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Arab leaders stay, listen to Israeli

Religious tolerance conference lives up to its name

By Betsy Pisik (Contact) | Thursday, November 13, 2008

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UNITED NATIONS | A U.N. conference on religious tolerance broke new ground Wednesday when a half-dozen Arab leaders - including Saudi King Abdullah for the first time ever - stayed in their seats while an Israeli president spoke.

Perhaps the reason was that they liked what he said.

President Shimon Peres, a Nobel Peace laureate and leading Israeli dove, embraced a 2002 Saudi peace initiative to recognize Israel in exchange for a withdrawal by the Jewish state to pre-1967 borders.

"I must say there is a profound change in their perception," Mr. Peres told reporters an hour after receiving what might be the loudest applause an Israeli leader has ever experienced inside the chambers of the U.N. General Assembly.

The two-day conference initiated by Saudi King Abdullah was meant to defuse tensions among religions and sects.

Besides the Saudi monarch, those who sat and listened to Mr. Peres included the king of Jordan, the prime ministers of Morocco and Qatar, the president of Lebanon and the emir of Kuwait.

Until Wednesday, Saudi policy was to publicly shun Israeli leaders.

King Abdullah skipped a U.S.-sponsored conference in Annapolis a year ago and sent his foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, instead.

Prince Saud then sat in the hall outside the main conference room at the U.S. Naval Academy when it was Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's turn to speak.

At the United Nations Wednesday, King Abdullah opened the event: