The head of one of the most prominent pro-Israel Christian organizations in the
United States slammed the White House on Wednesday for agreeing to several
meetings with an “anti-Israel” preacher who denies that Jews have a historical
link to Israel.
According to the online news outlet Washington Free
Beacon, preacher Serge Duss “propagates borderline anti- Semitic conspiracy
theories and advises several groups that have stigmatized the Israeli government
– [and] has made at least four trips to the Obama White House for several
high-level powwows with top administration officials, records show.”
In a
telephone interview with The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, David Brog, executive
director of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), commented on Duss’s form of theology.
“It is troubling, in that he seems to embrace an odd race-based replacement
theology; he seems to be saying that Jews are not connected to
Bible.”
Brog, whose organization numbers more than one million members
and is now the largest pro-Israel group in the US, said Duss’s views are “very
offensive to Jews and Bible-believing Christians.”
He added that Duss
slandered the “Christian faith of millions around the world.
[He is] not
committed to peace and reconciliation.”
Asked about Duss’s connection
with Washington, Brog said it “makes one worry” because it leads to “concerns
that policy is being driven by those who have rejectionist views of Israel and
are outside of the peace consensus.”
“We support the democratically elected government of Israel. The current
government has expressed a commitment to a two-state solution,” he
stressed. “We fear that Serge Duss does not share the goal of a safe
Israel.”
Ari Morgenstern, a spokesman for Christians United for Israel , told the Post that
"CUFI supports Israel's right to decide how to achieve peace and
security for its citizens, free from all outside pressure."
Brog emphasized this to the Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo, who
first exposed the meetings between Duss and White House officials: “Serge Duss
is associated with the most extreme aspects of Arab rejectionism. [He] has
denied the connection between the modern Jewish people and those of the
Bible.”
If the Obama administration is truly committed “to supporting
Israel in its quest for peace,” Brog asked, “why are they taking advice from
someone who parrots the worst rhetoric of those who oppose accommodation with
Israel?” Kredo’s investigative reports showed that Duss had “a series of
high-level sit-downs with the Obama administration’s liaison to Arab-Americans,
as well as with two of the president’s most trusted foreign policy advisers,
according to White House visitor logs.”
In an email to the Post on Friday, Matt Lehrich, a White House spokesman, wrote the"White House staff meets with thousands of people each month. We don't apologize to anybody for the President's unshakeable commitment to Israel's security - a commitment he reiterated twice in the past two weeks at meetings with Conservative and Orthodox Jewish leaders."