Ignoring key question

VIn your heartwarming report of Chief Rabbi Mirvis hailing a new era of interfaith relations at the recent Freedom of Religion Conference at Westminster (Handshake of hope: Chief Rabbi hails faith harmony, 8 July), he hailed a paradigm shift, especially between Islam and Judaism.

Isn’t that just wishful thinking?

Did he ask a single Islamic leader the key question — namely, do they accept a sovereign Jewish state in the ancient Jewish homeland?

This is not just an optional extra in interfaith relations but the key question. For if the answer is negative, the basic right of self-determination of the Jewish people, and with it its humanity, has been denied.

Rabbi Mirvis should read the essay Dialogue of the deaf by Judea Pearl, after he attended a high level Islamic world forum event in Doha some years ago. It was “packed with progressive pundits and activists from all sides”. Although superficially the discourse was civilised, he came to the sobering realisation that not a single Muslim leader, journalist or intellectual acknowledged that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a dispute between two legitimate national movements.

One said that, “Judaism is a religion and religions should not have states.”

Another renowned Egyptian scholar said, “The Jews should build themselves a Vatican, a spiritual centre near Jerusalem, but there is no place for a Jewish state in Palestine. The Jews were driven out 2,000 years ago, and that should be final.”

Pearl concluded that “so long as the Muslim world will only really tolerate a ‘Jewish Vatican’, all the talking is meaningless.”

James R Windsor

Ilford, Essex