Religion can unify Mid-East, says visiting Israeli leader

AHRON SHAPIRO

PROMINENT dovish Israeli Rabbi Michael Melchior says that religion, which is often seen as a source of tension between Israelis and Palestinians, has the potential to be a unifying tool for coexistence.

Rabbi Melchior, head of the dovish Israeli religious Zionist faction Meimad, has been in Australia for the Parliament of the World’s Religions. He said that the international faith gathering in Melbourne was an opportunity to see, up close, how interfaith dialogue can cultivate understandings between Jews and Muslims.

The Meimad leader asserted that most Israelis are willing to make peace, even if it means “giving up what is ours and what we seriously believe is ours”, inferring territorial compromise.

However, he said, Israelis have lost confidence that a real peace is attainable.

This, he said, is another example where religion comes directly into play.

“One of the reasons that people in Israel don’t think that peace is a plan [is] because we say if we make peace with the Palestinian Authority … [but subsequently] if Islam won’t make peace with us, then what’s the point? We won’t have real peace,” Rabbi Melchoir said.

The rabbi continued that if peace is reached “in a way which is [religiously] acceptable” to Islam, then Muslim leaders would “be willing to live with a Jewish state in this area. And I think that the trust and the process among Israelis would be much greater.”

Rabbi Melchior said that he knows of “strong elements” in Muslim society that are prepared to explore this and that even among the more radical Muslim voices, such as those affiliated with Hamas, there are “strong forces” that “understand they need to come to terms with Israel”.

This is “not because they have become Zionists” he explained, but because they acknowledge that Israel isn’t going anywhere and must be dealt with on a practical level “for the good of their people”.

“I myself have spoken in a lot of the Arab world, as a staunch Zionist [and] as part of the Israel political rabbinical establishment, and have seen that it is very possible to get quite far if we use a new approach to this issue,” Rabbi Melchior said.

As for the future of Meimad, while the party failed to reach the electoral threshold for representation in the current Knesset, Rabbi Melchior noted that it fared better than expected, and he expressed confidence that it would remain an important voice on the Israeli political scene.

“I am sure that before the next elections we will be back on the map,” he said.