B’nai B’rith President Seth J. Riklin and CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin have issued the following statement:

B’nai B’rith International—the world’s oldest and most widely known Jewish communal and humanitarian organization—condemns the latest anti-Israel messaging of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC), particularly its current leader, Rev. Prof. Dr. Jerry Pillay.

In a Dec. 10 statement by the WCC general secretary on “developments in Syria,” Pillay called for “prayer and Christian solidarity with the churches and people of Syria as they navigate” a period of “both deep uncertainty and a renewed sense of hope for Syria’s future.”

However, in an otherwise highly cautious statement, Pillay—continuing a longstanding record of reserving excoriation for Israel, the Middle East’s beleaguered democracy and the world’s only Jewish state—singled out Israel alone for mention and sharp indictment. He said, “we are deeply alarmed by reports of the escalating attacks by Israeli armed forces against Syrian defence and industrial infrastructure, which threaten further destabilization and disruption of Syria’s path forward, and which constitute a violation of the 1974 disengagement agreement.” He continued, “We call for the immediate cessation of such opportunistic and destructive attacks which imperil the renewed but fragile hopes of the Syrian people for a better future.”

B’nai B’rith’s main interreligious representative, United Nations and Intercommunal Affairs Director David Michaels, has responded to the remarks:

“It is beyond deplorable that Rev. Pillay and the WCC have yet again found a way to callously and singularly attack Israel—this time for acting to urgently protect its citizens, Christians, Muslims, Druze and Jews, from advanced military weaponry falling into the hands of jihadists, many long affiliated with ISIS and al-Qaeda. These weapons include one of the world’s most substantial and notorious stockpiles of lethal chemical arms—already used repeatedly against Syria’s own people.”

“This is ‘opportunistic’ and ‘destructive’? This is what ‘imperils’ hope for a better future? In what way, exactly, are Israelis ever actually allowed to defend the lives of their people?”

“Somehow, no one else—literally no one—is censured in Rev. Pillay’s statement on the Syrian situation. The 50-year Assad dictatorship? Unmentioned. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the outgrowth of al-Qaeda that now leads Syrian governance? Unmentioned. Iran and its Hezbollah terrorists, which enforced Assad’s sadism and weaponized neighboring Lebanon? Unmentioned. Russia, which maintains key military bases in Syria? Unmentioned. Turkey, which has seized swaths of northern Syria? Unmentioned.”

The United States—which has been recurrently targeted by Iranian-sponsored forces and is conducting necessary operations to prevent an ISIS resurgence—is unmentioned too.

“The WCC,” Michaels continued, “will periodically say it opposes anti-Semitism and also accepts Israel’s existence. However, the WCC—notwithstanding many of its individual members’ responsible positions on Jews and the Jewish homeland—has long seemed to be guided by the precarious situation of Christians as well as deep-seated historic anti-Jewish animus in various parts of the world, including the Middle East and formerly the Soviet bloc. Plainly, it has been much more expedient for the WCC to lambast Israel in order to express its desire for ‘justice’ than to highlight tyrannies and violent extremists, precisely because it is in pluralistic Israel that the Christian community is reliably free and has continually grown. This hypocrisy is manifested most intolerably in recent WCC invoking of the patently libelous charge of ‘genocide’ against Israel—and against none other in the global community—echoing inherently political systems like the U.N. in which Arab and other autocracies enjoy an automatic majority.”

“Concerning Rev. Pillay’s assertions that he is not ‘anti-Jew,’ what must be understood is that one need not laud anti-Semites to feed anti-Semitism. One need not identify as anti-Semitic to be effectively inimical to Jews. Anti-Semitism, like racism and all forms of bigotry, is a spectrum. But demonization, delegitimization and double standards directed against Jews are anti-Semitism. Persistently singling out Jews as villains and scapegoats is anti-Semitism. Justifying, minimizing or ignoring violence and existential threats against Jews—including Israeli Jews—is anti-Semitism, especially when Jews in both Israel and the diaspora have been under relentless assault.”

“Justice and peace demand fairness and equality for Israelis no less than anyone else. It is time that cynical abusiveness toward Israel be called out, even when clearly substantiated past criticisms have sadly engendered no apparent self-reflection on the part of a religious figure and an ecumenical body.”

We are grateful to all those Christian and other partners committed to an indispensable, sacred friendship with the Jewish people—and we stand resolutely together in aspiring to genuine, comprehensive and lasting coexistence in the Middle East.

B’nai B’rith has previously detailed Rev. Pillay’s history of disturbing views, here, here, and here.