The Department of Service for Palestinian Refugees’ meeting with its partners

Secretary General Dr. Michel Abs:

In our Churches and subsequently at MECC, we resist with love and with constructive deeds

On Thursday May 20, 2021, the Middle East Council of Churches’ Department of Service for Palestinian Refugees held an online meeting via Zoom with its partners from international and regional organizations and institutions, during which the Secretary General Dr. Michel Abs addressed a speech to the attendees renewing the MECC support to the wounded and persecuted Palestinians.

In the following, the full text of the Secretary General's opening speech:

Dear international sisters and brothers in Christ,

We gather today in order to discuss the activities of the Department of Service to Palestine Refugees of the Middle East Council of Churches.

This unit of the MECC, active for decades, is on the one hand an instrumental support provider to the wounded and persecuted Palestinian population and, on the other hand, a token of Christian love to the heavily burdened people of this occupied country. To live under occupation and to undergo daily harassments and impediments in an attempt to push you to surrender, to accept slavery or to leave, is not a torment a usual population can bear for eight decades. The Palestinians are definitely as robust as the rocks of the Palestinian land. Their land. Their resiliency falls in the category of the unusual.

In front of all that, you see a world population who is becoming increasingly aware of the Palestinian Tragedy and who is uprising to help them in their actual on-going disaster and, in the same time, Governments that watch the daily slaughter of children with the attitude of one watching a movie… not even a horror movie.

In this context, we get together in a counter attempt to help these people resist. We shall discuss their commendable accomplishments, reached with a high level of competency, despite the atrocious doings they endure in their daily life. What we see in these reports is a form of resistance against a slow and silent attempt of annihilation, which did not work so far. It will not work! What you will see in their proposals are acts of hope and love.

We, in our Churches and subsequently at MECC, we resist with love and with constructive deeds. Against acts of aggression and hatred, we respond with forgiveness, prayers and service. In every hole dug by a rocket, we plant flowers of love for a better future, even for those who hate us and who harm us.

Aren’t we on the image of the Lord who rejected belligerence and forgave his killers?

He is, and shall be, until the end of times our guide and our inspiration!