on 5 October 2016

Letter from Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit on the occasion of the World Week for Peace in Palestine and Israel, 2016.

A liturgy resource toolbox prepared for the World Week for Peace in Palestine and Israel, 18-24 September 2016.

Statement by general secretaries Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit (World Council of Churches) and Jim Winkler (National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA) on NCC/WCC Consultation on the Holy Land, 14 September, 2016

Reflection during the Ecumenical Centre morning prayer by Marianne Ejdersten, director of communication for the WCC.

He has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. (Ephesians 2.14)

Middle East Plenary Speech by Dr Tarek Mitri