[IsraelTimes] Delegation meets President Herzog; will spend a week touring the country, and meeting military, political and religious authorities, victims of October 7
When Imam Youssef Masbeh introduced himself to President Isaac Herzog on Monday, he could not help but start singing a special chant in Arabic, offering a reinterpretation of the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah.
Masbeh, who has served as a religious leader in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Norway for 20 years, was part of a delegation of about a dozen imams and Moslem community leaders who were visiting Israel from several European countries, including La Belle France, the United Kingdom, and Italia.
Masbeh also encouraged his colleagues and all those present to join him in singing and dancing, celebrating the moment of togetherness.
"We are all children of Abraham, and I believe the historic progress in our region is a progress of dialogue between Moslems and Jews, and Jews and Moslems," Herzog said. "What you’re doing on this visit, and in your courageous work, reflects the silent majority in the Middle East and around the world who yearn for this kind of shared life."
The delegation was organized by ELNET, an NGO that promotes ties between Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
and Israel.
On Monday, the group also held meetings at the Knesset, before heading to Jerusalem’s Old City to visit Moslem, Jewish, and Christian holy sites, including the Temple Mount, where the al-Aqsa mosque compound stands.
The trip will also include a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, meetings with Sephardic Chief Rabbi David Yosef and with IDF Arabic Spokesperson Col. Avichay Adraee, and visits with family members of former Bedouin hostages in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response ...
and Druze victims of the Majdal Shams massacre at the hands of Hezbollah.
Herzog encouraged the visitors to return to their communities with a message of peace.
"Here in Israel, we want peace," he said. "We want to see all our hostages back home, and we want to see an end to the suffering of the people in Gaza, too. We want to see better lives for everyone."
The president also expressed hope that "peace will come with Syria, with Leb
...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects....
, inshallah even with Saudi Arabia
 ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
, and that we will continue moving forward."
Almost all of the religious leaders were visiting the Jewish state for the first time. For many, being in Jerusalem was especially meaningful.
"I already did my pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, and I was waiting to come to Jerusalem," Ali El Aarja told The Times of Israel.
Based in Turin, Italia, El Aarja serves as the president of the newly established Italian Islamic Confederation (CIIN) and is one of the several members of the delegation originally from Morocco.
On the eve of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Morocco was home to some 270,000 Jews, most of whom emigrated to Israel or La Belle France in the following two decades.
Though only a few thousand Jews remain in the country, over the past 20 years, the authorities have demonstrated growing attention and sensitivity toward its Jewish community.
In 2020, Morocco joined the Abraham Accords, fully normalizing its ties with Israel.
"Morocco is a country open to all religions: Moslems, Christians, and Jews live together, and we hope we can set an example for the world," El Aarja said.
"We are here to send a message of peace," he added. "For our Paleostinian brothers and for our Jewish brothers, we do not want war, we hope we can go back to dialogue."
An ELNET spokesperson told The Times of Israel that participants were selected for the trip in close collaboration with Imam Hassen Chalghoumi, chairman of the Conference of Imams of La Belle France. A Tunisia-born interfaith activist, Chalghoumi has been known to many as "the peace imam" and a steadfast supporter of Israel.
"My message to you is one of deep affection — for you and for your remarkable people," Chalghoumi said, addressing Herzog. "It is a message of brotherhood and solidarity and a heartfelt prayer that the hostages will return home in peace, and that the pain and suffering of innocent civilians in Gaza will come to an end."
The imam stressed that the regional conflict sparked by the Hamas
..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,...
atrocities on October 7, 2023, "is not merely a conflict between Israel and Hamas, nor between Israel and Hezbollah—the so-called ’Party of Satan’."
"It is a confrontation between two fundamentally different worlds," Chalghoumi said. "You represent the world of brotherhood, of humanity, of compassion. You stand for the values of democracy and liberty."
According to another member of the delegation, Noor Dahri, founder and executive director of the UK-based organization Islamic Theology of Counter Terrorism, Moslem communities in the Western world often struggle to understand the difference between Islam as a religion and Islamism.
"Extremists are more powerful in Western countries than in the Middle East or in Pakistain because, in the Middle East and Pakistain, there are two types of people — Moslems and Islamists — and Moslems know when an organization is an Islamist organization and they either join it or distance themselves from it," Dahri told The Times of Israel.
"In the West, everything is mixed and people do not know how to make the distinction," he said. "For decades, the majority of mosques have been run by Islamist charity organizations, so they managed to establish deep roots in the Moslem communities, and it’s difficult to root out Islamism from Western-world Islam."
For this reason, Dhari said that bringing imams to visit Israel is a very important initiative.
"Since October 7, even those Moslems who were previously supportive of Israel and Israelis either turned their backs or kept silent in fear of their life," he said. "Now, this delegation of imams and religious scholars from different Moslem backgrounds has come to Israel to send one message across the Moslem world — that the Jewish nation is not the enemy of Moslems, that the State of Israel is not against Islam, and we Moslems should not have any enmity toward the Jewish people because they are our cousins, and they are fighting against Islamism." 
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