Monday, August 01, 2005

Which is which, o fans of the House of Saud? Jihad Al-Khazin here offers his eulogy of the King of Saudi Arabia. Al-Khazin is a widely read gifted columnist for Al-Hayat newspaper whose specialty is writing fawning eulogies for the oil princes of the Gulf. He makes all of them brilliant, and great advocates for the Palestinian cause--even whey the King was vacationing in Spain for the summer, we were told that he was there to discuss the Palestinian issue with "Spanish officials". (I years ago once wrote to him after he wrote about one dead oil prince, and asked him: "Is there any royal prince who in your mind was not brilliant and was not an advocate for the Palestinians"? He wrote me back (in his own handwriting) saying: "What can I say. You are right...."). But what got my attention in today's Al-Hayat is this: Khazin wrote that King Fahd was so polite with his critics, and never attacks them back. Yet, in the same issue, Lebanese intellectual Munah As-Sulh here writes that the King once in his presence used "violent language" to attack this Western leader. (I want the truth, and yes, I can HANDLE THE TRUTH).