Well, Why Not Do This In Saudi Arabia?

Richard N. Weltz has reacted to the full-page ad last week which announced that November 21-23 is the "Week of Twinning." Fifty American and Canadian synagogues and 50 mosques will be joining "together to confront Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in their communities."

and he notes that

A photo at the ad's top shows a group of rabbis and imams, and a smaller photo headed "King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia," a little further down the page depicts that monarch chummily posed with Rabbi Arthur Schneier and the Chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America.

He goes on to point out that

Many little Muslim children -- especially Palestinians -- are taught from their earliest years on to hate Jews. The Internet is filled with clips of the most atrocious hatemongering material aimed at youngsters. Saudi Arabia is perhaps the world's largest financial sponsor of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism -- and here are these pie-in-the-sky rabbis thinking that a little bit of social intercourse will reverse all that is being taught worldwide in the Muslim ummah with Saudi funding.

Unfortunately, a sufficiently large portion of the Muslim population, especially in the Arab countries and Iran, have been able -- both by rhetoric and by terrorism -- to maintain an extreme of hostility between Israel and her supporters and the Palestinians, as well as various Islamic states.

This, of course, is occuring on the backdrop of this:-

Israeli President Shimon Peres used his turn at the podium at the UN interfaith summit in New York on Wednesday to heap unrestricted praise on the gathering's organizer, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah.

Peres broke with precedent to address Abdullah directly from the podium, and later insisted that the fact the Saudi king had even remained in the room to listen to an Israeli speak meant peace must be just around the corner.

However, those would be the only words Peres got to share with Abdullah, as the Saudi king and most other Arab leaders very conspicuously avoided contact with the Israeli delegation.

More here.

Criticism here:

Critics are blasting the United Nations for hosting a meeting to talk about religious and cultural tolerance sponsored by Saudi Arabia, a country in which the U.S. government has said religious freedom is non-existent.

Following up on an interfaith meeting they held in Madrid in July, the Saudis asked the United Nations to hold a meeting on the "Culture of Peace," but some think it’s a move to lend support to the defamation of religions resolution that the world body will vote on this fall.

And what say I?

Well, why can't all of this interfaith coziness take place in...Saudi Arabia?