Saudi mufti a bit miffed at idea of inviting Jews to kingdom

Last week, Saudi King called for dialogue between Christians, Jews and Muslims to much publicity.

Moderate Arab commentators complimented the move, but it was clear that "dialogue" to them was a one-way street:

Saudi newspaper commentaries suggested the king's motives were addressing militant violence inside Muslim countries and tension between Muslims and the authorities in Europe.

"The dialogue could clear up some facts about our religion, far from the distortions that extremists and fanatics have caused," wrote Saudi daily newspaper al-Jazirah, referring to militant violence in Saudi Arabia and the region.

Nothing about learning anything about other religions, only about lecturing about Islam. As usual, to Muslims, "dialogue" means the same thing as "Islamic indoctrination."

Now,the Saudi mufti has made it very clear that the idea of having rabbis in Saudi Arabia is pretty sickening to him:

Saudi Arabia's grand mufti Abdelaziz al-Sheikh has rejected an attempt by the government to open interreligious dialogue with Jewish rabbis.

According to a report by the official Kuwaiti news agency Kuna on Wednesday, the mufti refused to accept any visit by rabbis to a conference on interreligious dialogue, expected to be held in the kingdom's capital Riyadh.

I guess no Jews will be visiting their old digs at Khaybar anytime soon.