B’nai B’rith International is stunned by the sentiments of a Catholic bishop in the United Kingdom holding Israel responsible for the intensified conflict with Hamas.
In response to a recent statement by Bishop Declan Lang of Clifton, who serves as chair of the International Affairs Department at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, B’nai B’rith International Director of United Nations and Intercommunal Affairs David Michaels wrote: “Plainly, it risked adding grievous insult to the injury repeatedly experienced by Israelis, while emboldening fanatically violent Palestinian elements – something that does not serve the wellbeing of ordinary, innocent people on either side of the regional divide.”
The letter noted that the bishop’s statement “makes clear your assigning of guilt primarily to the State of Israel, and this indictment discounts the complexity of the conditions experienced by – and the full, actual record of – that country.”
Michaels expressed amazement that Lang accused Israel, despite its carefully targeted operations, of “indiscriminate” violence, but not Hamas, which went unmentioned in the bishop’s statement. B’nai B’rith found it telling that Lang awaited current Israeli operations before issuing his statement: “[T]he website of your diocese yields not a single mention of Sderot, an Israeli town whose children have never known a life free from indiscriminate, unprovoked cross-border rocket attacks from Gaza.”
Click here to read the letter.
In response to a recent statement by Bishop Declan Lang of Clifton, who serves as chair of the International Affairs Department at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, B’nai B’rith International Director of United Nations and Intercommunal Affairs David Michaels wrote: “Plainly, it risked adding grievous insult to the injury repeatedly experienced by Israelis, while emboldening fanatically violent Palestinian elements – something that does not serve the wellbeing of ordinary, innocent people on either side of the regional divide.”
The letter noted that the bishop’s statement “makes clear your assigning of guilt primarily to the State of Israel, and this indictment discounts the complexity of the conditions experienced by – and the full, actual record of – that country.”
Michaels expressed amazement that Lang accused Israel, despite its carefully targeted operations, of “indiscriminate” violence, but not Hamas, which went unmentioned in the bishop’s statement. B’nai B’rith found it telling that Lang awaited current Israeli operations before issuing his statement: “[T]he website of your diocese yields not a single mention of Sderot, an Israeli town whose children have never known a life free from indiscriminate, unprovoked cross-border rocket attacks from Gaza.”
Click here to read the letter.