The Anglican archbishop of Melbourne, Australia, Philip Freier, has been criticized by the Jewish community for hosting an event in honor of former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami. The president of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, John Searle, wrote to the archbishop saying the Jewish community found it inconceivable that the Anglican Church would host such a man or even meet him. He declined an invitation to attend and asked Freier to reconsider. Searle told the newspaper 'The Age' that although Khatami, president of Iran from 1997 to 2005, was regarded as a reformist, he was a sponsor of terrorism, a Holocaust denier and leader of a country that has often threatened to "wipe Israel off the map".
"Only last year, this supposed champion of dialogue called Israel 'an old, incurable wound on the body of Islam, a wound that really possesses demonic, stinking, contagious blood," Searle declared. Khatami is being brought to Australia by La Trobe University's Center for Dialogue and will give a public lecture on 26 March. The Jewish Community Council has resigned from the center's board of advisers in protest. Archbishop Freier said he had invited Jewish leaders along with other groups who suffered persecution in Iran – Christians and Baha'is – so they could raise their concerns with Khatami. He said Anglicans were not unaware of the difficulties for minorities in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
