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| By Associated Press September 24, 2005 |
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Jordan's king stood before 69 U.S rabbis and appealed for Jews and Muslims to cooperate in meeting "a common threat: extremist distortions of religion and the wanton acts of violence" they cause.
"Such abominations have already divided us from without for far too long," King Abdullah II said. "We all too often fail to acknowledge that they also threaten to destroy us from within. This is not simply a matter of importance to Jews and Muslims, it is something that confronts and threatens the whole of humanity.
"The only true antidote is that we work together in a spirit of mutual cooperation and respect to defeat this common enemy. We must move beyond the language of mere tolerance toward true acceptance."
On Thursday, Abdullah is likely to carry a similar message, conciliation as a way out of the Israeli-Arab problem in the Middle East, to President George W. Bush at a White House meeting.
Message of moderation
Wednesday's speech to Jewish-American leaders was the latest by the 43-year-old king to interfaith groups in the United States to spread word of messages of moderation from major Islamic scholars in a program of reconciliation Abdullah has begun.
He spoke to an audience at the Catholic University of America last week, to the Christian Interdenominational Riverside Church in New York City at the weekend and to American Muslims at Washington on Tuesday.
Speaking to the rabbis, some from as far away as Ohio and Massachusetts, Abdullah emphasized the common ancestor of Muslim and Jews, Abraham, whose sons Ishmael and Isaac the faiths look to as their founders.
"For all the children of Abraham," the king said, "the pursuit of peace is paramount. ... Let us find a way to unite our peoples in the pursuit of justice and peace to which true justice gives rise."
He noted that the Jewish High Holy Days and the Muslims' Ramadan both begin next month, an unusual concurrence on the two faiths' lunar calendars.
"By embracing the true spirit of these sacred times, conferred by God, we can reaffirm the essential principles of our faiths and apply these principles to the challenges before us all," Abdullah said.
"Just as Isaac and Ishmael were able to put aside the differences that had separated their mothers and come together to honor and bury their father, so too must we put aside the differences that some use to tear us apart."
After he spoke, a question from an unidentified rabbi asked Abdullah to expand on how the rancor can be ended between Israelis and Arabs. He mentioned education -- 50 percent of people in the Middle East are younger than 18 years old -- to open minds to consider the suffering of people on all sides.
Abdullah quoted his late father, King Hussein, as saying often that he wanted to make peace for his children and his children's children.
"He meant me and my children," Abdullah said. "How sad it would be if my children one day had to make the same speech I made here today."
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