Rivlin hosts PA’s top Sharia judge at anti-violence summit

President Reuven Rivlin hosts Israeli and Palestinian religious leaders at a pro-peace, anti-violence meeting in Jerusalem. Among the attendees is Supreme Sharia Court judge Sheikh Mahmoud Habbash, who also serves as Palestinian Authority President Mamhoud Abbas’s advisor on Islamic affairs.

Other guests include Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef and Rabbi Moshe Lichtenstein, who heads the Har Etzion yeshiva in the West Bank.

The meeting, which comes at the initiative of the Washington Institute, begins with a statement on behalf of participants that reads: “We believe the deliberate killing of or attempt to kill innocents is terrorism, whether it is committed by Muslims, Jews or others. In this spirit, we encourage all our people to work for a just peace, mutual respect for human life and for the status quo on the holy sites, and the eradication of religious hatred.”

Rivlin hails the encounter as “perhaps the most important meeting that could be held during these days. We all know that the tensions between Jews and Muslims are difficult and specifically for that reason we insist on meeting together here today. We must not allow this land to once again witness a sacrifice of blood senselessly spilled.”