Wiesenthal Center Commends President Obama’s Long-Range Interfaith Goals—But Theologically-Driven Islamist ISIS Must Be Destroyed Before It is Too Late

February 19, 2015

 
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish Human Rights NGO commended President Obama’s plans to use education, the Internet, and dialogue to bolster the forces of tolerance between young Muslims and Americans of all faiths. “ We stand ready to cooperate with such initiatives through our Museum of Tolerance and Digital Terrorism and Hate Project,” said Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, Dean and Founder and Associate Dean of the Center.
 
“However, we urge the President to prioritize the military defeat of ISIS and other theologically-driven Islamist terrorist groups who are marching across the Arab world — beheading, burning alive, kidnapping and murdering all those who stand in the way of the establishment of a global caliphate,“ Center officials added.

“The existential threat that confronts the world today has a name — Islamist fundamentalism — and has addresses — ISIS, Al Qaeda, and their ilk. We must also be honest in acknowledging the scope of the problem. The number of Muslims sympathetic to Jihadists, could, according to a 2013 Pew poll, could far exceed 200 million — more than the total populations of the Axis Powers at the beginning of WWII.”

“After the murders in Paris, Copenhagen, after the beheading of Christians in Libya, the world still awaits an outpouring of criticism by leading Imams around the world of the targeted killings by ISIS of innocent Christians, Jews, and Muslims. We urge the United States to join with and empower countries who are suffering blows from these terrorists, including, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE and Western European nations,  and work together quickly to kill the terrorists, destroy their infrastructure and destroy this mushrooming terrorist threat to the world,” Hier and Cooper concluded.
 

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The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400.000 members. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the OAS and the Latin American Parliament.