Monday, November 28, 2005

No heroes left. One of the people that I used to respect and admire in the Arab world is Moroccan dissident Ibrahim Sirfati, who spent some 17 years in King Hasan's jail in Morocco. Here was a courageous revolutionary who worked against the Monarchy in Morocco, and refused to take advantage of Western advocacy of his cause because he is Jewish while languishing in jail for years. He has been adamantly anti-Zionist and refused attempts of cooptation by the regime. I used to like Riyad At-Turk in Syria, but he went weird in the last several years, and now sounds like Hariri "leftist" Ilyas Atallah. But Sirfati has also changed recently. He now has softened his views regarding the need to abolish the monarchy, and has even offered praise for the King of Morocco.