By: Nasser Laham
The reaction of Palestine's ambassadors to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan's statements for Palestine was unprofessional and even naive, proving that they still believe the world must understand them without any need on their part to express their feelings.
More than 100 ambassadors of the Palestinian Authority, headed by the PA's president and a high-profile delegation including the Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad Al-Maliki, listened to Erdogan as he delivered his speech at a conference in Istanbul.
Erdogan improvised very influential and enthusiastic statements for Palestine. He carefully selected his impressive words, and yet none of them bothered to clap their hands and applaud his words even when he said, "I want to kiss the tearful eyes of Palestinian women."
A colleague from Al-Ayyam newspaper Abdul-Raoof Arnaoot and I started to whisper, "Why didn’t they clap their hands for the Turkish leaders? Why did the ambassadors remain silent despite the fact that they have simultaneous interpretations? Why didn't they applaud him when he said 'Jerusalem is a red line'?"
Despite the fact that most of the ambassadors are from the Gaza Strip, none took the trouble to stand up and clap their hands when Erdogan said, "We won’t forgive Israel as long as the Gaza Strip is besieged."
None of the Palestinian ambassadors remembered Jubran Khalil Jubran's words that "Love which is not created everyday will die every day."
Erdogan’s improvised speech was authentic and deserved applause. It reflected truthful friendship, loyalty and even brotherhood. It was much more noble-minded than US President Barack Obama’s speech before the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. Obama’s speech was hypocritical and the applause of his audience was hypocritical too.
Meanwhile, Erdogan's speech reflected justice, honesty and pure truth.
Nevertheless, AIPAC supporters and Israeli war generals applauded Obama and unfortunately, representatives of the Palestinians, who suffer every day at the hands of Israeli occupation, forgot to clap their hands for Erdogan who almost burst into tears as he talked about Palestine.
It seems Erdogan realized that the ambassadors of Palestine were naive and so he applauded himself twice and the audience stood up when he finished his speech. Leaders and experts in protocol from the PLO were present, but they seem to have forgotten to prepare even the applause. We needn’t recall that the applause at the AIPAC conference was prepared in advance.
However, it is not too late. We, Palestinian journalists, would like to applaud Erdogan on behalf of the Palestinian people. We applaud him 21 times, and each time we stand up and say thank you. We say thank you to Turkey and to Erdogan for their support.
We applaud Turkey for hosting our conference. We clap our hands to Erdogan for attending the conference himself, and for saying in Arabic: "In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful. I welcome you from the bottom of my heart."
We applaud Turkey and Erdogan for everything they have done and will continue to do.
