Saudi Newspaper: King Should Not Shake Hands With Peres
The editor in chief of the pan-Arab London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper called on Saudi King Abdullah not to shake Israeli President Shimon Peres’ hand during next week’s interfaith gathering at the United Nations headquarters in New York, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Saturday.
In a column written under the editor’s byline, Abd al-Bari Atwan, bewilderment is expressed about King Abdullah’s decision to invite Peres and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to the conference.
“As far as I know, Peres is not among the rabbinical scholars of Israel and Livni is not the head of the religious studies department at the Hebrew University,” he wrote.
“Shimon Peres, the sly fox, will not pass up a chance to publicly shake the hand of the Saudi king,” he continued.
The conference is part of Abdullah’s initiative to promote interfaith dialogue, joined by religious representatives from the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths. A similar conference convened recently in Madrid, Haaretz explained, which is interesting considering that Abdullah is a Wahabbi Muslim, which is a distinctly intolerant and aggressive form of Sunni Islam.
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