B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:

B’nai B’rith International condemns the kidnappings of at least 90 Assyrian Christians by the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group in northeast Syria, in a horrendous act that appears to be a “retaliatory” measure for the latest Kurdish offensive.

B’nai B’rith urges the international coalition currently fighting ISIS to utilize all necessary means to avoid the massacre of these innocent people.

This is the latest example of both ISIS’ brutal tactics and its targeting of a minority group. Among other atrocities, ISIS assailed the Yazidis in Iraq by starving them on a mountain top and enslaving hundreds of women.

Furthermore, this diabolical act merely adds to the steady drumbeat of violence against Christians, their churches and property throughout much of the Middle East. Just this month Libyan militants claiming loyalty to ISIS released a video featuring mass beheadings of Egyptian Coptic Christians.

ISIS and other fanatic Islamist groups are a plague on the Middle East and the world. They must not be allowed to grow or spread their toxic program of violent hatred.

B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:

After reviewing the Obama administration’s Fiscal Year 2016 (FY16) budget, B’nai B’rith International has mixed reactions to areas affecting seniors and the low-income Americans, as well as matters of international policy—both spheres in which B’nai B’rith is extremely active.

B’nai B’rith is pleased the administration is calling for a “clean reallocation” of funds within the payroll tax, allowing the disability and retirement benefits to be on equal and secure footing until 2033 and avoiding a disability shortfall in 2016. Reallocations among parts of the Social Security program are not uncommon and have occurred 11 times in the past. 

B’nai B’rith is also satisfied to see that the administration sought to undo many of the sequester cuts in domestic discretionary programs. The administration was able to do so without gutting such mandatory programs as Social Security and Medicare that affect the elderly. Other promising ideas gleaned from the FY16 budget include allowing the U.S. Department or Health and Human Services to negotiate prices on cutting edge drugs like “biologics” for Medicare beneficiaries and reducing out of pocket prescription spending. 

We remain quite concerned, however, about provisions appearing again in this year’s budget that would shift more costs, including health costs, to older adults and the disabled. Among these worrisome cost-shifting measures are ill-conceived penalties for disability beneficiaries who also receive unemployment insurance, changes to the Medicare’s premium structure that increase costs for many beneficiaries and a proposal that would penalize people who buy certain types of supplemental Medicare coverage. 

While we continue to work toward fully restoring the Department of Housing and Urban Development program that has funded the construction of thousands of rental apartments for low-income elders, we are pleased to see the administration’s budget would continue to fund operating and service coordination expenses for existing buildings across the country. B’nai B’rith is the largest national Jewish sponsor of low-income housing for seniors in the United States. 

In the international policy realm, the administration’s $54.8 billion foreign aid budget request for FY16 is a welcome reversal of past cuts to international affairs. However, the total request level represents only a modest increase at a time when many important U.S. programs overseas are already significantly underfunded. Additionally, it is unfortunate that humanitarian assistance is down 13 percent at a time when conflicts are on the rise and victims of natural disasters desperately need help.

B’nai B’rith does welcome the administration’s call for a 29.2 percent increase in the Economic Support Fund that will bolster strategic economic assistance to address global crises and countries in conflict, including Ukraine and its neighbors; and combating the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Aid to Israel, at $3.1 billion, will remain the same as in Fiscal Year 2014 and Fiscal Year 2015, continuing U.S. support for the only democracy in the Middle East.

B’nai B’rith calls on Congress to fund at least the full amount of the administration’s international affairs budget request.

B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:

B’nai B’rith International condemns U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for attributing the 50-day summer hostilities between Israel and Hamas to “a restrictive occupation that has lasted almost half a century” while speaking at the Cairo conference on reconstruction in Gaza on Oct. 12.

Ban said “we must not lose sight of the root causes of the recent hostilities: a restrictive occupation that has lasted almost half a century, the continued denial of Palestinian rights and the lack of tangible progress in peace negotiations.”‎

The secretary-general should refrain from making biased, inflammatory remarks perpetuating a false image of Israel as an occupying aggressor. Ban, in his comments, did make mention of Hamas rocket attacks that were “fired indiscriminately causing fear, panic and suffering.” However, he does not account for anti-Israel terrorists’ role in igniting and sustaining conflict—a stunning and inexplicable omission.

Israel completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005, just as it did in Sinai after reaching a peace treaty with Egypt. In return for leaving Gaza, Israel received intensified attacks and threats against its citizenry. Israel has also repeatedly offered Palestinian statehood and the provision of all of Palestinians’ needs in sweeping peace offers—but these have been declined without fail by the Palestinian Authority leadership. Hamas, for its part, is doctrinally committed to the total destruction of the Jewish state.

Combating other Islamist groups, like ISIS, while ignoring or handing propaganda victories to ones like Hamas is unconscionable and no service to advancing Palestinian-Israeli peace. The open fanaticism, terrorism and armament of Arab extremists is the patent “root cause” of recurring conflict with Israel.