Madam, - A largely overlooked reason to decry President McAleese's attendance at the recent Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia is that shortly before the meeting, the two-person Danish delegation was disinvited in light of those notorious cartoons.
The decision was taken "to express solidarity with the feelings of anger sweeping the Muslim world as a result of slandering Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers," as Faycal Batawil, director general of public relations at Jeddah's Chamber of Commerce and Industry, proudly explained.
The President's attendance thus gave the appearance that she (along with other Western luminaries and leaders such as Cherie Blair, Al Gore, Steve Forbes and Gerhard Schroeder, who also attended) was more eager to appease a terrorist-sponsoring dictatorship rather than to show solidarity with a mild Scandinavian democracy and fellow EU member.
It is true that Amr Hassan Enany, chairman of the Jeddah Economic Forum, later claimed that "the two Danish speakers that were invited to speak apologised sincerely for not attending the forum. Their invitations were not revoked". But who believes that? - Yours, etc,
TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin.