By Kenneth Bandler
WASHINGTON — The American Jewish Committee (AJC) strongly condemns Lehava leader Bentzi Gopstein for his incendiary words threatening Christians in Israel, and urges Israeli authorities to take appropriate actions against him.
“The boundless hatred that infuses Gopstein and Lehava is a chilul haShem, a desecration of Judaism, contrary to the founding values of the state of Israel,” said Rabbi David Rosen, AJC’s International Director of Interreligious Affairs. “Israel is proudly the only country in the region where Christians live safely and practice their faith freely,” Rosen said.
Approximately 160,000 Israeli citizens, or 2 percent of the population, is Christian. “Indeed, Christian-Jewish relations in Israel and around the world are stronger and more cooperative than ever,” said Rosen.
In an op-ed on the ultra-Orthodox website Kooker, Gopstein called Christianity an “accursed religion,” Christians “blood-sucking vampires,” and called for Christians to be expelled from Israel. “Christmas has no place in the Holy Land,” Gopstein wrote. “Gopstein’s venemous attack on Christians, only days before Christmas, is appalling,” said Rosen.
Elsewhere, an AJC leadership delegation exchanged views on the threats posed by political Islam and the strategic ambitions of Iran in a just-concluded series of consultations in the Arabian Gulf.
The 13-member group, led by AJC Board of Trustees Chairman John Shapiro and AJC Associate Executive Director for Policy Jason Isaacson, met with senior officials, business leaders, security experts, diplomats and political analysts in three Gulf states.
In Bahrain, the delegation also met with members of the country’s small indigenous Jewish community.
“Throughout our visit, we were struck by officials’ and policy experts’ singular focus on the danger to their own countries and to Islam itself from radical Islamist recruitment and violence,” said Isaacson.
“In discussions with Muslim scholars and analysts, we heard about steps that have been taken and further steps being planned to assure that educational systems, media and religious institutions convey messages of tolerance and peace, and proscribe hate and violence.
“After so much bloodshed — in the region and in the West — carried out in the name of a distorted medieval interpretation of Islam, we urged the swiftest and widest possible adoption of such measures, and the choking off of financial and theological support for the Islamic State and other Islamist movements.”
The delegation discussed with a range of officials and diplomats Iran’s support for subversive forces in several Arab states, and the adequacy of defenses against the Iranian threat. AJC leaders and Gulf officials shared concerns about the prospect of Iran raising its political and military profile as a result of the July 2015 P5+1 nuclear deal with Tehran. AJC board members and senior staff have made regular visits to the Gulf since 1995.
*
Bandler is director of media relations for the American Jewish Committee (AJC)