Lebanese Shiite cleric reaches out to Jews

A Beirut-based cleric is surprising the public by spreading messages of peace and nonviolence in Hebrew on social media.

“We call on rabbis, priests and Muslim clerics — both Sunni and Shia — to underplay religious traditions and texts that call for violence, since they are more dangerous than nuclear weapons,” writes Sayyed Muhammad Ali Husseini, secretary general of the Shiite group the Arabic Islamic Council, in Hebrew on his Facebook page Sunday.

This was not the first time that Husseini directly addressed an Israeli audience. On January 19, he posted a video on Facebook directed at “our cousins, the children of Isaac son of Abraham.”

“We believe that not all Jews are bad [just as] not all Muslims are terrorists. Let us cousins put our conflicts aside and stay away from evil and hatred. Let us unite in peace and love,” he said in broken Hebrew.

Elhanan Miller brings us the full story.