Activities

• Despite marketing itself as human rights and protection program, EAPPI places significant emphasis on political advocacy before, during, and after the trip. When the volunteers return to their home countries and churches, they engage in anti-Israel advocacy such as BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns and comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany. (See examples below.)
• The stated mission is to “witness life under occupation, engage with local Palestinians and Israelis pursuing a just peace, to change the international community’s involvement in the conflict, urging them to act against injustice in the region.”
• EAPPI’s advocacy goal is to “make a change,” and specifically to “work for concrete change, both here and on the ground and back in our home countries.” The organization furthers that, “We share our eyewitness testimonies with faith leaders, decision makers, media, civil society, and business officials, so that they change public policy toward ending the Israeli occupation and achieving peace in Israel and Palestine.” (emphasis added)
• Since 2002, EAPPI has brought 1,800 “Ecumenical Accompanier” volunteers/activists to Israel for periods of three-months at a time. These activists receive training prior to their arrival, which includes an overview of the program itself, methods for coping with the army and police, and different ways of surpassing Israeli airport security and customs officials in order to successfully enter the country.
• The WCC’s EAPPI program consists of a “continuous presence of 25-30 Ecumenical Accompaniers on the ground, for periods of three months in accompanying, offering protective presence, and witness… monitoring and reporting human rights abuses… standing with local peace and human rights groups…and advocacy.” Often, however, these activities instigate confrontations with Israeli settlers and the Israeli army.
  • According to WCC’s International Coordinator for EAPPI Dr. Owe Boersma, the monitoring component includes “a lot of administrative work which is fed into UN systems” (emphasis added).
• The activists cooperate with political NGOs operating in the West Bank, including groups that support BDS campaigns against Israel and accuse Israel of “war crimes,” such as B’Tselem, Rabbis for Human Rights, Machsom Watch, Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC), Wi’am- the Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center, and the Alternative Tourism Group.

Entrance into Israel

• The EAPPI project and the World Council of Churches do not appear on the list of international organizations that operate volunteers in Israel, according to a 2022 Freedom of Information request submitted to the Ministry of Social Affairs.
• The program brings international activists to the West Bank through the use of tourist visas. After entering, they identify themselves as an organization by wearing brown vests with the organization’s logo.
  • A tourist visa, as defined in the entry regulations to Israel, is issued “for the purpose of a visit or for any other purpose requiring only a short stay in Israel, except for the purpose of work, whether paid or unpaid.” However, an official document from the British organization that recruits and sends the activists from Britain states that the terms of service include “working hours: nominal 35 hours per EAs are entitled to the equivalent of one day off per working week,” and that flight expenses, accommodation, an adequate financial allowance for daily living expenses, including food and travel, etc. are covered by the organization. 
• In addition to the activists who come to Israel as “volunteers” for three months, there are a number of staff members in Israel who are based under churches affiliated with the WCC and registered as humanitarian aid organizations. (For example, an EAPPI research officer and team leader stayed in Israel for almost four years, “seconded” to EAPPI by a German church organization.)

Demonization of Israel

• EAPPI rhetoric includes accusations of “apartheid,” “collective punishment,” “war crimes,” and “Bantustans”; supporting a Palestinian “right of return”; and promoting the Kairos Palestine document that calls for BDS against Israel, denies the Jewish historical connection to Israel in theological terms, and rationalizes, justifies, and trivializes terrorism, calling it “legal resistance.”
• EAPPI participates in activities commemorating the Palestinian “Nakba” (catastrophe), and during their 3-month tours the program is focused exclusively on the Palestinian narrative. They have limited contact with Israeli society and are shielded from any evidence of terrorism, as a blog post on July 14, 2015 states, “This ongoing struggle includes repeated violence and destruction from adjacent Israeli settlers that includes demolitions of homes and agricultural structures, poisoning of wells, cutting of olive trees, and physical violence against the residents including stoning and gunfire.”
• In response to criticism regarding its politicized advocacy, EAPPI claims to have adjusted their program to include “Israeli voices.” In reality, these “voices” are none other than radical political NGOs that reinforce the EAPPI narrative.
• In October 2023, in the aftermath of the brutal Hamas attack on October 7, EAPPI claimed, “This escalation must be understood in the context of 55 years of Israeli military occupation of Palestinian land and 75 years of dispossession and oppression of the Palestinian people…This major escalation did not happen in a vacuum.”
• EAPPI’s core publication, “Faith Under Occupation,” jointly published with WCC and the Jerusalem Inter-Church Centre (2012), places sole blame on Israel for the difficulties faced by Christians in the Holy Land. It also seeks to “disprove” what it calls “unfounded Israeli and Christian Zionist propaganda that Palestinian Christians are depopulating due to Muslim fundamentalism in Palestinian society.” This document also contains a list of recommendations titled “50 Ways to Action for Peace and Justice,” including:
  • “Practice using a clear and unambiguous vocabulary including language protesting apartheid and colonization.”
  • “Strengthen network working on sanctions and suspension of US aid to Israel.”
  • “Challenge Israel in local and international courts. (If you are a lawyer, donate your time and initiate cases).”
  • “Join the campaigns for economic boycotts…join or initiate a campaign for cultural and academic boycott.”
  • “Challenge the Zionist attempts to doctor Wikipedia.”
  • “Engage in civil disobedience actions.”
  • “Develop close working relationships with progressive parties and groups in your country.”
  • “Reach out to Christian religious leaders and ask them to act based on the Kairos Palestine document.”
• A publication entitled “40 Years of Occupation” included an article advocating illegal and inflammatory activities – such as hacking government websites – to “end the occupation.” [This document, Issue 6 of EAPPI’s Chain Reaction magazine, was removed from EAPPI’s website at the beginning of July 2012.]
• EAPPI posted a statement in support of the skewed conclusions of the Goldstone report, expressing concern that “there could be a resolution that dilutes the intent and scope of the Goldstone report.” It claimed that “During the Gaza War, civilians on both sides suffered and yet atrocities were significantly higher among the Palestinian population…The people of Gaza have suffered enough, and they deserve a respite in the knowledge that the perpetrators of indiscriminate violence against them will be brought to book.”
• Regularly engages in international advocacy, lobbying the European Union to impose sanctions on Israel and encouraging churches worldwide to increase “advocacy that might affect their countries’ foreign policy in the Middle East.” In 2013, sought to block the Horizon 2020 program, a mutually beneficial agreement aimed at promoting EU-Israel partnerships in scientific research.
• EAPPI is a partner for the South Africa Team for “Israeli Apartheid Week,” which is “made up of 25 members stretched across South Africa.”

Examples of Activists’ Activities upon Return to Their Home Countries

• Upon returning to their home countries, many EAPPI activists use their experience in the West Bank to promote anti-Israel campaigns, including advocating for BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions). According to EAPPI, advocacy includes both work in Israel “and back in our home countries…Advocacy is the tool for increasing international action for change. We share eyewitness testimonies with faith leaders, decision makers, media, civil society, and business officials, so that they change public policy…Increased international awareness increases pressure on the perpetrators of human rights abuses and helps protect civilians from these abuses” (emphasis added).
  • In July 2012, Vivian Wineman, at the time the President of the UK Jewish Board of Deputies, referred to EAPPI as “inflammatory and partisan…its graduates return with simplistic and radical perspectives. Members of Jewish communities across the country have suffered harassment and abuse at EAPPI meetings.”
  • According to the UK Jewish Board of Deputies, EAPPI “helped to create a climate of hostility towards Israel within the Church of England.” Furthermore, “The EAPPI narrative is based on the experience of volunteers who spend several months living alongside Palestinians in the Territories, but less than a day in Israel, and then return to address audiences who know little or nothing about the reality of everyday life for those on both sides of the conflict.”
• The 2019 EAPPI UK and Ireland Annual Report states that activists “working with decision-makers” have, among other things, “Continued to carry out lobbying and strategy work to assist the Occupied Territories Bill through the Irish Parliament.” The “Control of Economic Activity (Occupied territories)” bill would criminalize the importing or sale of “settlement goods” and the provision or attempt provision of “settlement services.” The language of the bill reflects a broader goal of isolating Israel and implementing a discriminatory BDS agenda.
• In January 2024, an EAPPI activist from South Africa sent a letter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) urging them to “include SWIFT [Society for Worldwide Interbank Telecommunication] sanctions against Israeli banks amongst the ‘provisional measures’…I submit the directors of SWIFT, and also the National Bank of Belgium, could be charged with complicity should they again decline to impose SWIFT sanctions against Israeli banks.”
• In September 2022, an EAPPI activist from Canada gave a lecture about an incident in which settlers allegedly attacked a playground in Susiya because there was a Palestinian flag there, and claimed that it appears that IDF soldiers drove the settlers there in order to attack the place (38:00-38:30). He also claimed that “the soldiers do nothing to the settlers [who are described as harassing Palestinians with “hatred in their eyes” and “you can see how much they hate them”], because “what we were told by ‘Breaking the Silence’, it is because the soldiers are usually conscripts, they go to these places, they are not well paid, they aer not well fed and the settlers will tell say, come on into our home, we’ll feed you a nice home-cooked meal, a nice hot shower. by the way, you work for us, and the soldiers will seldom do anything against a settler, except when they are forced to do so, they’ll call the police.” (46:40-47:30)
• In September 2021, an EAPPI activist from the UK participated in a “Stop arming Israel” march.
• During a September 2017 presentation on EAPPI given by EA  Gordon Timbers of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, an audience member asked, “Excuse me; I have to make a comment at this point. I don’t know how many people here have seen the model of the gas chambers … and some of these things really remind me [unintelligible] and I often wondered if any Jewish people who go in to see that model ever think of what is set up here” (emphasis added). In his answer, Timbers did not dispute the false claim answering instead “…Thank you for that, because there are similarities. All these identity papers and restriction of movement and checkpoints and all of these things, yes, that does make people think.”
• On June 18, 2017, an EA from England (who participated in EAPPI from April to July 2016) gave a presentation titled “EYE-WITNESS – Stories from the West Bank & Israel” at a church in Liverpool. The EA claimed that the “Israeli government is trying to force a relocation plan on all Bedouin communities and to make them move into townships… does that ring a bell somewhere back to South Africa? Strongly reminds me of what the British did to the Aboriginals some 200 years ago, and what about what happened to the native Indians in the USA at around the same time.” He added that “the Israeli government is set on not allowing any greater proportion of Palestinians that already exist, Arab-Israelis or Palestinians, so they can’t be more then, currently there are about 39 percent of the total population but Israel wants that figure to be 30 so that is one of the reasons for house demolitions… and often when Arab Israeli are punished, how are they punished? They can either be sent to the West Bank to get them out of Israel or worse sometimes they are sent to Gaza…“ (06:40, 09:00, 01:05:30).
• An EAPPI-Switzerland blog featured an interview with Manal Tamimi (June 10, 2017). Manal Tamimi frequently utilizes antisemitic and violent rhetoric and imagery on social media. For example, on August 1, 2015, Tamimi tweeted “I do hate Israel ,i (sic) wish a thrid Intefada (sic) coming soon and people rais (sic) up and kills all these zionist settlers everywhere.” In September 2015, on Yom Kippur (a fast day and the holiest day of the year in the Jewish calendar), Tamimi tweeted, “Vampire zionist celebrating their Kebore day by drinking Palestinian bloods, yes our blood is pure & delicious but it will kill u at the end.” The UN removed Tamimi from a report listing her as a “human rights defender” after NGO Monitor filed a complaint documenting her antisemitic and violent tweets.
• In December 2016, WCC associate general secretary Prof. Dr. Isabel Phiri was denied entry to Israel on the basis of her role in EAPPI and BDS campaigns. According to Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, “Granting an entry permit to activists such as Phiri would in effect reinforce the wrongful activities she and her peers are advancing.”
• In a May 2016 event held in London, an EAPPI activist made antisemitic comments, blaming the “Jewish lobby” and its influence in the US as an explanation for “why Evangelical Christians are not as sympathetic to the Palestinian plight.” She also supported a Palestinian “right of return,” called for a complete boycott of products and services from Israel, and referred to Israeli killing of Palestinian terrorists in Hebron “that supposedly had knives, but there are videos that show they have been planted.”
• A South African EAPPI activist who had participated in the program twice advocated for crippling the Israeli banking system, calling for “SWIFT [Society for Worldwide Interbank Telecommunication] sanctions against Israel.” He stated that, “If we can develop the momentum of sanctions against Israeli banks then all the power of the Israeli military becomes irrelevant … that’s really the basis to support the BDS program… without access to SWIFT…. the whole economy would quickly collapse…Israel should comply with the nonproliferation treaty and abandon its nuclear weapons … release the political prisoners … end the occupation … Apply human rights for all within the area [Israel and Palestine] … The right of return of Palestinian refugees … the time has come to say that the victims of the Holocaust have now become the perpetrators” (emphasis added).
• In November 2014, nine EAs met with EU officials in Brussels where they “urged the European Union (EU) to take more effective actions against the illegal settlements, demolitions and forced displacement in the occupied territory controlled by the Israeli authorities.”
• In 2014, EAPPI and Finn Church Aid traveled to major university campuses in Finland, alleging that Israel victimizes and discriminates against the Palestinian population and “vindictively persecutes” Palestinian children.
• In 2013, members of EAPPI attended the 10th WCC General Assembly in Busan, South Korea, where EAPPI prepared a “façade designed as the separation wall” through which participants were forced to enter. A former EAPPI observer, disguised as an Israeli soldier, guarded the entrance, forbidding Palestinians to enter. The demonstration ended with a chant of “The wall must fall. The wall must fall” and a symbolic tearing down of the wall.
• In 2013, an EA from the US stated in a presentation that he participated in a “journey along the Palestinian via Delarosa called the Contemporary Way of the Cross…at each station of the cross we reflected on the continuing suffering of the Palestinian people and linked it with the original events of Good Friday during another occupation two thousand years ago…” (38:13-38:46, emphasis added). The EA also promoted BDS campaigns against Israel, proclaiming that “Soda Stream is very popular in the United States… if you would like to support the Soda Stream boycott, I have some cards…and this afternoon I’m going to be joining Jewish Voice for Peace for their monthly boycott… (36:00-37:00, emphasis added).
• In May 2012, FinnChurchAid and EAPPI launched a campaign to “mark products from the settlements to tell their true origin…The settlements are a key obstacle to peace in the Middle East. In addition to the serious human rights abuses.”

BDS Activities

• While EAPPI claims to “not advocate for BDS,” it “advocate[s] for an end to trade with Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine.” EAPPI has also been a signatory on numerous calls for arms embargoes and divestment from Israel.
• According to the WCC, “EAPPI is a program of the WCC and therefore is bound to follow strictly the WCC official policy and positions. The WCC encourages member churches to withdraw investments from companies benefiting from the illegal activities on occupied territories or take any other economic measure that are equitable, transparent and non-violent including boycotting settlement products” (emphasis added).
• In December 2024, EAPPI UK shared an article titled “9 solidarity actions you can take right now” that called to “Check if your money is supporting the violence…It’s up to all of us to ensure our money isn’t being used to support the violence in Palestine and Israel. Have you checked your local meeting’s investments? Are you using financial services that are involved in the arms trade? Is your local council investing in companies profiting from the violence?”
• In September 2024, EAPPI called for people to send letters to their MPs asking: 
  • “Will the UK government commence an immediate review of its trade agreements with Israel in light of the ICJ’s opinion that states must “take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”?
  • Will the government pass urgent legislation to ban all UK trade with and investments in settlements and ban UK-based companies and financial institutions from engaging in business with settlements or their support structure in light of the ICJ’s determination that the settlements are a violation of international law?
  • Will the UK government ban all arms sales to Israel in light of the ICJ’s warning of a plausible risk of genocide, and confirm it is not providing any British military or intelligence support to Israel for its operations against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank?”
• In September 2024, EAPPI called for “an end to arms sales to Israel.”
• In April 2024, EAPPI was a signatory on a statement calling on governments to “End complicity in Israeli human rights violations and exert levers of power with immediate economic and political pressure on the government of Israel, including imposing an arms embargo” and “Divest from corporations profiting from militarism, including the occupation of Palestine.”
• In December 2023, EAPPI called for people to attend a debate in the UK parliament on arms sales and “call for the UK government to immediately cease the licensing of arms and security equipment to Israel given the risk that they will be used to commit violations of international law and potential war crimes.”

National Coordinators

• EAPPI’s National Coordinators are also active in anti-Israel advocacy, with some funding fringe NGOs involved in BDS and lawfare campaigns against Israel.
• EAPPI South Africa National Coordinator Dudu Mahlangu-Masango is signatory to a November 2012 letter to President Zuma that states, “Some Gazans are involved in shooting home-made ‘rockets’ into Israel, and while we disapprove of this, it is a reaction of an oppressed people to the much greater violence inflicted on the people of Gaza by Israel and also in response to Israel’s ongoing and systematic violence against the Palestinian people…our government should give Israel an ultimatum: if one more civilian is killed, the Israeli ambassador will be sent back to Israel and our ambassador will be recalled…We also call on our government and civil society to instigate broad-based boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) on Israel” (emphasis added).
  • On May 15, 2018, during a television interview, when asked whether she thinks that South Africa should break diplomatic relations with Israel completely, Masango-Mahlangu answered “Coming from South Africa Apartheid system…that’s what they are doing was wrong they had to be sanctioned, so yes I agree, a total sanctions between South Africa and Israel I think will be the way out…”
• In the United Kingdom and Ireland, EAPPI is administered by the Quakers in Britain on behalf of 16 partner churches and NGOs, including Christian Aid, CAFOD, and Trocaire. According to EAPPI UK, “While EAPPI UK Ireland is not a member of the BDS movement and does not advocate for BDS, we support the right of organizations and citizens to engage in such democratic and legitimate means of nonviolent protest. We do advocate for an end to trade with Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine” (emphasis added).
• Norwegian Church Aid
  • In Norway, EAPPI is administered by Norwegian Church Aid.
  • Former EAPPI advocacy officer Nader Hanna explained that “NCA is also involved in recruitment, which is the most important. So they (NCA), they’re advertised – they do interviews, they receive applications, they do tests, and they also test them before they come here. And when they go back home, NCA is also coordinating their advocacy efforts back home…NCA is funding, and facilitates so that candidates are able to come and participate in this program.”
• Finn Church Aid
  • Finn Church Aid is the “Finnish participant” of EAPPI.
  • According to EAPPI Finland, “In Finland, the Foreign Ministry is responsible for selecting and coaching the observers. The Church’s Foreign Aid is a partnership between the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Ministry finances Finland’s EAPPI activities with partner organizations. Partner organizations are required to have a clearly defined development cooperation program that is in line with the Finnish development policy objectives.”
  • In May 2024, Finn Church Aid organized a lecture alongside EAPPI Finland titled, “Is There Hope for Peace in Israel and Palestine?” The lecture featured an activist from Breaking the Silence.
    • Breaking the Silence makes sweeping accusations based on anecdotal, anonymous, and unverifiable accounts of often low-ranked soldiers. These “testimonies” lack context, are politically biased, and erase the complicated reality in the West Bank. In addition, they reflect a distorted interpretation of the conflict in order to advance the political agenda of Breaking the Silence activists, thereby fueling the international campaigns against Israel.
  • In 2014, Finn Church Aid and EAPPI traveled to major university campuses in Finland, alleging that Israel victimizes and discriminates against the Palestinian population and “vindictively persecutes” Palestinian children.
  • EAs in Finland have been active in lobbying on the issue of the EU’s labelling of settlement products, “appealing also to MEPs, e.g. during the annual EAPPI lobby trips to Brussels, arranged by WCC.”
• DanChurchAid
  • In Denmark, DanChurchAid administers EAPPI.
  • According to a DanChurchAid 2015 report, EAs from Denmark were provided with “learning material, including training videos on volunteering and reporting mechanisms for human rights violations.”
• Bread for the World
  • Bread for the World “administer[s]” EAPPI in Germany. According to Bread for the World. “Bread for the World supports this EAPPI program with ecclesiastical funds, with a contribution to the shared costs of the Geneva office and the cost of preparing and posting 10-15 volunteers from Germany.”
• Diakonia
  • Diakonia is a member of the Swedish branch of EAPPI.
  • In 2012, EAPPI “extend[ed] a special thanks to Diakonia for providing their expertise on international law in contribution” to EAPPI’s core publication, “Faith Under Occupation” (jointly published with the World Council of Churches and the Jerusalem Inter-Church Centre in 2012). The publication places sole blame on Israel for the difficulties faced by Christians in the Holy Land and seeks to “disprove” what it calls “unfounded Israeli and Christian Zionist propaganda that Palestinian Christians are depopulating due to Muslim fundamentalism in Palestinian society.”
• Act for Peace
  • According to its website, “EAPPI is managed by Act for Peace” in Australia. On return to Australia, EAPPI “work[s] with the Act for Peace team, other returned Accompaniers and advocacy groups to develop and implement an awareness-raising and advocacy plan.”