Ahmadinejad urges scholars to enter interfaith dialogue

Iranian leader: "All divine religions guide mankind to prosperity"; as part of two-day visit is set to visit battlegrounds of Second Lebanon War, including Bint Jbeil and Maroun a-Ras.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS, JPOST.COM STAFF
Ahmadinejad cool headphones 311 AP (photo credit: Associated Press)
Ahmadinejad cool headphones 311 AP
(photo credit: Associated Press)
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday called on all religious scholars and leaders to come together in solving challenges facing human societies during a meeting with Lebanese scholars, clerics and religious leaders on the second and last day of his visit to Lebanon, Press TV reported.
“Scholars of divine religions can put major challenges facing human societies on the agenda to find … solutions to them,” Ahmadinejad said, according to the Press TV report.
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official: Ahmadinejad in Lebanon is like a 'landlord visiting his domain'"All divine religions guide mankind to prosperity and invite human societies to monotheism, justice and friendship," he added.
Hizbullah supporters used mosque loudspeakers Thursday to rally crowds ahead of a trip by Iran's president to southern Lebanon near the border with Israel.
Ahmadinejad is scheduled to make a trip to Lebanon's Shiite heartland in the south and the Israeli border, which will emphasize Iran's support for Hizbullah's fight with Israel.
Residents of southern Lebanese were heading to Bint Jbeil, a border village that was bombed during the 2006 Israeli-Hizbullah war, to greet the Iranian president Thursday afternoon.
Many students in the south skipped school Thursday to await Ahmadinejad.
Government spokesman Mark Regev slammed the trip Thursday, saying "Iran's domination of Lebanon through its proxy Hizbullah has destroyed any chance for peace, has turned Lebanon into an Iranian satellite and made Lebanon a hub for regional terror and instability."On Wednesday evening, Hizbullah held a General Assembly meeting and mass rally in Beirut in honor of Ahamdinejad. Speaking to the assembled supporters at the event via an interpreter, Ahmadinejad praised Lebanon for being an "example" and called it a "university for Jihad." Lebanon and Iran, he said, are "two nations that love each other and have much in common," primarily the fight against Israel.
He went on to speak about the "Zionist regime," attacking Israel for "the massacre of innocent people" and "violations of international law."