AJC Delegates Debate Risks of Political Islam with Persian Gulf Nations
Bahrain Bay
Photo Credit: Wikipedia commons
An AJC leadership delegation exchanged views on the threats posed by political Islam and the strategic ambitions of Iran in a just-concluded series of consultations in the Persian Gulf, a.k.a. Arabian Gulf.
The 13-member group, led by AJC Board of Trustees Chairman John Shapiro and AJC Associate Executive Director for Policy Jason Isaacson, met with senior officials, business leaders, security experts, diplomats and political analysts in three Gulf states. In Bahrain, the delegation also met with members of the country’s small indigenous Jewish community.
Bahrain’s 37 Jews constitute one of the world’s smallest Jewish communities, with one synagogue and a small cemetery. In 2008, Bahrain’s king nominated Houda Nonoo, a Jewish woman who served in the nation’s 40-member upper house of Parliament, as its ambassador to the United States.
“Throughout our visit, we were struck by officials’ and policy experts’ singular focus on the danger to their own countries and to Islam itself from radical Islamist recruitment and violence,” the AJC’s Isaacson said in a press release statement, adding, “In discussions with Muslim scholars and analysts, we heard about steps that have been taken and further steps being planned to assure that educational systems, media and religious institutions convey messages of tolerance and peace, and proscribe hate and violence.”
“After so much bloodshed — in the region and in the West — carried out in the name of a distorted medieval interpretation of Islam, we urged the swiftest and widest possible adoption of such measures, and the choking off of financial and theological support for the Islamic State and other Islamist movements,” he concluded sadly.
The delegation discussed with a range of officials and diplomats Iran’s support for subversive forces in several Arab states, and the adequacy of defenses against the Iranian threat. AJC leaders and Gulf officials shared concerns about the prospect of Iran raising its political and military profile as a result of the July 2015 nuclear deal.
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