Inter-Religious
Islamic-Jewish Relations
UPDATES:
18 November 2008 WJC leaders meet with Saudi king in New York
20 June 2006 Jews and Muslims Seek to Bridge the Gap at Moscow Forum
11 May 2006 Moscow:
Grand Mufti stresses importance of dialogue with Jews
The Gathering Crisis
After the Arab world declared war on Israel the state of inter-faith dialog between Islam and world Jews has been tenuously gloomy at best. The Al Qaeda terror attacks of September 11, 2001 the increasing suicide bombings in Israel spurred on by the "intifada" launched by Hammas, Islamic Jihad and other Arab terrorist groups now have made constructive dialog or even debate nearly impossible.
In the face of this gathering crisis the WJC has continued to promote programs and initiatives designed to reach-out wherever safe and plausible in an effort to retain some connection and dialog even as the bombs explode and the ancient invective poisons almost any reasonable attempt at constructive and mutually respectful debate on the issues that concern both Jewish and Islamic world citizens.
Historical Perspective
Historically, Jews and Jewish communities have existed in the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf Region for more than 2,500 years. Jews in substantial numbers resided in what are today Arab countries over 1,000 years before the advent of Islam. Following the Moslem conquest of the region, for centuries, while relegated to second-class status, Jews were nonetheless permitted limited religious, educational, professional and business opportunities.
The status of Jews in Arab countries changed dramatically immediately before and after the Arab world attacked the new State of Israel in 1948. The litany of terror that was unleashed upon Jews in the Muslim Middle East and African countries is both appalling and sad.
In Syria, in 1947 anti-Jewish pogroms caused almost 10,000 Jews to flee in terror. In Iraq, 'Zionism' became a capital crime. Bombs in the Jewish quarter of Cairo killed more than 70 Jews. After the French left Algeria, the new Islamic leadership issued a torrent of anti-Jewish decrees, prompting nearly all of the 160,000 Jews to flee the country. When the United Nations General Assembly passed the resolution on the Partition Plan, Muslim rioters launched pogroms in Aden and Yemen killing 82 Jews.
In the past 10 years we have witnessed a new surge in violence and attacks perpetrated upon Jews in the name of Islam and primarily in the form of state-sponsored terror as with Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran and Iraq, and state-condoned acts of violent anti-Semitism such as the increasing incidence of attacks on Jews, synagogues, and Jewish schools in Asia as well as, sadly still, in Europe.
Israel, Jews and Islam
In the political, social and military storms that encircle this pained and violent modern history of Jewish-Islamic relations we must all continue to search for any glimpse of common ground that may someday lead to peaceful co-existence between Jews and Muslims not only in Israel and the Middle East, but Europe the US, Asia and the world over.
As the hatred and virulence of the Intifada began to mature in 2002 waves of Palestinian violence began to follow a disturbing pattern of inter-religious conflict. The pattern was Muslims attacking Jews or Jewish neighborhoods, frequently shooting from positions at or near Christian religious sites. The Israeli army would respond to these attacks, and Christians (and sometimes Jews as well) subsequently expressed their dismay at Israel's response and at its alleged lack of religious sensitivity.
Unfortunately, these tactics of the "El Aksa Intifada" have been all too successful in creating an inaccurate but effective war of religious propaganda with a frightening political effect: Israeli defensive actions provoked Christian reprimands and have promoted a growing wide-scale exodus of Christians from these territories. This trend only magnifies the further polarization of these communities as the Palestinian Muslims and their co-religionists in the Palestinian Authority become increasingly emboldened in their use and condoning of terror as both a religious and political weapon.
Global Terror and Islam
In the context of this growing intensity of terror and war within Israel, the broader global context further encourages a deep pessimism for a healthy inter-religious dialog.
With the insurgents in Iraq, Al Qaeda bombers in Spain and the constant nagging threat of more militant-Islamic attacks in the US, the global environment for engendering inter-religious reconciliation between the two religions seems unlikely to bear significant fruit anytime soon.
The September 11 attacks created a sense of crisis for many religious leaders. The use of a religious theme to justify the murder of thousands of innocent people is unfortunately not a new phenomena, but it is one the Western world has not experienced in centuries.
Furthermore, the attacks have led to a new antipathy towards Islam, the religion that the terrorists claimed to be protecting in carrying our these horrendous acts. On the most basic level, the terrorist attacks, committed in the name of the Islamic religion, have created a very serious crisis for dialogue between Islam and all of the other world religions - at least for the immediate future.
However, it is this very crisis that is allowing, in some cases, forcing, many within the Western world, Jewish and Christian alike, to learn much more about the Islamic religion than they ever might have before.
From an interfaith perspective, we are witnessing a clear effort to increase dialogue and interfaith encounters among all groups in the belief that shared religious experience and prayer services will be both comforting and unifying. Importantly, these shared experiences also go a long way towards countering anti-Islamic hostility that is threatening the well-being of many Americans and European Muslims who have no connections or sympathies with the radial-Islamic terrorists and their violent ideologies.
Another positive interfaith aspect of the worldwide response to the new age of radical Islamic-terrorism has been a widespread public debate and discussion among Western writers and politicians about the true nature of Islam.
In the first days and weeks following the 9/11 attacks political and religious leaders alike stressed that true Islam does not condone, let along encourage, the mass murder of innocent people. And President Bush, in building the anti-terror coalition insisted that the campaign is not about Islam but about justice.
But of course, Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban and other Islamic fundamentalist leaders have claimed just the opposite: Their unrelenting message to their fundamentalist constituencies has been that the need to protect Islam was the reason for the initial and the ongoing attacks on Western targets. And they have twisted their logic of hate even further by insisting that the US-led military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were motivated solely by anti-Islamic intentions - and therefore all faithful Muslims are required to oppose it.
Inter-faith Reconciliation
As time has passed we're now witnessing a more balanced reaction and view to the question of what is the "true Islamic faith" and how are these seeming contradictions reconciled. Serious commentators and authors like Salman Rushdie, Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami have published thoughtful and insightful critiques about the subject. Pointedly, some of the strongest criticism of the fundamentalist Islamic theology and worldview have come from writers who are themselves of Arab ethnicity.
A broad spectrum of experts and specialists have come to understand several critical aspects to this question and, in general, have observed that elements of the fundamentalists' violence and intolerance of non-believers are rooted in some Islamic religious texts and traditions.
However, they also emphasize that there are many religious and historical traditions of Muslims living peacefully alongside the followers of other religions. They highlight the deep Islamic traditions that don't require the waging of holy war against non-Muslims. They make the further important point that, therefore, it isn't necessary that Islam itself be "changed" in order to guarantee an end to the fundamentalists' violent belief system.
WJC has embraced as part its mission the broad publicizing of this particular point, and we are hopeful it will eventually have a positive effect in both Muslim and Jewish communities the world over, and thus help to counter and even someday eradicate the extremist fundamentalist movements within the Muslim world. It is our hope that this effort will someday foster new and sustainable bridges between Jews and Muslims everywhere.
Indeed, we need only to point to the Taliban's speedy defeat and the joyous local response to that defeat (as of this writing), as well as the rise of human rights-based opposition within Iran to that country's theocratic government, to see glimmers of hope that the trend towards global radical-Islamism can and someday will be reversed and denied.
It bears recalling that the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan signed in 1994 contains an article that received the blessing of both the late King Hussein and the late Yitzhak Rabin. The article, in an afterward ratified by the Knesset and by the Jordanian Parliament states:
"The parties will act together to promote interfaith relations among the three monotheistic religions with the aim of working toward religious understanding, moral commitment, freedom of religious worship and tolerance and peace." (Article 9(3)).
This article has not been implemented due to subsequent developments on the world stage since they were written and adopted by the people of Jordan and Israel in 1994. But its clear and unambiguous message constitutes a true political, moral and religious ideal.
Through our interfaith work over the past 60-plus years, the WJC has seen considerable progress made between Judaism and Christianity. Given the huge stakes involved, the World Jewish Congress is, and will remain, equally committed to not giving up on building and sustaining similar bridges with Islam as well.
