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Pour publication immédiate:
25 juillet 2005
At Jewish-Christian gathering Kobia talks about divestment,
calls for new alliances for life
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
Informations complémentaires:
Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363
media@wcc-coe.org
Le Conseil œcuménique des Eglises s'attache à promouvoir l'unité des chrétiens dans la foi, le témoignage et le service, en vue d'un monde de justice et de paix. Communauté œcuménique d'Eglises fondée en 1948, le COE réunit aujourd'hui 349 Eglises protestantes, orthodoxes, anglicanes et autres, représentant plus de 560 millions de chrétiens; il travaille en coopération avec l'Eglise catholique romaine. Son secrétaire général est le Pasteur Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, de l'Eglise (luthérienne) de Norvège. Siège: Genève, Suisse.
