July 25, 2005

While anti-semitism is a sin, not every critique of Israeli policies qualifies as anti-semitism, Samuel Kobia told a Jewish-Christian gathering on Sunday, 24 July.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary addressed the issue of churches divesting from companies making profits out of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories in his keynote address at the annual conference of the International Council of Christians and Jews (ICCJ), in Chicago.

To those who feel that the WCC's recent call to member churches with investment funds to consider not participating economically in activities related to the occupation was "an act of anti-semitism directed against all Jews," Kobia restated the Council's historical condemnation of anti-semitism, which goes back to its inception.

A "sin against God and man," anti-semitism is "absolutely irreconcilable with the profession and practice of the Christian faith," Kobia said, quoting the first WCC Assembly in Amsterdam in 1948.

While acknowledging that the divestment issue "has been received as something utterly disturbing by many Jews," he affirmed that "there is a risk and perhaps a temptation to fall into readily available metaphors."

Care should be taken "not to fall prey to a simplistic use of metaphors," like comparing divestment "with a call for boycott of Jewish goods and Jewish persons as in Germany in the 1930s," Kobia warned.

The WCC general secretary highlighted the need for a "safe space for listening to each other, and for discussing how and where we need to go." "Our concern is peace and justice for both Israelis and Palestinians," he emphasized.

Recognizing "the power to unite and inspire, but also to divide and destroy" that lies within every religion, Kobia called for a "commitment among people of faith" to make sure that religious traditions are not "used to breed contempt and death."

"We need to form new alliances for life that defy the division and conflicts that are a product of globalized injustice in all its many forms," he declared.

The full text of Kobia's keynote address is available on the WCC website at: http://wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/interreligious/kobia-iccj-05.html.

World Council of Churches