We in the media who report on religious leaders spend a lot of time on conflict – after all, it excites people, which creates reader interest (not to mention insane letters to the editor).  But we don’t spend enough time noting those important and influential theologians who offer a different political view.

So I was intrigued to read yesterday that Syria’s foremost Muslim leader had declared that Islam commands its followers to “protect Judaism.”

“If the Prophet Mohammed had asked me to deem Christians or Jews heretics, I would have deemed Mohammed himself a heretic,” Sheikh Ahmed Hassoun, the Mufti of Syria, was quoted as telling a delegation of American academics visiting Damascus, according to the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz.

He added, “If Mohammed had commanded us to kill people, I would have told him he was not a prophet.”

Now many people will quickly point this out as long-standing Islamic theology to “protect” Jews and Christians due to their “dhimmi” or second-class status in an Islamic-ruled country. That is, as Peoples of the Book the state is obligated to protect the basic rights of these groups (as opposed to basic “infidels” who do not believe in what the Torah – the first great revelation – calls the “creator of the heaven and earth.”).

Still, the sheikh’s words are important as they clearly fly in the face of political-based drivel from Hamas and others who have twisted Islam into a sadistic, repressive and murderous understanding of what large swaths of people see as God’s word.

That’s why leading U.S. rabbis, let alone Israeli ones, should both praise the sheikh and invite him to repeat his words at a conference outside of the region – say in this country or in Europe. That could do a great deal to undermine the theological attraction of Islamic fundamentalism.

It also could kick start a project that I write about periodically – the need to create a treaty between Islam and Judaism, which I believe is critical to even the remote hopes of the much-needed political settlement between the Jewish state and its predominantly Muslim neighbors.