In 2008 The Jerusalem Peace Academy & The Club of Budapest World Shift Network were invited by the Crans Montana Forum to participate in its 19th Annual Conference in Monte Carlo (Monaco) from June 26th - 28th. The Forum was held under the headline of "The New Role of the Mediterranean" including themes reaching from Cultural Integration, Security, Intercultural Relations, the Impact of Religions, Economy and the Situation in the Middle East. We could register a strong presence of the Golf States and despite its endeavor to have equality in the Forum we faced an unproportionally high presence of Muslims in it.
Following the invitation by the CMF Dr. Benedikt was attending with a delegation of seven interational personalities presenting on the subjects of "The Symbol of Jerusalem" and "The Role of the EU in solving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict".
Here see the Schedule;
Opening Speech by Prince Turki Al Faisal Al Saud (Sound Track)
1) Panel 1: The Symbol of Jerusalem in the three Religions of the Book, Sufism and modern Islam:
a) Presentation of Audrey Kitagawa
b) Presentation of Eliyahu Benedikt
c) Presentation of Ahmed Ifthikar Khwaja
d) Presentation of Imam Umer Ahmed Ilyasi
e) Statement by Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi
f) Statement of Egyptian President Anwar al Sadat
2) Panel 2: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the role of the EU in its possible consolidation:
3) Ceremony and Conclusion: The Session was concluded with a celebration and the distrubution of the annual CMF Awards.
As for the evaluation of the results we feel satisfied, since from our perspective we could achieve what we had headed for: to build bridges of trust and links with different personalities and organizations of Muslim countries, especially the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, which might help to move forward in laying a solid foundation for future Peace agreements between Israel and Palestine.
