New York, April 11, 2002

This week is Yom Hashoah, Remembrance Week. Interreligious services are being held this week throughout our country. All of us should remember what happened seven months ago when terrorists destroyed not only the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon but killed more than 3,000 people. For years terrorists have been attempting to destroy the State of Israel. This week we remember the Shoah when a government directed policy tried to destroy all Jews of Europe only because they were Jewish. Today again anti-Semitic libels and derision have resurfaced with an enmity that at times makes the propaganda of the Third Reich seem a shadowy whisper. In Europe there have been bombings and burnings of synagogues and the desecration of Jewish cemeteries. This morning another synagogue in Tunisia was devastated. But today our concern is Israel-the homeland of God's People. Israel is threatened by terrorists who surround her. Jews are being slaughtered via suicide bombers in Hadera, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Efrat, Netanya, Afula, Hebron. Suicide bombs via terrorists of Hezbolla, Hamas, Fatah, El Aqsa Brigade have blown up cafes, restaurants, buses, pizzerias, bus terminals, malls on Ben Yehuda and Jaffa Streets and destroyed guests at the Passover Seder in the Park Hotel in Netanya, and in the Arab-owned restaurant in Haifa. Men, women, children have been destroyed. Yesterday another bus in Haifa was blown up. I ask if we care about the Shoah, where are we Christians today when again Jews are being killed? Where are we when Israel is being pushed to give up her homeland, to give up Jerusalem, her capital?

As a Christian of the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel I stand at Israel's side. Am Yisroel Chai!