Religion is an ancient and powerful tool for propelling people into action and providing them with the feeling that this action gives meaning to their lives. In this capacity, it often stimulates people to bring much good to the world. At the same time, there are those who use, or more correctly, abuse religion to spread hatred and encourage violence. The recent tragic massacre by a crazed man in Orlando who identified with Radical Islam is a clear example of how religious trappings serve as a "lightning rod" for personal frustrations, encouraged by radical religious leaders.
Religious leaders often incite in a more direct manner. For example, the members of the Jihad movements in Islam, and the members of Jewish extremist groups, such as Kach or Lahava, in Israel (even if the scope is much smaller) are pursued or at least monitored by law enforcement. These people are dangerous; however, this problem is dealt with and gets a relative amount of public attention. The same is not the case with religious leaders who spread hatred in a more clever or sophisticated manner.
There are religious leaders who present people from other religions who are different from them as infidels, inferior, or inhuman; but they do not directly call for violence against them, nor do they work directly to promote violence. These religious leaders are often part of the establishment in countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia. This phenomenon can also be found in Israel, where, some religious leaders are known for spreading hatred by their public statements. For example, in 2010, thirty-nine rabbis of cities in Israel, who are salaried by the government, signed a petition instructing their followers not to rent apartments to Arabs, to refugees and to non-Jewish immigrants in general.
Freedom of expression is one of the most important civil rights, even for ideas that seem to us as beyond the pale. Consequently, if it isn't considered direct incitement -- law enforcement authorities cannot apply direct punishments and government bodies cannot apply coercion against religious leaders who spread hatred. However, there are definitely steps that can be taken against them. First, they should not be allowed to be part of the official state-sanctioned religion; and second, they must be condemned by authoritative religious and government establishments in the region and in the world.
In Saudi Arabia, where there is indoctrination by one of the fanatic streams of Islam, there are promising first signs of brave and different voices, including from the orthodox establishment, that are making public statements against the theologies of hatred of ISIS and their counterparts. There is room to believe that the price -- in terms of legitimacy -- paid by Saudi Arabia for being a hothouse for fanatics, has contributed something to the positive trends. There is definitely a possibility that the establishment will come out against religious leaders who actively spread hatred and will make an effort to educate against the legitimacy given to their opinions.
Finally, steps should be taken to prevent the expansion of the influence wielded by religious leaders who spread hatred. Extremist "religious" leaders are less likely to deteriorate to the realm of hatred if they feel that their beliefs are threatened or marked as illegitimate in a general and sweeping manner. For this purpose, tools of inter-religious dialogue and dialogue between various streams of the same religion are very important. Inter-religious dialogue makes it possible to strengthen the belief of religious leaders that there is a place for a path that respects their religion and at the same time comes out against fanatics of that religion.
In the work of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel, now a part of Rabbis for Human Rights, we have been successful in influencing orthodox religious leaders, in Islam, Judaism and Christianity, for many years. For example, as a result of an intensive inter-religious dialogue program that we conducted over 6 years, which was called Kedem (Kol Dati Mefaiyes), "Religious Voices for Reconciliation," among Orthodox rabbis of the Religious Zionist camp and Muslim and Christian grass-roots religious leaders, a profound change in awareness emerged among some of the key religious leaders of Israel.
This dialogue has had a long-term impact: One rabbi invited a leading Israeli Muslim sheikh to speak to students at his Hesder yeshiva in Petach Tikvah, another rabbi prepared the first course of its kind on "Respecting Others and the Relationship to the Stranger Living in our Midst" for outstanding students in a seminar for religious women teachers in Jerusalem; a rabbi and sheikh became good friends and partners for several years, and even appeared together on a television program to condemn violence against innocent people in the name of religion. I could give many other examples and tell fascinating stories of acts of reconciliation and mutual empathy that took place following this serious, sensitive and ongoing dialogue over several years, but I will save this for another time (when there is more space).
In sum, through intelligent use of the tools available to us as a society -- condemnation of religious clergy who spread hatred, on one hand, and dialogue among religious leaders of the major faiths in Israel, on the other -- we can defuse the landmine of religious fanaticism or at least minimize its inherent danger.
(This article is based on an article in Hebrew published on the NRG website in Israel published on June 26th: http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/792/182.html?hp=1&cat=479)