President Herzog hosts delegation of European-based Muslim imams who bring 'message of peace' to Israel

Imams and Muslim leaders from France, the UK, Italy and the Netherlands brought a “message of peace” during a visit to the Jewish state where they were hosted by the Israeli President Isaac Herzog at his official residence in Jerusalem. The trip was organized by ELNET, an NGO that advocates stronger relations between Europe and Israel. 

The Israeli president welcomed his guests and stressed that both Muslims and Jews are children of Abraham. 

“We are all children of Abraham, and I believe the historic progress in our region is a progress of dialogue between Muslims and Jews, and Jews and Muslims,” Herzog stated. “What you’re doing on this visit, and in your courageous work, reflects the silent majority in the Middle East and around the world who yearn for this kind of shared life."

“Here in Israel, we want peace,” Herzog announced. “We want to see all our hostages back home, and we want to see an end to the suffering of the people in Gaza, too. We want to see better lives for everyone."

Looking ahead, Herzog expressed hope that “peace will come with Syria, with Lebanon, inshallah even with Saudi Arabia, and that we will continue moving forward.”

In 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump brokered the historic Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. Both U.S. and Israeli leaders have articulated interest in expanding the peace between Israel and the wider Arab and Muslim world. 

During his current visit to the U.S., Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s peace efforts in the Middle East. 

“The president has already realized great opportunities. He forged the Abraham Accords; he's forging peace as we speak with one country and one region after the other. I want to present to you, Mr. President, a letter that I sent to the Nobel Prize committee. It's nominating you for the Peace Prize,” Netanyahu stated. 

Imam Youssef Masbeh, a veteran Muslim religious leader who has served in Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands, began singing in Arabic and interpreting Israel’s national anthem during the meeting with the Israeli president. A video clip from the meeting showed that Masbeh encouraged the other people in the room to join him by singing and dancing in a spirit of unity. 

The European Muslim leaders also held meetings in the Israeli parliament Knesset on Monday before visiting Jerusalem’s Old City with its sacred Muslim, Jewish and Christian sites. The imams were also scheduled to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem and meet Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi David Yosef and the Israeli military’s Arabic Spokesperson Col. Avichay Adraee who has become a familiar face during the ongoing war with Iran and its terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. 

Ali El Aarja, an imam who is based in the Italian city Turin, explained why he decided to visit the Holy Land and Jerusalem. 

“I already did my pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, and I was waiting to come to Jerusalem,” Aarja said in an interview with The Times of Israel. 

The imam stressed that Morocco, the country of his birth, welcomes Muslims, Christians and Jews. 

“Morocco is a country open to all religions: Muslims, Christians, and Jews live together, and we hope we can set an example for the world,” El Aarja argued. 

“We are here to send a message of peace,” he continued. “For our Palestinian brothers and for our Jewish brothers, we do not want war, we hope we can go back to dialogue."

Prior to Israel’s reestablishment in 1948, some 300,000 Jews resided in Morocco. Due to mass emigration and antisemitism, only a few thousand Jews remain in Morocco. However, the large number of Moroccan Jewish Israelis currently form a strong human bridge between Israel and Morocco, which established diplomatic relations in 2020. 

Noor Dahri, the executive director and founder of the British-based organization Islamic Theology of Counter Terrorism, is a strong advocate for peace between Muslims and Jews. He stressed that the current war “is not merely a conflict between Israel and Hamas, nor between Israel and Hezbollah – the so-called ‘Party of Satan’.”

He warned of the Islamist threat especially in Western societies. 

“Extremists are more powerful in Western countries than in the Middle East or in Pakistan because, in the Middle East and Pakistan, there are two types of people – Muslims and Islamists – and Muslims know when an organization is an Islamist organization and they either join it or distance themselves from it,” Dahri argued. He assessed that the Muslims who support Israel, feel threatened by the growing radicalization in the post-Oct. 7 era. 

“Since October 7, even those Muslims who were previously supportive of Israel and Israelis either turned their backs or kept silent in fear of their life,” he said.

“Now, this delegation of imams and religious scholars from different Muslim backgrounds has come to Israel to send one message across the Muslim world – that the Jewish nation is not the enemy of Muslims, that the State of Israel is not against Islam, and we Muslims should not have any enmity toward the Jewish people because they are our cousins, and they are fighting against Islamism,” he stated. 

Imam Hassen Chalghoumi, chairman of the Conference of Imams of France, praised Israel in the ongoing war against Islamist extremists such as Hamas. 

“It is a confrontation between two fundamentally different worlds,” the Tunisian-born Chalghoumi argued. “You represent the world of brotherhood, of humanity, of compassion. You stand for the values of democracy and liberty."