Qatar has shown its commitment for the past 10 years to host the US-Islamic World Forum, which convened this year from June 9 to 11. The forum hosted a select group of experts from around the world. Politicians, officials, academics, opinion-makers, scholars, businessmen, cultural experts and media persons from the United States and the Islamic world attended the event.
The forum aims to promote cooperation between the Islamic world and the US, and to show the positive side of the Islamic religion and its adherents. It also seeks to counter wrong information about this religion circulating in Western societies. It seeks to create a positive relationship between the Islamic world and governments and people in the West.
After the end of this year’s event, it is necessary for us to see if it achieved anything, especially in the light of criticism of the US regarding its policies in the Islamic world.
This year, the forum called for religious tolerance, enhancing dialogue, denouncing fanaticism and violence, addressing problems between the two sides, and strengthening civil society.
Notable among the topics discussed during the forum was the issue of Muslim minorities in Western societies and the need for them to play a role in the countries they live in so that they can positively influence their societies and preserve their own principles and values.
But observers did not welcome everything that came out of the forum. The forum also saw strong criticism of the American administration amid calls for an end to the unipolar world order.
Personally, I agree with those who say the forum’s topics are almost the same every year. These topics have not evolved. Every rational person can easily see that relations between the US and Islamic countries have not improved. On the contrary, these relations have taken a turn for the worse. Israel’s brutality, backed by US arms and money and veto power in the UN Security Council, is one reason for this.
The US-Islamic World Forum would do better if it gives priority in discussions to the Palestinian cause and the conflict in the Middle East. This cause was, and still is, the main cause of tension in the region and the lack of confidence between the US and the Islamic world.
Though Qatar has been criticised for it, the country had good intentions when it decided to host the Forum. Our wise leadership believes in the value of dialogue, which leads to results at the end of the day. It believes in the importance of talks, which solve problems and remove tension between two sides.
Qatar has tried to do everything to make the forum a success. It considers the forum a venue for airing all opinions regarding the relationship between the Islamic world and Washington.
Muslims have always complained about the actions of the US, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or in relation to America’s absolute support for Israeli occupation of Arab lands.
A Qatari official had earlier answered questions in this regard.
“The forum is not a political one or a venue for settling scores, but an occasion for exchanging opinions and ideas with others by creating a platform for open and free intellectual dialogue with academics, politicians and specialists from both sides to find the means for narrowing the gap of difference between the US and the Islamic world,” the official said.
He added that the forum was important in that it offered space to thinkers, politicians and academics to exchange ideas and points of view and to discuss the best means for finding a common ground between the Islamic world and the US.
Addressing the inaugural session of the forum, Qatar’s Prime Minister and Interior Minister, H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, said international and regional developments over the past few years had vindicated the vision and ideas advocated by the forum from the very beginning.
“The forum was not only about discussion, but it also offered important rules and solutions to a large number of international and regional problems,” the Prime Minister said.
