Efraim Karsh should be good. To bad i am in Jerusalem.

Past your bed time, eh?

REPLY SOME NOTES FROM CONFERENCE -

I was sitting next to someone in the first hour and he said I don't understand why they don't live webcast this? An hour later when my girl Brigitte showed and I got into the main room upstairs with her they mentioned upstairs that they were indeed trying to live webcast it at that point. Note, there were 4 or 5 rooms due to the overflow of people. The extra 4 had huge screens with live video. Q & A's never materialized really due to time issues.

I missed Sharansky's speech. He's an incredible person and wanted to see him but he started at 10am. Some people said he was 'pretty good' but his accent (Russian and Hebrew not a great combo for good English pronounciations) made him hard to understand and he's not a dynamic speaker.
Karsh went in the afternoon and though he's a smart guy, (different from what I thought btw more low key and humourous) his accent is thick German? and Hebrew maybe? made him hard to understand and he went way too long and dragged on.

Phyllis's speech was very good, late morning. I've seen her before and thought she did much better this time as far as content, delivery and staying cool.

Charles Jacobs and the men from Mauritania and Sudan were really interesting. Virtually noone is doing a thing about them, and Jacobs and some Jewish organizations have been the only ones they say who have stood up for them over and over in person when it counted.

I spoke with the guy from Mauritania during a necessary food break, it was also hot in the main room. Don't know why the air wasn't turned on?
Nice guy. He is a Muslim and guy from Sudan (escaped slave) is Christian. He said that there Islam is practiced in the Mosque and that's really it. Outside it doesn't intermix with politics. Also he said that they are Muslims but have their own African culture and languages. They speak French, African lang's and Arabic.

However, the Saudis and Arab countries have been trying to Arabize them for a long time now. They openly consider them part of the Arab Kingdom so to speak. He cited a Qudaffi quote.
He said that Baathism, Nasserism, Muslim Brotherhood etc.. are all trying to gain influence there, especially Saudi money where they try to dictate to them how Islam should be practiced.. by controlling with the purse strings, etc..
He said the first Gulf War knocked back a lot of Arab influence there, particularly the Baathists. But most of all he said they are Africans not Arabs. And since the Arab world realized (he said when it started but I forget) that the African continent was ripe for the taking they have been trying to Arabize it and dominate it since. He said the Saudis are controlling the Mosques more and more with their money and that they are driving the blacks out of the country that don't agree to their policies and influence through direct/indirect policies. He said hundreds of thousands have fled to neighboring countries already.
NOTE TO SELF - Isn't that ummm sordove Islamist/Arabist Imperialism?

The guy said that they went to Farrakhan and asked for help, and that Sweet Lou (my words) actually then came out against them! Not the Arabs or the Saudis against his own 'so-called' people.

Rachel Fish was excellent, and cute too.
Very composed and spoke very well.
The 3 or 4 Columbia students briefly spoke after her, but I went out for some food and was talking with the guy from Mauritania as well.
When I came back I caught the last 3/4 of the film Columbia Unbecoming and then the postscript where they showed how the whole thing has been effectively squashed by the "committee"
and how they are all related to the offending Professors.

That's it for now.
Larry

Oh the guy from Mauritania said that if noone stops it the African Continent will be overrun by Arabization soon.