By Stan Goodenough
May 15, 2008
Twenty current and former world leaders and hundreds of other international dignitaries were making their way to Jerusalem Tuesday and Wednesday for what has been described as an unprecedented gathering in the Israeli capital.
Not since the funeral of assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin have so many heads of state been in Israel at one time.
In the words of the far-left daily newspaper, Ha'aretz, the three-day "Israeli Presidential Conference" will be the "event of the century."
Under the banner theme "Facing Tomorrow," the dignitaries will come together "to discuss the future of humanity and Israel's role in the world".
Attendees will include the presidents of Albania, Burkina-Faso, Croatia, Georgia, Latvia, Mongolia, Palau, Poland, Rwanda, Slovenia, Uganda, Ukraine, the United States.
Other dignitaries will be US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, former prime minister of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel, and the former president of Indonesia, Abdurrahman Wahid.
Among the non-politician VIPs will be Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Yahoo president Susan Decker, media magnate Rupert Murdoch, Nobel Prize Laureate Eli Wiesel, Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, Ratan Tata, chairman of India's Tata group, US billionaire Sheldon Adelson.
On an Internet clip welcoming his distinguished and influential guests, Peres described Jerusalem as "the cradle of the world's greatest religion."
But while Israel had to remain "true to our heritage," the Jewish state also had "to adapt to a new age that has many offers, challenges and problems," he said.
While subjects under discussion will include science, arts, the media and other issues, “buried” among these will be the Land-for-Peace process of which Peres has been and remains one of Israel’s prime proponents.
The conference attendees would have "to try and imagine what will be the face of the world in the immediate future, what will be the direction of Jewish life in it, what will happen to our own state," the president said, blandly but ominously.
More than that, they would have to "try and offer directions."
"By devoting our time, not to the history of our lives, but to the future of the destinies of the still unborn," the leftist, pro-globalism veteran Israeli said the conference would provide "a real service to everybody, every nation, every religion, every person."
The outcome will be, he was sure, "a real contribution to a new age, to a new future."