Edited interview of Asma Assad shows hypocrisy of Arab world

From NYT:

A video blogger has remixed footage of an interview Asma al-Assad gave to CNN in 2009, in which Syria’s British-born first lady decried the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, to make it seem as if she was speaking out against the violent crackdown on dissent currently under way in Syria.

The remix posted on YouTube cuts together outraged comments from Mrs. Assad in 2009 (including, “the barbaric assault on innocent civilians has been horrific,” and, “this is the 21st century, where in the world could this happen?”) and video shot last week of the Syrian government’s bombardment of Homs, the city her family is originally from. (Readers should be aware that the clip includes some extremely graphic video of a dead child with a gaping head wound.)

In a similar vein, the editor-in-chief of Asharq al-Awsat wrote last week:

Let us pause here in front of this state of mad dictatorship, and compare it with what Israel has committed against us in recent times, and I say recent times as we are talking about the last 5 years, particularly the Lebanon and Gaza wars. The entire world rushes to stop Israel’s aggressions against Lebanon in 2006, and this war ended after approximately two months, claiming the lives of 1,200 Lebanese. The same thing applies to the Gaza war, which had approximately the same death toll. In both wars, the public opinion in the Arab world rushed to take action, whilst counterfeit “friends of Israel” lists were issued, masterminded by the al-Assad regime; indeed a number of Arab politicians attempted to exploit this tragedy, most prominently the al-Assad regime. However we did not hear anybody ask – even now – why did these wars happen? Whose interests did these wars, and more, serve? Who was responsible for this?

Today, in the case of al-Assad, we have seen the Syrian forces brutally killing their own people on our television screens over the past year – not two months – whilst the death toll stands at more than 8,000 and the tyrant of Damascus’s troops have destroyed mosques, tortured and assassinated children, as well as women and the elderly, simply in order to allow al-Assad to cling to power. Despite all this, we find some countries, politicians, media organizations and figures, who are procrastinating; it is as if we – as Arabs – are saying that if the killer is also an Arab, then this is something that we can accept, however if he is an Israeli, then we must all move as one to put an end to this! This is a saddening and shameful state of affairs, particularly when somebody like Hassan Nasrallah shamelessly comes out to defend al-Assad!

(h/t Michael G)