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| By Israel Insider staff and partners March 4, 2007 |
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The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said a Christian delegation's praise of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a "shameful betrayal of American values and Christian-Jewish relations."
After recently meeting Ahmadinejad in Tehran, leaders from the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA praised Ahmadinejad as a pious and witty man. "Ahmadinejad comes across as a very religious man," said the Rev. Dr. Shanta Premawardhana, NCC's Associate General Secretary for Interfaith Relations. J. Daryl Byler, Director of the Mennonite Central Committee Washington Office, reportedly described Ahmadinejad as having a measured tone, seeming reasonable and having a witty personality.
Before his trip to the region, J. Daryl Byler sent a letter to President Bush about the upcoming meeting with Ahmadinejad. In it, the Assyrian International News Agency reports, he said he wished President Bush were the one meeting the Iranian president, whom he desribed as "bright and engaging." Byler went on to compare the two men. "Like you, Ahmadinejad is a religious man. I believe you would enjoy one another's company. Your conversation could signal a positive change in a relationship severed more than 25 years ago."
"By meeting with Ahmadinejad, these American Christian leaders are collaborating with a dangerous despot who calls for the destruction of Israel and denies the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "Their action is a shameful betrayal of American values and the Christian-Jewish relationship."
"In reporting on their meeting, the NCC delegation chose to ignore Ahmadinejad's numerous statements calling for the destruction of Israel and his sponsoring an infamous international conference to promote Holocaust denial," Mr. Foxman added.
The NCC delegation included leaders from Mennonite, Quakers, United Methodist, Baptist, Episcopal, and Catholic churches.
ADL noted that Ahmadinejad repeatedly demonizes the state of Israel and openly calls for its destruction at every opportunity. Most notoriously, Ahmadinejad described Israel as a "fake regime" that "must be wiped off the map."
He also called Zionists "the most detested people in all humanity" and called the extermination of six million Jews during World War II "a myth," claiming that Jews have played up Nazi atrocities during the Holocaust in a bid to extort sympathy for Israel from European governments. |
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