Kesher Talk

Syria's Assad gets an interesting greeting in London: No, I am not referring to the disgustingly slavish response from Britain's Tony Blair on dictator Assad's recent visit. I am referring to the myriad groups of protestors, as reported in UPI Hears on Dec. 17:

When Syrian President Bashir Assad arrived for lunch with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street on Monday, the street demonstration looked like a scene from a Peter Sellars movie. One group was clearly an Arab rent-a-crowd, mostly male, mustered by the regime to cheer the president and carry pro-Assad banners. The leader of this group arrived in a chauffeur-driven limo and wore a camel hair coat. Next to them, separated by a line of London policemen, was a rent-a-crowd of a different persuasion: members of a Jewish organization chanting variations on the theme of "Hands off Israel!" Then came a group of Syrian exiles who shouted anti-regime slogans and exchanged glares with the pro-Assad crowd. But the largest and noisiest group, which included several attractive, jeans-clad young women, banged kitchen utensils together, swaying to the rhythm. Their banners read ... "Down with Chavez!" Seems the Venezuelans had asked for a permit to demonstrate against President Hugo Chavez, and the police had included them in the Assad demo because they were short of manpower to assign constables to a separate venue.

posted by Howard @ 12/19/2002 07:02:36 AM