President Peres addresses Interfaith Conference in Kazakhstan
July 1, 2009
Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The President of the Republic of Kazakhstan,
His Excellency Nursultan Nazarbayev,
Religious leaders,

I thank you for the opportunity to participate in this important gathering
which aims at building a better world: A world of justice, a world of
fraternity, a world of peace.

Your decision to initiate an interfaith dialogue in your country can serve
as an example for the rest of the world, a world that parts of it seem to
have forgotten that we all share the same God, who created man in His image
and called him to sanctify life, uphold the covenant of peace, to follow in
a good and straight path.
While the monotheistic and humanistic believers, Christians, Muslims and
Jews, used to believe that there was just one God for all, compassionate,
merciful and righteous, there are nowadays others, luckily a minority, that
sanctify a different God, a God that permits massacres, forgives cruelty,
and calls upon his believers to destroy, kill, lie and ruin.

This distorted stream constitutes a defamation of the Lord. It is not a
religion, it is a crime, a crime against God and man. We must separate
religion from terror.
This should be a common effort by all believers, regardless of faith, creed
or gender.

I recently spoke to His Holiness the Pope when he visited the Holy Land, and
he too joins this endeavor. It so happened that his visit took place when
our scientists concluded a development of new wheat, that has four heads
instead of one. We call it enriching wheat. People should enrich wheat
rather than enrich uranium.

Many Muslim religious leaders also expressed their concern at the terrible
correlation between religion and terror. And my friends, the Chief Rabbis of
Israel, have strongly condemned those that call the name of God in vain, and
in His name kill innocent people. Thousands, if not millions of Muslims,
have lost their lives at the hands of extremists that call the name of
Allah. In the Twin Towers of New-York, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists
and atheists, all lost their lives as one.

Cultivating interfaith ties of understanding and friendship is vital, not
only in interfaith relations, but in the religions' perception of God.

The first question is always whether God created man in His image, or
whether man is trying to create God in his compromised image. Whether we
should adopt God's moral code, or whether we should refer our personal
desires to God.

The real concept of monotheism is that God created all human beings in His
image, that we were all born equal, and that none of us has the right to
appoint himself as a superior force. Only God who created man has the right
to determine life. The one that can not give life should not end life. God
had no partners in the creation of the world, so there is nobody that can
declare war against.

Bolshevism advocated Baz Buzinkiut - an ideology without God. They believed
it would be possible to attain social justice without the moral values of
God.

Bolshevism failed to achieve justice, it failed to discard God. For
humanity, it would be difficult to live without a God of justice and without
a God of peace.

Our sixth commandment expresses the major point of humanities struggle in
the 21st century: "Do not kill." And it is said in the Holy book Leviticus:
"Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord. This leitmotiv of
our religion is that "All human beings were created in the image of God."

We must stand up and reject fanatics, and to oppose promoters of hatred and
conflicts. Their so-called god is not our God. Their faith is not our faith.
Our answer to them is to hold and encourage peace initiatives.

We are aware of the big change which has occurred in the positions of a
majority of Arab countries towards peace with israel: a transition from the
three Khartoum "no's": no to negotiations, no to recognition, no to peace -
to the three "yes's" of the Saudi Initiative.The King of the Hashemite
Kingdom of Jordan, King Abdullah II, defined this a readiness for peace
between the State of Israel and 57 Arab and Muslim states.

Here, from this platform, with your permission, Mr. President, I call upon
the King of Saudi Arabia, King Abdallah bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, the
initiator of the Arab peace plan, to meet in Jerusalem or in Riyadh or to
travel to Kazakhstan, and together with other Arab leaders we will all be
able to realize your vision, our vision and the vision of all believers in
our shared God of peace and justice.

Together with the participants of this prestigious conference, we must
stretch our hands one to the other, in a spirit of mutual commitment and a
prayer for peace and prosperity in the world; for the brotherhood of man,
for his freedom, health and well-being; for social justice, and progress,
while respecting our separate and unique heritage and differences.

We have the right to be equal, and we equally have the right to be
different. And swords will be beaten into ploughshares, and wars will be
forever a thing of the past.

Let it be. Amen.