British government says Jewish-Muslim inter-faith dialogue vital

The British government has revealed that it wants an inter-faith framework to bring the country’s Jews and Muslims closer together.

Hazel Blears, the Labour Party chairman, told a conference of UK rabbis and imams in Manchester on Monday that the Government wanted the event - and a further conference run by Jewish and Muslim women later this week - to be the springboard for greater inter-faith cooperation between the religions.

The relationship between the British Jewish and Muslim communities has long been icy cold, with disagreements mainly over perceived Islamic anti-Semitism and disputes over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict leading to virtually no public dialogue between the faiths.

Only recently have relations appeared to thaw, with the first ever speech by Inayat Bunglawala, assistant general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, to a Jewish community group in London calling for major reconciliation.

Speaking to the National Imams and Rabbis Conference on Monday, however, Blears said the event, held in Manchester, should be a springboard to future cooperation. The conference is held to promote rare scholarly dialogue between Islamic and Jewish leaders.

"The Government sees this conference, and the women’s conference, as being the next step towards establishing a nationally recognised framework for interfaith dialogue and co-operation between the Muslim and Jewish communities," Blears said, in a speech to the conference entitled ’Building Alliances, Respecting Differences.’

Good place to live

Also in her speech, Blears said that - despite the threat of racism, Islamaphobia and anti-Semitism - Britain remains a good place to live for ethnic minority communities.

"I do not deny the pernicious influence of racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism," she said. "I know that many families have suffered at the hands of racist bullies and thugs. I do not dismiss the threat to community cohesion presented by the BNP (British National Party) and other right-wing organisations. But Britain remains a fair, tolerant country, where communities respect one another and people live in peace.

"That success is anchored in a simple approach: we respect religious differences, but are united in a transcendant belief in democracy, human rights and the rule of law. No religion should face persecution or prohibition by the state. But no individual citizen should face barriers or discrimination within their religion either. We have a right to religious freedom, and we all have a right to other freedoms too, including free expression, but not at the expense of other people’s rights and freedoms."

Moderate image

Earlier this month, Bunglawala ended years of glacial relations between Muslims and Jews by appearing to call for reconciliation between the faiths in an interview with the European Jewish Press, which followed his address to the Jewish Community Centre for London.

In the interview, Bunglawala declared that there was "an enormous amount" that Muslims could learn from the way Jews have integrated into the UK, demanded an end to Islamic anti-Semitism, and hinted that the Muslim Council of Britain could recognise Holocaust Memorial Day for the first time.

The move by Bunglawala towards reconciliation is likely to be partly motivated by a desire to be seen in the moderate camp of the British Muslim community, and shed the MCB’s previous image of being too extreme.

The MCB has recently fallen out of favour with government ministers in the UK, who regard it as doing too little to combat Islamic radicalism within Britain. Ministers are currently working on a way of getting a greater amount of ethnic minority funding straight to communities themselves, and bypassing big organisations which they fear are doing too little to combat extremism.

European Jewish Press