DaytonDailyNews.com

WASHINGTON — Former U.S. Rep. Tony Hall has helped convene a coalition of leading Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders who are working together to bring peace to the Middle East.

Hall, working under $1 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the blessing of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, is working on an initiative that aims to build bridges between religious leaders in the Middle East. The initiative is being organized by the Center for the Study of the Presidency in Washington, D.C., a nonpartisan nonprofit organization.

Last week, more than a dozen members of the coalition — representing leading Israeli rabbis, heads of the Christian church in the Holy Land and Muslim religious leaders — convened in a Washington, D.C., hotel conference room to display their unity and distribute a communique listing goals. They ranged from procedures to advise government officials regarding issues of protecting Holy Sites; issuing united statements after derogatory portrayals of one or more of their faiths and promoting education that furthers respect and acceptance of all religions.

Hall said such a coalition of religious leaders uniting on the Middle East is unprecedented. "You cannot have peace in the Middle East without these people," he said.

The group, which met with Rice during her recent trip to the Middle East, also held meetings with House and Senate members interested in Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Hall, who served as Ohio's 3rd District congressman from 1979 to 2002, is also former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture.