BOB ABERNETHY (anchor): The latest violence in the Middle East highlights the role of religion as fuel for conflict. We want to talk about the religious dimension of the Israeli-Palestinian hostility with professor Marius Deeb, a Christian of Lebanese descent who teaches Middle East history and politics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies; and with Rabbi Arthur Herzberg, a writer and professor at New York University and Rabbi Emeritus of the conservative temple Emanuel in Englewood, New Jersey. Rabbi Hertzberg joins us from New York.
Rabbi, is it religion that's the problem or is it religious extremism?
RABBI ARTHUR HERTZBERG: (New York University): It is certainly religious extremism. Religion is the problem to the degree that mainstream religion, which teaches peace, harmony, and the attempt to live together, has not succeeded in curbing the extremists who believe in ethnic hatred and in religion which encourages them to commit all kinds of atrocities in the name of God.
ABERNETHY: Professor Deeb, we're familiar, I think most of us with, the Israeli claim that the land is theirs because God gave it to their ancestors. What are the Muslim religious claims?
PROFESSOR MARIUS DEEB: Religious claim of course of the Haram Al-Sharif, the Temple Mount, is because Prophet Mohammed's ascent to heaven was from Jerusalem, and because the mosques were built there precisely because of biblical tradition and anyway, this shows that it is possible to share the Temple Mount, the Haram al-Sharif, between Muslims and Jews because both -- the sides are holy to both communities.
ABERNETHY: Rabbi, you've argued that religion should somehow be taken out of the discussions of about how to bring about peace. This weekend, that seems like a real longshot. How could that come about?
RABBI HERTZBERG: It has to come about. Religions absolutes -- religious absolutes and the absolutists who believe in them, cannot compromise with one another. The Temple Mount, the Haram al-Sharif and the conflict over it is an exact example of that. Only pragmatic statesmen who are willing to find formulas for "live and let live" have any hope of bringing peace.
