Interfaith conference due to get underway in Spain

A Saudi-sponsored conference that will bring together Israeli and American rabbis with clerics from the strict Wahhabi sect of Islam – as well as global religious leaders of nearly every persuasion – opens in Madrid today.

The conference, the brainchild of Saudi King Abdullah, who has cast it as a way to ease tensions between Islam, Christianity and Judaism, is part of an effort to reposition oil-rich Saudi Arabia as a force for moderation in the region.