This weekend’s meeting in New York between Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf and Jewish leaders, through the American Jewish Congress Council for World Jewry, might be more than just a Pass-Go on the route to his cozying up to Washington.

It comes at a time when the United States is mulling over whether to go for the kill with Osama bin Laden’s top tier, believed to be hiding in Pakistan. The public meeting two weeks ago between Israeli and Pakistani officials in Turkey, following decades of private meetings, carries a significant punch in the Muslim world and reflects certain opportunities that may not be immediately apparent to some Jewish or Israeli observers. The overture by Pakistan should also not simply be viewed as an attempt to undercut recent Israeli and American movements toward strengthening relations with India.

According to the BBC, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah gave his approval for the Israel-Pakistan meeting. The close ties between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia should not be underestimated. It is widely believed that Pakistan serves as Saudi Arabia’s back channel to nuclear weapons and its insurance against Iran, a country with which it has relations but which it greatly distrusts.

Several years ago Crown Prince Abdullah reached out to Israel via Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, but the opportunity was missed. Abdullah’s offer to lay the groundwork for a comprehensive settlement with the Israelis was not accepted by Jerusalem, where it was viewed skeptically as a public relations move, and it failed in the Arab League because by then there was no reason to take it seriously. Abdullah is not a sophisticated diplomat, and his clumsy floating of the idea in plain language, which was parsed for nuance that wasn’t there, was not taken seriously.

But what Abdullah was proposing was significant: the concept of a sulha, a blanket reconciliation with Israel, both on a political as well as a religious level. A sulha is an Arab mechanism for resolving disputes when, for instance, families are caught in a cycle of revenge. Everybody just decides to wash their hands of the matter and stop being in conflict. Sulhas are generally decreed by a village elder or tribal leader and are binding upon everyone involved. It is a necessary mechanism to preserve order and move on, and such decrees are enforced to the point where violation of a sulha is viewed as an affront against the community.

Because Abdullah is not only the political head of Saudi Arabia but also the patriarch in charge of Mecca and Medina, the de facto center of the universe for the vast majority of the Muslim world today, he can offer a sulha like no one else can.

While we in the West debate whether we are involved in a clash of civilizations, the Islamic world takes it as self-evident that it is in such a conflict with other religions on the planet. Abdullah is in a unique position to reconcile with other religions and deliver the majority of the Muslim world along with him.

Israel is not only in a conflict with Arabs; Arabs are a geographically defined body of people. Israel, like the United States, is in conflict with the greater Muslim world, which accounts for a good percentage of the planet’s population. No matter how many peace treaties are signed, there will be no peace felt on the street until average people feel that Islam is also reconciled with Jews and Zionism.

Israel’s peace with Egypt and Jordan is chilly not only because the Palestinian conflict is still unsettled but because of embedded hostility in these countries about all things Jewish. The Arab world is still fed a daily diet of anti-Semitism and the kind of reconciliation that took place between the Catholic Church and Judaism has not yet happened in the Muslim world. This problem cannot be solved by government propaganda or foreign aid, but must be dealt with in language that common people understand. For the Muslim world, that language is Islam.

Abdullah’s blessing to Pakistan to hold public talks with Israel should be viewed as a step toward future overtures that would involve Saudi Arabia not only in the background but as a participant. As crown prince, Abdullah had to answer to a family council and run the government as a caretaker. As king, he has more flexibility to execute decisions, appoint his own officials and take initiatives. Whether or not he will decide that it is worthwhile to float another sulha remains to be seen, but if he does, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his advisers should take his overture seriously. The Jewish world should also be aware of these possibilities and be better situated to react to them properly if they are introduced into the realm of discussion by Saudi Arabia or any other prominently situated Muslim leader.

The meeting with Musharraf is a good opportunity for Jewish leaders in New York to send a message to the Muslim world that they appreciate the concept of sulha, including and beyond the politics of Israel, and wish to move in this direction. n

Ivan Ciment, publisher of www.globalthoughts.com, is an owner of an international legal consulting company based in New York.