Senior Religious Leaders Take Action to Build Peace in Middle East,
Strengthen Muslim-Christian Dialogue, and Call for Participatory Governance in Burma

—Middle Eastern religious leaders of different faiths to form
multi-faith Religions for Peace council to advance peace process—

(NEW YORK, 7 December 2007)—The Executive Committee of the Religions for Peace World Council—senior religious leaders representing all major faith traditions—meeting in Alexandria, Egypt, announced new multi-faith initiatives to address the world’s most urgent issues.

The religious leaders endorsed the just-announced Religions for Peace multi-religious Middle East Council of Religious Leaders and the recently formed Religions for Peace Inter-religious Council–Palestine; offered Religions for Peace as a facilitator of the highly sensitive global Muslim-Christian dialogue; and continued its call for constructive dialogue and participatory governance in Burma, offering its service to the Government of Myanmar to assist in building a just peace. Religions for Peace is the world’s largest and most representative multi-religious coalition.

“Through common action on three critical issues—common living in the Holy Land, Muslim-Christian dialogue, and the peaceful aspirations of the Burmese people for participatory governance—the world’s faith communities are exercising moral leadership,” said Dr. William F. Vendley, the Religions for Peace Secretary General.

Twelve members of the Religions for Peace Executive Committee forged consensus on profoundly relevant global issues at their year-end meeting on 5–6 December at the Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt.

“The actions taken by such diverse religious leaders demonstrate the power and relevance of multi-faith cooperation to address the most serious issues of the global community,” said V. Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky, Moderator of Religions for Peace.

The Executive Committee released three official public statements regarding the Middle East, Muslim-Christian relations, and Burma; below are excerpts. [Full texts are attached below.]

Middle East

“New initiatives are now being taken to build peace in the Middle East.  Concrete solutions to the issues of the borders of a future Palestinian State, the future of Jerusalem and the rights of return of  Palestinians can and must be achieved.”  

“We, the Executive Committee of Religions for Peace, urge the Palestinian and Israeli political leaders to take bold steps to advance a just and durable peace,” the first statement said.  “We also urge that other states—those in the region and those assisting in the peace process, notably the United States—redouble their efforts to support a practical and principled peace process.”

 “While a political solution depends on a just resolution of the legitimate political aspirations of Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land,” the first statement continued, “we, as religious leaders, also know that true peace and reconciliation will require the active participation of the religious communities.”

“We are grateful … for the recent establishment of the Religions for Peace Inter-religious Council in Palestine,” the first statement concluded. “We are further deeply heartened by the commitment of religious leaders to establish a Religions for Peace Middle East Council of Religious Leaders, designed to facilitate multi-religious cooperation for peace across the region. We stand in solidarity with these multi-religious mechanisms and commit ourselves to help to support and strengthen them to take concrete action to build peace.”
 
Muslim-Christian Dialogue

“The Executive Committee of Religions for Peace, meeting in Alexandria on 5–6 December, 2007, welcomes the open letter to Christian leaders, ‘A Common Word Between You and Us,’ issued on 11 October 2007 by 138 Muslim leaders,” the second statement said. “The letter comes at a crucial time for Christian-Muslim relations and represents a positive and constructive spirit.”

“The Muslim leaders’ letter … explores the scriptures that are holy to Islam and Christianity, in order to emphasise similarities in the understanding of love for God and love for fellow human beings,” the statement said. “These convictions inspire values that are also deeply held and widely shared by many other great religious traditions: the responsibility to care for all people and to work for peace, justice, righteousness and protection of the environment. While our faiths remain genuinely diverse, a coalition of cooperation can and should be built on this convergence of moral commitment.”

“Mindful that Christian and Muslim leaders are the primary subjects of the dialogue called for in the letter, the Executive Committee of Religions for Peace offers itself as a facilitator of processes which build on the letter and the responses to it and which further enhance dialogue and common action.”

Burma

“We view with hope the engagement by the government of Myanmar with the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Advisor to Myanmar, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar, and with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate and leader of the National League for Democracy,” the third statement said. “These preliminary steps, however, must become sustained engagement for peace.”

“We urge the United Nations and regional mechanisms, such as ASEAN, to use all tools at their disposal to encourage meaningful, peaceful dialogue between the government and all sectors of society in Burma.”
 
“We, the Executive Committee of Religions for Peace, offer our good offices to assist these organizations and the government of Myanmar in taking the steps needed to achieve a just peace,” the statement concluded.

On 19 November 2007, a multi-religious delegation from Religions for Peace delivered to the ASEAN Chair in Singapore more than 3,000 messages of support for the Buddhist monks of Burma from people of different faiths in almost a hundred countries.