By Sabah Uddin Qazi and David Nitkin
TORONTO–Ten journalists from Pakistan, Israel and Canada and three Canadian Muslim Jewish Dialogue (MJD) organizers, participated in the ongoing peace initiative by Weekly Press Pakistan to introduce positive face of Israel and highlight positive contributions of Jewish nation to non-Arab Muslim media which seems to be solely dependent on anti-Israel biased media of Arab and Iranian when reporting the Middle East. The Pakistani journalists, participating actively through teleconference, were very forthright, excited and interested to debate on various issues, including their own national elections next month.
There were two parallel 90-minute conference sessions that took place, which were followed by 35 pre-registered Jewish and Moslem participants in a 2 and half hour dialogue meeting face-to-face in a community center in Toronto
Session 1 of the Canadian Moslem-Jewish Journalists focused on three themes: (1) how to explain the pernicious phenomenon of anti-Semitism globally; (2) what was happening globally in Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia that could influence Moslem-Jewish relations; and (3) the prospects for peace between the democratic state of Israel and Palestinians seeking statehood. One question in both situations was whether or not the Jewish participants feel that the Israel-Palestine conflict can be resolved. It really seems to dominate the news yet it affects comparatively few people relative to civil conflict in Syria, interfaith conflict in Egypt, uncertainty and elections in Pakistan, or Iranian nuclear arming threats, to name a few hot spots.
Andria Spindel, one of the organizers of Jewish-Moslem Dialogue, was of the view that the conflict between Israeli and Palestinian people will not be resolved for decades which is terrible, but she argued that it serves the interests of democracy-challenged Arab countries to keep it unresolved. In her analysis, PM Abbas will never agree to the basic premise that Israel is a Jewish state and it won’t go away.
David Nitkin, co-author of this article and president of EthicScan Canada, stressed that there were civil, property holding, electoral and religious freedom rights in Israel for all citizens including Palestinians, whereas in the Palestinian territories there was corruption, prejudice, lack of elections, lack of due process, and vicious religious intolerance. Many might disagree with Andria and David and suggest the end to settlement building will lead to peace or removal of the Gaza blockade, but too little emphasis is put– said certain participants– on the fact that Palestinian leadership seems unwilling or unable to sit face to face without preconditions.
The session 2 of Pakistani Moslem-Jewish Dialogue focused on how Pakistani community could play its vibrant role to bring followers of both religions closer. The journalists hoped that such interaction will be helpful to build a global society free from hate. The participants suggested to organize face-to-face media interaction of both ideological states, most favorably in 3rd countries such as Thailand, China and Canada. Turkey, according to one Pakistani journalists, is best option to organize sports activities, cultural events and musical concerts for the sake of global harmony. People of Pakistan and Turkey share very friendly relations while Turkey is one of the few Muslim countries which have diplomatic relations with Israel.
Moazzam Baig from Lahore, Shamsul Islam Naz from Faisalabad, Abdul Waheed from Karachi and Mohammad Arif from Islamabad represented Pakistani journalist community while Pakistan-Canadian journalists included Zeba Noureen, Sajid Khan and Rafique Ahamed. Andrew Friedman represented Israel.
The initiative seeks to bring together journalists for substantive, frank and friendly discussions. The MJD is stimulating lots of follow-up in terms of education, travel and job-search assistance, as well as press coverage in Europe (France, Germany, Greece, Turkey) the Middle East (Israel, Iran, the Palestinian Territories) as well as Asia (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Japan, and China).
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Preceding reprinted from Weekly Press Pakistan