Wiesenthal  CenterDenounces Passage Of Anti-Israel ‘Tear Down The Wall’ Resolution By Disciples Of Christ Assembly

Portland, OR—Officials of the Simon  Wiesenthal Center denounced today’s vote by the General Assembly of the Disciples of Christ to pass a resolution calling on Israel to dismantle its highly effective security fence. The Disciples, a mainline Protestant congregation, is in the middle of their General Assembly in Portland.

“The resolution is an abomination,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal  Center. “It demands that Israel take action that would put millions of its citizens in immediate harm’s way in the never-ending campaign of Palestinian suicide terror.”

“No other nation would ever be asked to do the same and as a result, this politically-driven resolution is functionally antisemitic,” Cooper added.

“It is especially outrageous that Disciple President Hobgood has seen to it that a young survivor of a suicide bombing in Jerusalem, Tzippi Cohen, was barred from speaking to all of the delegates at the General Assembly prior to vote.”   I have no doubt that had the delegates seen the human face of the victims of Palestinian terrorism, the outcome could have been much different,” Cooper added.

The passage of the resolution comes on the heels of a similar resolution by another mainline Protestant church, the United Church of Christ at their recent General Synod in Atlanta. Between the aggressive campaigns for divestment from Israel and dismantling of the security fence by these and other Protestant churches, “there is no doubt that our traditionally strong interfaith relations have been damaged,” said Rabbi Cooper.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe.

For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036, or visit www.wiesenthal.com.