Established on September 27, 1920 and based in Akron, Pennsylvania, the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) has offices located throughout the United States and Canada. The Committee was formed as the result of a meeting held two months earlier, when 13 church leaders had met in Elkhart, Indiana to discuss ways that North American Mennonites could respond to the needs of hungry people in the former Soviet Union. Today MCC's self-defined mission is "to demonstrate God's love by working among people suffering from poverty, conflict, oppression and natural disaster; [and to serve] as a channel for interchange by building mutually transformative relationships … by sharing our experiences, resources and faith in Jesus Christ." The organization seeks to achieve these objectives by: (a) "send[ing] people, food and material goods to communities recovering from war and natural disasters"; (b) "support[ing] local churches and community groups in their efforts to provide food, health care, education, employment and social services"; (c) help[ing] people develop skills for creating peace in their families, neighborhoods, villages, towns and nations"; and (d) "encourage[ing] exchanges of visits, gifts and prayers between supporters and those with whom we work around the world."
MCC describes itself as "a relief, service, and peace agency of the North American Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches." Its overseas work includes development work such as education, health and agriculture, peace and justice issues, relief work, and job creation. In North America, MCC's work is with "immigration, refugee assistance, job creation, people with disabilities, offenders and victims of crime, and more." As of July 2006, MCC personnel were stationed in 53 countries; 26 countries received material and/or food assistance from MCC; and 70 countries received financial support from the organization.
MCC's relief work in the Middle East started in 1949 -- as its website puts it, "following [the] war and the creation of the state of Israel, which left 700,000 Palestinians as refugees." Today MCC's Washington office promotes the "Bridges Not Walls" campaign exhorting U.S. politicians "to call upon Israeli and Palestinian leaders to build bridges for peace, not walls that divide" -- a reference to the anti-terror security barrier constructed by Israel in the West Bank.
MCC's July-September 2004 Peace Office Newsletter, produced by the organization's Middle East leadership, contains highly vitriolic attacks on Israel. The newsletter features a number of articles relating to Israel's security barrier, including one by Alain Epp Weaver -- MCC's co-representative for Palestine, Jordan and Iraq -- who argues that the 1948 creation of the state of Israel constituted "a violent imposition on the native population." Weaver likens the barrier to the Berlin Wall and compares its effects to those of South African apartheid. Another contributor to the Peace Office Newsletter is Jeff Halper, Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.
The newsletter's list of resources betrays an extremist political bias, including books by Uri Davis (Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within) and the radical academic Ilan Pappe. MCC's links to other websites include those of Al-Haq, the Palestine Center for Human Rights, the Applied Research Institute (Jerusalem), Electronic Intifada, and the Stop the Wall Campaign.
MCC's annual income exceeds $60 million, mainly from individual contributions. Other sources of revenue include relief sales, thrift shops, and donations of food grains. The grain donation is matched by the Canadian government through the Canadian International Development Agency, which contributes as much as four dollars for every dollar of grain donated.
