B’nai B’rith President Charles O. Kaufman and CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin have issued the following statement:

The B’nai B’rith International Executive Board of Directors, including the Executive Committee, today passed a resolution expressing that the organization “stands in solidarity with our Israeli brothers and sisters as they face down a Palestinian terrorist onslaught, just as we always have and we always will in the future.”

The measure touched on Hamas rocket fire, ethnic strife, unbalanced media coverage, an admonition against vigilante justice and a call for international bodies to condemn Hamas war crimes, among other topics.

B’rith has been active in Israel since 1888 and inaugurated the B’nai B’rith World Center-Jerusalem in 1981.

The resolution specifies that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people and “once again finds itself forced to fight against rocket attacks launched by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad from Gaza.”  In addition, specific mention was made that “ethnic strife is gripping the streets of Israeli cities with mixed Israeli Arab and Jewish populations, including the horrific torching of synagogues in Lod, which reminds us of dark times in Jewish history.”

The resolution also was particularly mindful of media coverage of the current conflict that “often relies on false moral equivalencies, if not blatant bias and outright lies.” It was also noted in the resolution that “Israeli civilians have lost their lives or been injured for no other reason than that they are Jews who dare to live in our ancient homeland.”

Support for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israeli police was also expressed, and the resolution stated members of the “international community, including U.N. Security Council members, are rushing to unfairly condemn Israel while paying scant attention to Hamas war crimes, including firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli towns and cities from the midst of Palestinian civilian areas in Gaza.”

B’nai B’rith has opened its Israel Emergency Fund to help Israel during this crisis.

Read the full resolution here.