Last February the Arab League’s ambassador to the UK, Ali Muhsen Hamid, delivered a speech in which, predictably, he blamed Israel for pretty much everything– including, I think, 9/11.
But Washington entered actively into the fray after the terrorist events perpetrated on its own soil in 9/11/01. This was not a good justification for its enmity towards Arabs and Muslims. Israel’s hand in the matter is clear.
(In what matter: the terrorist events or the enmity?)
The speech so impressed the editors of the Saudi royal family magazine Ain Al-Yaqeen that they reprinted it in full. Nothing surprising about that either.
What does raise my eyebrows was the venue of the speech– the Conservative Foreign and Commonwealth Council at the Houses of Parliament in London. Of course the Tories are free to invite whomever they want to address them. I hope they weren’t so deferential to their guest that they declined to challenge his egregiously wrong-headed version of events. However the CFCC website provides a more-or-less verbatim account of Hamid’s assertions, with no suggestion that some of them might be questionable. At the very least, the CFCC should invite the Israeli ambassador to rebut them.
Perhaps one of our Conservative readers could look into this.
Update: The secretary of the CFCC writes in the comments:
[M]ay I please set the record straight on the Arab League meeting, and for that matter, all our other meetings. We sure did challenge the Ambassador in the half hour of questions that followed the speech and the other half an hour later that followed with refreshments. We believe that contact and repartee actually fosters better understanding and a positive way forward.
The discussion time was not reported on the CFCC site, but I can assure you it was very RUMBUSTIOUS indeed.
I’m not sure what “rumbustious” means, but I appreciate the information.
