A former Archbishop of Canterbury has urged the Christian community to align with Israelstating that failure to do so would be a departure from their faith.
“Israel is under threat at a level that seems equal to anything it experienced after 1948. Christian people must stand with Israel at this time. To do otherwise would be a rejection of our faith and our democracy,” Lord Carey of Clifton, George Carey, said last week at the European Coalition for Israel Emergency Summit on Global Anti-Semitism in Geneva.
The former archbishop said that while “we should not be totally surprised” by the Hamas massacre of October 7 and the subsequent rise of anti-Semitism around the world – “we have witnessed the eve of anti-Semitism time and again before and since the Holocaust – he noted that “Israel is threatened at a level that seems equal to everything he has encountered since 1948.
“I’m not optimistic,” Carey said in her video speech.
Israel emergency summit on global anti-Semitism in Geneva
ECI is the only non-Jewish, pro-Israeli group accredited to the European Union in Brussels. The organization is also active at the United Nations in Geneva and New York.
Diplomats and religious leaders from across Europe attended the emergency summit, held on January 24 at the UN headquarters in Geneva. The World Jewish Congress co-hosted the summit, which concluded with a Holocaust memorial in the Oratory Parish in Geneva’s old town.
Bishop Teemu Laajasalo of the Helsinki Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and Germany’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Nikola Gillhoff, spoke at the evening.
Carey served as archbishop from 1991 to 2002, known for his evangelical beliefs. The Archbishop of Canterbury is responsible for the areas of England south of the ancient counties of Cheshire and Yorkshire.
