Last update - 00:00 13/09/2006
Metzger calls on Islamic leaders to help free hostages
By Yair Ettinger, Haaretz Correspondent
Israel's Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, attending an interfaith meeting in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, called on Islamic leaders to help free three Israel Defense Forces soldiers kidnapped by Palestinian militants and Hezbollah guerillas.
Metzger removed from his pocket a piece of paper imprinted with three photographs. "I present to you a picture of three people who were kidnapped for no wrong of their own," he told participants at the interfaith conference in the capital of Kazakhstan. "They had not come to kill anyone, and were kidnapped only because they are residents of my country. I appeal from here to the heads of Islam: Do everything to release hostages and captives of all faiths.
"If we cannot achieve this," Metzger continued, "at least, as religious leaders, let us do something humane, elementary: Enable the mother and father of every hostage or captive to get basic information about his condition; to enable the Red Cross to visit the captive. I am willing to pledge to do everything so that whoever is imprisoned in my country is given all these rights."
Metzger also asked Islamic leaders to condemn the Holocaust deniers in their midst and those who seek to destroy Israel.
At a private meeting yesterday evening with the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, Metzger asked the latter to use his connections in Syria to contribute, through the head of Hamas's political bureau, Khaled Mashal, to Gilad Shalit's release.
"Nazarbayev told me: 'I promise to do everything to advance ties between Israel and Kazakhstan,'" Metzger told Haaretz.
He also asked Nazarbayev to arrange for a Bible and prayer book to be transferred to each of the kidnapped Israeli soldiers.
Iran's delegate to the conference, Ayatollah Sadiqi Rushd, talked in his speech about "collective security" as a prerequisite for peace. "We pray to Allah to give us the strength to love our neighbors," he said.
After his address, Rushd was approached by Haaretz's correspondent for a conversation in Arabic and responded with a firm handshake. Once he realized that he was being interviewed by Haaretz, he turned on his heels and disappeared.
The dozens of senior clerics who addressed the Second Congress of the Leaders of World and Traditional Religions preferred to convey general messages of reconciliation and hope.
Over and over, the walls of the Palace of Peace and Accord, an enormous pyramid built by Nazarbayev as the permanent venue for this gathering, echoed with statements like, "The extremists do not represent religion," "The best path is dialogue," "Religion is a call for unity among people," and "Religion cannot be a source of hatred."
Barely any harsh words were spoken here on Tuesday, the exception being perhaps Dr. Mahmoud Ahmed Ghazi, the Pakistani delegate, who said that Israel must release "300,000 prisoners," who he said it is holding in its prisons, before it would be entitled to ask for the release of its captives.
The congress, first held in 2003, is the brainchild of President Nazarbayev, who has ruled Kazakhstan since 1989. Good relations are maintained between the Muslim majority and the Christian and Jewish minorities, and Nazarbayev thinks his country can serve as a model for others.
Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar will deliver his conference speech on Wednesday. He told Haaretz that he always has some doubt about the usefulness of interfaith meetings: "Perhaps the importance of these gatherings is in their existence. I haven't decided yet."