"Eighth International Conference on Al Quds" - FAIL

The Eighth International Conference on Al Quds took place on Sunday and Monday in Khartoum. I had posted about Khaled Meshal's opening speech, calling for Jihad against Israel.

The Director of Information at Al-Quds International Foundation, Hashim Yagoub, said in a press conference held at SUNA regular news forum that representatives of 28 countries would take part in the conference along with representatives of the civil society organizations.

As lofty as this sounded, in reality it appears that the conference was a bust.

The keynote speaker was supposed to be Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the popular Qatar-based sheikh - but he bowed out at the last minute. Hurriyet Sudan noted this, saying his snubbing of the conference "raises questions."

As far as I can tell, only three speakers have been publicized: Meshal, Sudanese president Bashir (who said "What is going in the region is a prelude to the battle for Jerusalem"" and Gaza Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar who gave the closing speech.

This is not a very big room for an international conference.

And it appears that a lot of the participants were reporters, based on the ridiculous number of microphones on the dais:

Where are all the representatives from the Arab world?

Perhaps they have other things on their minds lately besides Palestine.