Politicians who fail to tackle environmental issues will be condemned “in far stronger terms than we speak today of the politicians of the ’30s who ignored what was happening in Nazi Germany,” the archbishop said.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has apologized for suggesting that the impact of climate change would be worse than the Nazi genocide of some six million Jews.
Welby, the most senior cleric in the Church of England and leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, made the comments in an interview with the BBC at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
He added that politicians who fail to tackle environemental issues would be spoken of by future generations “in far stronger terms than we speak today of the politicians of the [19]30s, of the politicians who ignored what was happening in Nazi Germany.”
Notably, Welby’s father was Jewish.
I unequivocally apologise for the words I used when trying to emphasise the gravity of the situation facing us at COP26. It’s never right to make comparisons with the atrocities brought by the Nazis, and I’m sorry for the offence caused to Jews by these words. https://t.co/T0Be5rpnc1
— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) November 1, 2021
Meanwhile, former US president Donald Trump claimed during a radio interview that Israel “literally owned Congress” until roughly a decade ago, whereas now “it’s almost the opposite.”
He qualified: “You have between AOC [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)] and [Rep. Ilhan] Omar [D-MN] — and these people that hate Israel. They hate it with a passion — they’re controlling Congress, and Israel is not a force in Congress anymore. I mean, it’s just amazing. I’ve never seen such a change.”
Ocasio-Cortez and Omar were among 11 lawmakers who did not vote in favor of $1 billion in supplemental funding for Israel’s defensive Iron Dome missile defense system in September. But the funding was later green lighted in a separate bill that passed overwhelmingly, with 420 votes in favor. It has since been held up in the Senate by Rand Paul (R-KY).
With respect to the media, Trump said: “Look at The New York Times. The New York Times is vicious against Israel, and it’s just a terrible thing to watch.”