In reaching out to Islam, French President Nicolas Sarkozy could have extended his arm at random and found a far better hand to shake than that of Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. Today, Sarkozy invited Prince Alwaleed to lay the first stone of the Louvre museum’s new Islamic art section and said

This will be an opportunity for the French and all visitors to the Louvre to see that Islam is progress, science, finesse, modernity, and that fanaticism in the name of Islam is a corruption of Islam.

Not according to Sarkozy’s honored guest. For this is the same Prince Alwaleed bin Talal who surveyed ground zero a month after the attacks and announced that the United States

should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stand toward the Palestinian cause.

While the U.N. passed clear resolutions numbered 242 and 338 calling for the Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip decades ago, our Palestinian brethren continue to be slaughtered at the hands of Israelis while the world turns the other cheek.

Why is it that Sarkozy can find no better representative of Islam than a Saudi royal who justifies the September 11 attacks by blaming the U.S. and Israel? Good old Saudi oil money.

The Saudi prince, one of the world’s richest men, is contributing 17 million euros, while oil giant Total and Lafarge will put up 8.5 million euros each, with the remainder to be covered by the government.

If Sarkozy is as big a fan of the U.S. as he claims, he should follow Rudolph Giuliani’s example and tell Prince Alwaleed to keep his money and go back whence he came.

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