Israel Matzav

Mary Robinson's new defender

If anyone thought that presenting the Medal of Freedom to her would end the controversy over Mary Robinson, they were apparently incorrect. JPost reports that Robinson has a new defender and that she is a close adviser to that paragon of 'human rights,' Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Israel has carried out an "crazy campaign" against former Irish president Mary Robinson and all others who have "brought fairness" to the Palestinian issue, an adviser to Syrian President Bashar Assad declared in an editorial published Monday in Saudi Arabia's Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

In the editorial, Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban blasted Israel's policy and influence over the world media, and lamented the Arab media's inability to address these issues properly.

...

Shaaban stated that Israel singled out and accused "notable world figures who criticized its actions, such as Robinson. Israel fears people such as Robinson because they are holding up torches to the truth of the Israeli-Palestinian issue and saying that the conflict must become an international matter."

JPost goes on to give a review of some of Shaaban's writings and I'm sure you'll all be shocked - just shocked - to here that she's a 9/11 troofer.

In a lecture at Sapienza University in Rome in 2007, she accused the US of conducting an illegal war in Iraq and Israel an illegal occupation of Palestine. She also claimed that it had not been proven that Arab terrorists committed the September 11 attacks.

"Nobody truly investigated 9/11. We don't have results about what happened, what truly happened in 9/11. But whoever masterminded it, whoever did it, the results of 9/11 are the creation of the feeling in the Western world against Muslims and Arabs, the distortion of Arab civilization, of Arab culture, of Arab life, of Arab humanity even, in the minds of the West," said Shaaban. "If you ask my opinion there's a big attack on Arab identity, on Arab civilization, on Arab culture. The objective is not only the Iraqis, the Palestinians or the Lebanese, it is the Arab culture."

Maybe she should ask Osama Bin Laden what he had in mind.

Greek playwright Euripides was the first (known) person to quip that a man is known by the company he keeps. 'Defenders' like Bouthaina Shaaban speak volumes about Mary Robinson - and Barack Hussein Obama.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:35 AM