wfn.org | WCC NEWS: Israel/Palestine - Kobia talks about divestment

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches - News Release
Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
For immediate release - 25/07/2005

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

Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363
media@wcc-coe.org
Sign up for WCC press releases at
http://onlineservices.wcc-coe.org/pressnames.nsf

The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 347, in
more than 120 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works
cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly,
which meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally
inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its staff is headed by
general secretary Samuel Kobia from the Methodist church in Kenya.