Wiesenthal Center Lauds Senator Ted Cruz for Speaking out for Israel at Event Highlighting Suffering of Christians in Middle East; Center Denounces Those Who Shouted Him Down

September 11, 2014

Center officials said Jewish community will never make common cause with bigots.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center denounced members of In Defense of Christians, an advocacy group for oppressed Christians in the Mideast, who shouted down US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) when he said that Israel and the Jewish people are threatened by the same forces in the Middle East that are decimating historic Christian communities, saying, “those who hate Israel also hate America. That those who hate Jews also hate Christians.” A vocal group in the audience booed and shouted protests, leading the Senator to leave the podium.

“The Simon Wiesenthal Center applauds Senator Cruz for his integrity and courage in telling seventeen Christian Patriarchs and their supporters the truth. For years the Simon Wiesenthal Center has vigorously spoken out in defense of endangered religious minorities, including Christians in Iraq, Egypt and across the Middle East,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier dean and founder and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the leading Jewish Human Rights group.

“We were appalled however by last night’s incident. And while we will continue to speak out against those who suffer ethnic cleansing and violence because of their religious faiths, we will never make common cause with bigots who do not show basic respect for the Jewish people and the State of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, the only nation in that region where religious rights of all are guaranteed, and the only Middle East society where the population of Christians is rising,”Hier and Cooper concluded.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino). 

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