By Mohamed Salmawy
First Published: April 11, 2008
I don’t know why some fellow journalists were surprised when a veiled woman presenter from the Islamic Al-Manar satellite channel refused to shake hands with Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa during his last visit to Lebanon. Some even went as far as reprimanding the poor creature and reminding her that touching the Secretary-General hand was no mortal sin.
Many fellow journalists took the matter lightly and made no attempt to look into the real motives behind the daring and unprecedented move by the Secretary-General of holding out his hand to journalists covering his visit to Beirut. None of them tried to delve into his true and clandestine intentions behind this strange desire to shake hands with the said presenter. Had they done so, there would be no doubt that they would have uncovered the Secretary-General’s ulterior motives.
Insiders who have been following the Secretary-General’s repeated visits to Lebanon confided to me (although this is unattributable) that the only reason why Amr Moussa offered to shake hands with the journalists that day was to touch the hand of that particular Al-Manar presenter – that hand which was carefully tucked inside a black glove. But intuitive as he is known to be, the Secretary-General knew the glove was hiding the sweetest of fingers.
Besides, everyone inside and outside Lebanon knows that he has a penchant for veiled beauties and their hidden fingers; a penchant only matched by the overwhelming attraction he has for presenters who don the niqab (full face cover); those who have even more to hide.
The Secretary-General’s penchant for veiled TV presenters was indeed the topic of choice in Lebanese political circles. Most parties involved in the present Lebanese political crisis are convinced that Moussa’s growing number of trips to Beirut over the past few months was not triggered by a desire to end the presidential crisis in their country, as journalists who haven’t been following the situation carefully seem to think.
In fact the real reason for his trips was another desire altogether – that of touching the fingers of Al-Manar’s veiled presenters even from over a glove.
His fixation has reached the extent that the failure to find a solution to the Lebanese crisis has become a source of great happiness to him because every time a round of talks failed it gave him an excuse to go back to Beirut for the pleasure of shaking one, or even two hands if he’s lucky, of those whose beauty glows from behind the veil and gloves.
It’s a real disaster that our journalists have failed to note that the Secretary-General of the Arab League wishes that the Lebanon crisis is never resolved, forgets all about the Palestinian issue (hoping that it wouldn’t supersede the Lebanese one); forgets all about Iraq and Darfur, the Shebaa Farms, the Gaza blockade and other hot topics only to be preoccupied with what for him is the hottest topic of all – that is, shaking the hands of Al-Manar’s veiled presenters.
The reason why Al-Manar’s presenter refused to shake hands with the Secretary-General of the Arab League who had allegedly gone to Beirut to find a solution to the presidential impasse, was because her religious insight made her see quite clearly his ulterior motives; motives which our journalists didn’t bother to tackle the way they became obsessed with the TV presenter incident. And if they had done so, they too would have reached the same conclusion reached by the bright presenter – one that can neither be disputed inside nor outside Lebanon.
Long live Al-Manar’s veiled TV presenters, for indeed only through them will Palestine be finally liberated, the Lebanese presidential crisis come to an end, together with the war in Iraq, the crises in Darfur, the blockade of Gaza and the Israeli occupation of Shebaa Farms – and all other Arab problems of all sorts.
http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=13044

This document is about Amr Moussa, the Arab League Secretary-General, on his recent trip to Beiruit. On this trip, he sticks out his hand for a veiled-woman reporter to shake it with the black glove that she is wearing. This woman, being committed to the Muslim faith, refused to shake his hand as she would be committing a sin if she did. The author of this document, a fellow Muslim, went on to say that Amr Moussa did this intentionally because he has a sexual craving to shake the hand of any veiled-woman that wears gloves. He says that this Arab League Secretary-General does not go to Lebanon for political issues but instead to shake hands with veiled Muslim woman wearing gloves.

Muslims have a strict rule that their women should abstainn from all contact from every male other than their husband. They also had to wear veils in public in order to eliminate men from checking them out. Also, there is a predjudice between the two sects of Islam, Sunni and Shi'ite. I could not find what sect Amr Moussa and Mohammed Salmawy were in

This article relates to the theme of Systems of social structure and gender structure because there is obviously a misunderstanding on woman’s rights in Lebanon. Muslim woman must remain veiled and abstain from all contact from men other than their husband.

This article was written by Mohammed Salmawy, a male journalist who is also Muslim. His article was printed in an Egyptian newspaper.

This article is very biased. Mohammed Salmawy made claims that Amr Moussa was out to shake hands with veiled women. It is possible for Amr Moussa mistaken by Lebanese culture. Mohammed went to the extremist side and jumped to the conclusion that he was just going to Lebanon to shake the hands of veiled females. Mohammed made Amr Moussa sound like a politician who didn't care about the people as much as living his sexual fantasy of shaking hands.

It would be nice to hear from Amr Moussa in this article because he would tell us his comments on shaking hands. He would be able to tell us why he stuck out his hand for the veied woman to shake. The only problem with hearing from Amr Moussa is that he will lie to us to keep his job. He would never admit that he was satisfying his craving to shake hands. That is why it would also be nice to hear from the reporter that he tried to shake hands with. She could tell us if she thought Amr Moussa was settling his cravings or just being polite. She is not guarenteed to tell the truth if she has a grudge against him trying to shake her hand. She also may have gotten an incorrect impression on the situation, so you should approach her quotes witrh caution.

I finally could speak my opinion and say that Mohammed Salmawy is taking things too far. It is too dramatic to say that Amr Moussa works for the government just so he can travel to foreign countries and shake hands with veiled woman. In Mohammed Salmawy's culture, it may be a huge insult to shake hands with women, but it may be acceptiable in the culture that Amr Moussa lives in. I think this event happened and this article was published based on a misunterstanding of cultural differences.