Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
will be key to bridging the growing gap between the West and the Muslim world.
That's one of the main findings of a United Nations-backed panel of scholars,
politicians, and other experts from around the world. The group -- part of the
"Alliance of Civilizations" -- presented its report to UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan in Istanbul on November 13.
Growing 'Polarization'
"We must start by reaffirming and
demonstrating that the problem is not the Koran, or the Torah, or the
Bible," Anan said today after receiving the report. "Indeed, as I
have often said, the problem is never the faith; it is the faithful and how
they behave toward each other."
In particular, the experts said resolving the
conflicts in the Middle East would be key to stopping people from turning to
extremism.
The report is the work of 20 experts including
former Iranian President Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami and South African
Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
For the past year, they've been discussing how
to narrow what they say is growing "polarization" between Western and
Islamic societies.
Their chief conclusion is that politics -- not
culture or religion -- is the root cause, and that urgent action must be taken
to bridge the divide.
Emmanuel Kattan is a consultant for the group.
"They focus particularly on the
Arab-Israeli conflict as one of the symbolic issues that has caused a lot of
resentment and anger in the Muslim world and is driving the rise of
extremism," Kattan says. "Western military operations in Iraq or
Afghanistan [were] also [identified as] very primary factors in the present
polarization."
Looking At The Palestinian-Israeli
Dispute
One of the group's main recommendations is for
a White Paper that would analyze the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a
"level-headed" way. That would allow both sides of the conflict to
set out what the group calls their different "narratives," the
sharply different ways Palestinians and Israelis see their recent history.
But the report also looks at the factors
within some Muslim countries that it says are driving extremism. It says one is
the repression of political movements in the Muslim world, and it calls on
foreign governments to be consistent in their support for democratic processes
and not to interfere when the results do not fit their agendas.
The group also acknowledges that until
problems such as Israeli-Palestinian conflict are resolved, no amount of
cross-cultural dialogue or educational efforts will be successful at bridging
the gap between the West and the Muslim world.
"They recognized of course that the
actions and recommendations in the report will have limited impact until the
political issues can be resolved, but that doesn't mean one must wait and see
and not act at the grass-roots level when one can," Kattan says.
"That's why they propose a range of action, in education for example,
where they propose to promote cross-cultural and human rights education."
Other recommendations include voluntary codes
of conduct for media on covering religion and politics responsibly, and a call
for expanding Internet access in Muslim countries.
The initiative was co-sponsored by the prime
ministers of predominantly Catholic Spain and Muslim Turkey, where the report
was presented today.
The group is due to deliver its final
proposals at the end of the year in New York.
