"Interfaith conference" in Qatar; Iran freaks out

From Peninsula On-Line:

The Sixth Conference for Dialogue Between Religions is due to kick off here today at Doha Sheraton hotel with prominent intellectuals, scholars, media persons and followers of three major religions participating.

The conference, to be inaugurated by the Minister of Awqaf (Endowments) and Islamic Affairs, H E Faisal bin Abdullah Al Mahmoud, will focus on three major topics: The peaceful relations among the three religions, the value of life in accordance with religion, including issues such as suicide, abortion, human trafficking, trafficking of human organs, clinical death and euthanasia, and insulting religious symbols. Many of these issues are medical issues with a religious dimension.

The third topic deals with violence, self defence and media and violence, in addition to questions over the suicide bombings taking place in Palestine and Afghanistan and whether they are violence or a type of self defence according to the viewpoint of religious scholars.

The conference, organized by the Doha International Centre for Interfaith Dialogue in cooperation with the Foreign Ministry and Qatar University, will host up to 200 delegates representing Islam, Christianity and Judaism as well as local research centres.

I don't know what rabbis are participating in Qatar, but I do know that the fact that they are there is enraging at least one nation:

Iran boycotts Qatar's International Conference on Dialogue between Religions in a bid to protest the participation of Zionist rabbis, PressTV reported.

Iran's representative, Ali Akbar Sadeqi Reshad has asked the organizers of the conference to withdraw his paper from the event.

The Egyptian scholar, Yusuf al-Qaradawi has also boycotted the conference, which will be held on May 13 and 14, 2008 in Doha.

And what exactly does "interfaith dialogue" mean to the hosts in Qatar?

To a question on the participation of the Jewish rabbis, she said that the annual visits of the participating Jewish rabbis have contributed to the change of their conception on Muslims.

“I remember that the Jewish rabbis who participated for the first time in interfaith dialogue were very scared and even asked for tightening security measure. They thought they were coming to a country of terrorists. We do not expect them to hand over Palestine to us after inviting them to such meetings. The important thing is that their perceptions have changed with their annual participation in the Doha Interfaith Dialogue,” she explained.

Notice yet again that the point of "interfaith dialogue" from the Muslim perspective is not to learn from other religions, but to force them to learn from you. In other words, it is a Muslim monologue disguised as a conversation.