That Madrid Conference? A Good Beginning

Last July, I attended an extraordinary event: an interfaith meeting in Madrid called by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The nearly 300 participants included Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist representatives. “If we want this historic encounter to succeed,” Abdullah said, “we must look to the things that unite us—our profound faith in God, the noble principles and elevated ethics that represent the foundations of religion.”

In the United States, meetings between Muslim and Jewish leaders are ordinary affairs. But this was anything but standard for the leader of Saudi Arabia, where the only officially sanctioned religion is a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism. Saudi Arabia does not have diplomatic ties with Israel. And the Madrid meeting, to the best of my knowledge, was the first public meeting between the king and Jewish representatives.

Not surprisingly, Abdullah’s enterprise aroused great skepticism in the Jewish community. Simon Henderson, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, called it “a Saudi public relations effort to emphasize its leadership of the Islamic world.” Jerry Gordon of the American Congress for Truth blog branded Rabbi David Rosen, the former chief rabbi of Ireland who heads the American Jewish Committee’s interfaith efforts, a “dhimmi acolyte to the Wahhabis” for taking part.

Some complained about the meeting’s location outside Saudi Arabia, where it would have been truly revolutionary. Others objected that it did not include Israelis or, more precisely, that Rosen, the sole Israeli present, was listed as representing the United States. (Palestinians weren’t invited.) Still others were enraged that so-called Muslim and Christian extremists, however loosely defined, were scheduled to attend.

Let me share some of what happened in Madrid so that you can make up your own mind. From a Jewish perspective, the conference got off to a rocky start when the news spread that Neturei Karta’s Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, notorious for attending Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 2006 Holocaust denial conference, was scheduled to speak. The Saudis responded to the complaints and took him off the program. Similarly, when a Muslim woman complained about the lack of women on the program, one appeared the next day. And when the Saudi embassy in Washington sent out a list of American participants, a footnote pointed out that Rabbi Rosen is based in Israel.

Abdullah spoke eloquently at the conference about the need to talk to all persons who believe in “the true God.” Over the next two days, many Muslims approached me—in the hallway, in the elevator, in the dining room—with one request: “May we talk to you? We have never met a Jew before.” They came from Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia and Oman. Some asked questions about Judaism; others spoke of the harsh things they had been told of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. They did not speak in an accusatory way. On the contrary, they were interested in hearing responses they had rarely been exposed to in their countries.

When a senior United Arab Emirates official insisted that he can always talk to Jews about what they had in common, but not to Israelis about political matters because they were bellicose, Jewish participants were given the opportunity to respond. They explained that the land of Israel holds religious significance for Jews and that Zionism is more than a political issue. They underscored that dialogue means not simply collecting instances of commonality between religions, but understanding and respecting their differences. The Grand Mufti of Bosnia, Mustafa Ceric, chastised the entire crowd for turning Jerusalem, a city they all consider holy, into a place of strife and controversy. He further argued that you cannot take away from Jews the right to cherish Jerusalem just as you cannot take from Muslims the right to cherish Al-Quds.

All of this leads one to ask why many Jews seem so skeptical about talking to Muslims. Of course, they will say they are happy to talk with “good” Muslims, but the bar is often quite high. Many Jewish groups “vet” Muslims to determine if it is appropriate for Jews to meet with them. Often not only bona fide extremists are condemned but also those who speak at the same conferences or attend the same mosques. (We used to call this “guilt by association.”) Not surprisingly, few Muslims pass muster, and those who do usually have no Muslim constituents whom they can claim to represent.

I sometimes think many of my Jewish colleagues don’t really want dialogue with Islam. True, as Isi Leibler wrote in The Jerusalem Post, “meaningful dialogue requires that both parties agree in advance to accord mutual respect and genuinely commit to exploring means of forging deeper understandings.” But in the same article, Leibler referred to the “politically correct but utterly false mantra that Islam is a religion of peace.” He rejected the “false allegation that Islamophobia is rampant” and decried those like Rabbi Eric Yoffe, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, who oppose ethnic profiling. Not much “mutual respect” shown here.

For my part, I was pleased to attend the Madrid conference. Where this “first step” will lead, I do not know. It depends on the extent of Saudi follow-through. One positive sign—Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal met with U.N. officials in September to discuss a special session to further the Madrid conclave’s recommendations—respect for all religions and opposition to terrorism. There is, of course, a danger that a U.N. session will be bogged down in efforts to criminalize speech purportedly defamatory of religion, a problem for those of us committed to the First Amendment. Still no one serious about averting a conflict of civilizations can deny it is a good beginning.

Marshall Breger is a professor of law at the Catholic University of America.