Stephen Sizer addresses a meeting of the UK's Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which agitates for Israel's destruction. Photo: roshpinaproject.com

The Rev Stephen Sizer, a rabidly anti-Zionist Church of England vicar, has issued a veiled warning that foreign criticism of an Iranian-sponsored extremists conference in Tehran last week could lead to negative “consequences” for the country’s beleaguered Christian and Jewish communities.

As The Algemeiner reported on October 2nd, Sizer was one of the participants in the “New Horizon” conference, which brought together Holocaust deniers and conspiracy theorists from around the world. Many of the conference sessions were led by both right and left-wing extremists, who railed against the international influence of the so-called “Israel Lobby.”

On his return to the UK, Sizer defended his presence at the conference following a sharp attack from Jonathan Arkush, the Vice President of the British Jewish Board of Deputies, who declared that the vicar’s “appearance at a conference sponsored by a regime that actively persecutes Christians and other minorities is inexplicable.”

In response, Sizer told The Daily Telegraph newspaper: “Jesus called his followers to be ambassadors of reconciliation – and ambassadors work on foreign soil.”

Ominously, he added: “Those who criticise this kind of conference must think very carefully of the consequences of their words for Jews and Christians in countries like Iran.”

“Stephen Sizer has no credibility to act as an ‘ambassador for reconciliation’ between Christians and Jews,” Dave Rich, Deputy Director of communications for the Community Security Trust, the official security body of the UK Jewish community, told The Algemeiner. “His suggestion that the well-being of Iranian Jews relies on him attending conferences with Holocaust deniers and conspiracy theorists would be laughable, were it not for the sinister implication that they may come to harm as a result of people raising legitimate concerns about his activities.”

The latest controversy around Sizer has boosted the perception that he is not committed to a reconciliation agreement agreed with the Board of Deputies in 2012 and mediated by the Church of England. That agreement was the result of a Board of Deputies complaint concerning Sizer’s habit of linking to antisemitic and racist websites, including one run by the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, on his Facebook page and elsewhere online.

Several notorious anti-Semites joined Sizer at the Tehran conference, including the French-Cameroonian provocateur and comedian, Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, the originator of the anti-Semitic “quenelle” gesture.