Nobel laureates meet for peace

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PETRA, Jordan. -- Jordan's King Abdullah II has modest ambitions: to help forge a new process for global peace and security. Not a small order by any means, even for a king.

Peace and security -- and the fight against terrorism -- were the underlying themes of the Petra Nobel Laureates conference, in which several Israelis participated, including Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

For this, Jordan's king was given an " 'A' for courage" by one of his Nobel laureate guest -- one of several dozens of the planet's best and brightest brains gathered for a two-day conference in Petra, pitting their combined minds and energies to advance peace, particularly in the volatile Middle East.

Addressing the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, Abdullah supported a two-state solution, saying peace could come only if there is "justice for the Palestinians" and "security for the Israelis."

"The king's grandfather was murdered for less," Walker Kohn, an Austrian 1998 Nobel Prize winner for chemistry, told United Press International. "Getting Arabs and Israelis together is never an easy task."

In his opening remarks to the austere gathering of Nobel Prize winners, the king said: "This morning I look around this room, and I see a House of Wisdom -- a global House of Wisdom for the 21st century and beyond." Abdullah called "the power of ideas "one of humanity's greatest sources of energy."

It is that very energy the Petra conference hopes to tap into -- generating ideas for a brighter future amidst religious fanaticism, intolerance and continued world terrorist threats.

Extremism, the king said was "antipeace, antiprogress and antidemocratic." Fanaticism and extremism from all sides need to be fought with ideas. Those were the ideas, the king said, that needed to be advanced by Petra participants, something achievable by thinking "out of the box."

"At the dawn of the 21st century, planet Earth is still in peril," said Elie Wiesel, co-host of the Petra conference. He warned the world is "impressively self-destructive."

"Terrorism, remains a dark threat," said Mr. Wiesel, adding terrorists "are preaching a culture of death."