Hope for Peace on Friendly Fire

The sky is falling and the Messiah is coming. Gail-Tzipporah and I agree again: First on Rahm Emanuel's pro-Israel bona fides and next on LAUSD's bureaucracy. I'm going to push my luck and think that we'll be on the same side of the Friendly Firing line again on this issue of hideous irony.

The Saudis are attending a UN conference on diversity, and pretending that they believe that diversity is a good thing. This sentence stands alone as the platonic form of clueless hypocrisy. But since I get paid by the word, I'll go on.

What!?!? How do they have the unmitigated chutzpah to show up and dare instruct others on diversity or criticize the lack of diversity and religious tolerance in other countries? No, nations do not have to be perfect in their tolerance to have standing to critique the less perfect. But for God's sake, they at least have to value the principle, pay some lip service to it--even if they fall short.

The Saudis run one of the most insular, intolerant and closed societies in the world. There is no religious diversity. There is no freedom to for a Christian to worship or an openly Jewish to visit. Bibles are contraband. Even Shiite Muslims do not have full religious freedom.

As for women: Well the religious police preferred for school girls to burn to death rather than immodestly escape a burning building without being fully veiled. Driving a car is out. Leading a camel (on foot) is okay.

Not since a pre-repentant Libya sat on the UN's Human Rights Commission has there been such a nauseating spectacle. Although, the ultimate prize for hypocritical irony was permanently retired when the Noble Peace Prize was awarded to Yasser Arafat.