Musharraf urges Jews to help make peace

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf speaks at an American Jewish Congress dinner at Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York Saturday. Musharraf spoke about Islamic extremism, terrorism, the Isreali-Palestinian conflict and Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations. PHOTO: AFP

Speaking to the American Jewish Congress at a groundbreaking dinner that opened with the sharing of bread and Koranic prayers, Musharraf said his Muslim country had "no direct conflict or dispute with Israel" but that Pakistanis had deep sympathy for Palestinian aspirations for a separate state.

"Israel must come to terms with geopolitical realities and allow justice to prevail for the Palestinians," he said, describing a Palestinian settlement as the key to security for Israel and an end to Middle East terrorism.

"As the peace process progresses toward the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, we will take further steps toward normalization and cooperation, looking to full diplomatic relations," Musharraf said to lengthy applause.

His outreach to the influential Jewish group followed his handshake with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Wednesday at the United Nations and groundbreaking talks on September 1 between the Israeli and Pakistani foreign ministers in Istanbul.

In conciliatory comments that Pakistani analysts called strikingly candid in the Muslim world, Musharraf recalled the tragedy of the Holocaust and acknowledged compassion shown by Jewish groups in helping stop ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and in combating anti-Islamic prejudice after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Pakistan has been one of Israel's harshest critics in the Muslim world. But Musharraf said the strife since the creation of Israel in 1948 was an "aberration in the long history of Muslim-Jewish cooperation and coexistence."

Islam, Judaism and Christianity shared prophets and spiritual practices, but were now needlessly "pitted against each other" -- a situation it would take courage to reverse, he said. His remarks received several standing ovations from the audience of about 350 people.

Musharraf said suggestions that Islam rejected tolerance and promoted terrorism amounted to a "hate campaign" against the faith. But he acknowledged that most people involved in terrorism, and most who suffered from it, were Muslims.