c. 1999 Religion News Service

AMMAN, Jordan _ When the dying King Hussein abruptly dismissed his brother, Crown Prince Hassan, as heir to the Jordanian throne last year, Middle East analysts wondered how the Oxford-educated prince would carve out a new niche for himself in the small, family-controlled kingdom.

In the wake of Hassan’s role as host of an international interreligious conference here last week, it now appears the prince, whose royal Hashemite family is descended from the 7th century prophet Mohammed, has decided to devote a considerable portion of his talents to religious peacemaking among contemporary adherents of Islam, Christianity and Judaism _ in the Middle East and elsewhere.

“When we first began to engage in interfaith dialogue two or three decades ago, many tended to regard the exercise as a luxury,” the 52-year-old prince told the conference, which ended on Monday (Nov. 29).

“Today it has become more and more of a necessity,” he added. “Modernization is imposed globally. Globalization is defining our transition into the millennium, leaving traditional societies with no choice but to accommodate themselves somehow, or perish.”

Yet at the same time, he said, many societies remain embroiled in internal ethnic, national and religious struggles, even as the great wars between states that wracked the 20th century fade into history.

“Conflict management techniques, designed to prevent or end hostilities, may have been sufficient when conflicts occurred between states,” he said. “However in internal conflicts, where antagonists live in close proximity, and serve as constant reminders of past injustices or unspeakable atrocities, it is necessary to go still farther to promote reconciliation and healing. As the largest and best-organized component of civil society, religious communities are uniquely placed to undertake this task.”

Addressing the conference last Thursday, Jordanian King Abdullah, who is now in full control of the reins of power in Jordan, seemed to give a political green light to the prince’s new role.

He also designated the unresolved status of Jerusalem as one of the key issues that should be put at the top of the agenda of religious leaders as the millennium comes to a close.

“The Jerusalem problem poses a great challenge to those of us who are on the side of religion as a source of peace,” the king said. But in order for religious leaders to promote peace in Jerusalem, he added, they also must promote an “inclusive” view of Jerusalem’s centrality to the three monotheistic faiths.

“I am afraid that Israel, our peace partner, perpetuates exclusion by its insistence that Jerusalem, both Arab and Israeli, is its capital alone,” said Abdullah.

“Jerusalem is too sacred and too symbolic for it to belong exclusively to one part. It can accommodate two capitals, one Palestinian and one Israeli, and belong to the entire world at the same time.”

Could Jerusalem become the subject or venue of another meeting of the WCRP in the millennium year? WCRP officials won’t say for sure, but there are “significant explorations afoot,” said the Rev. William Vendley, secretary general of the New York-based organization. “The main actors have to be the local religious communities.”

Indeed, until now, neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority has sought to encourage an interreligious dialogue over the status Jerusalem, according to conference participants. Both government’s prefer to wrangle over the issue as a part of the political process now underway.

The depth of the religio-political divide in Jerusalem, however, was nonetheless evident in the absence of any senior Palestinian Muslim participants at the Amman conference despite the wide array of officials from almost everywhere else in the Arab world. Official Israeli state rabbinical figures such as the chief rabbis of Israel also stayed away.

“The World Conference on Religion and Peace understands that it is not charged to determine the actual shape of a political agreement,” said Vendley. “On the other hand, it has every right, in fact the obligation, to dwell upon those principles upon which a just and durable peace might be achieved.

“You have two peoples and three religions intimately associated with the city of Jerusalem,” he adds. “No political solution is going to be just unless those claims in some true sense are accommodated.”

DEA END FLETCHER