President Shimon Peres, speaking at an interfaith conference in Kazakhstan, challenged Saudi Arabian King Abdullah to visit Jerusalem, which Muslims claim as their third holiest city. As the president spoke, the Iranian delegation walked out. Its representative explained, “Peres represents an abominable Zionist personality, and his place is not here.”
The call to the Saudi king came one month after U.S. President Barack Obama, in his Cairo speech to the Muslim world, urged the Arab world to fly the Israeli flag, allow Israel’s El Al airplanes to fly over their skies and recognize Jerusalem as the home of three faiths. “I call on his excellency, the king of Saudi Arabia, to meet wherever you wish, in Jerusalem, in Riyadh, in this beautiful country of Kazakhstan; we will be able to realize your vision” of peace, the president said.
Muslims consider the Israeli capital to be their third holiest city, but its leaders rarely have visited there or anywhere else in Israel. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s only trip to Jerusalem was for the funeral of former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin.
In his speech, President Peres told the audience, “We must stand up and retract fanaticism. Their god is not our god, the god of killers is not our god.”
Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger raised the plight of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit at the conference and held up a picture of the soldier, who was kidnapped three years and one week ago by Hamas and allied terrorists. "No one knows where he is and how he fares," Rabbi Metzger said.
The Israeli delegation to the Muslim country of Kazakhstan also concentrated on economic and trade issues. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev told his ministers to close major economic deals with the Israeli delegation. An agreement was signed between Israel and Kazakhstan for space cooperation.