Every story about Saudi Arabia's participation in the Munich Conference--I mean, Annapolis Conference--reports the fact that the Saudis have pre-emptively trumpeted their refusal to shake hands with the Israelis.
    Well, who wants to shake hands with the Saudis? 
    It's not only that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, that most of the foreign fighters in Iraq are Saudi, that its state-run mosques regularly demonize Jews, Americans and other infidels. It is a barbaric country, where freedom of conscience and equality before the law are denied, and where mercy and compassion have no place.
     Who can forget the horrific story about the Saudi girls who fled a burning school without Islamically-sufficient cover who were forced back into the building by "Decency Police" where they burned to death? Or the ongoing story--not unique--about the rape victim condemned to hundreds of lashes? Such cruelty is sanctioned by Saudi Arabian law--Islamic law.
    Here is a sample of that legal code from the 2006 State Department report on human rights in Saudi Arabia (or, rather, the absence thereof). In its dry way, it conveys the horrors of mosque/state-sanctioned inequality.

    A woman's testimony does not carry the same weight as a man. In a Shari'a court, the testimony of one man equals that of two women. Under the Hanbali interpretation of Shari'a, judges may discount the testimony of persons who are nonpracticing Muslims or who do not adhere to Hanbali doctrine. Legal sources reported that testimony by Shi'a was often ignored in courts of law or was deemed to have less weight than testimony by Sunnis.

 Female parties in court proceedings such as divorce and family law cases generally had to deputize male relatives to speak on their behalf. In the absence of two witnesses, or four witnesses in the case of adultery, confessions before a judge were almost always required for criminal conviction--a situation that has led prosecuting authorities to coerce confessions from suspects by threats and abuse (see section 1.c.).

 Laws and regulations state that defendants should be treated equally; however, sentencing was not uniform and crimes against Muslims received harsher penalties than those against non‑Muslims. In wrongful death cases, the amount of indemnity or "blood money" awarded to relatives varied with the nationality, religion, age, and sex of the victim. A sentence may be changed at any stage of review, except for punishments stipulated by the Koran.

 Islamic law considers Hindus to be polytheists and on this basis justifies discrimination in calculating accidental death or injury compensation. According to the country's Hanbali interpretation of Shari'a, once a court determines fault, a Muslim male receives 100 percent of the amount of compensation determined, a Jew or Christian male receives 50 percent, and all others receive one-sixteenth of the amount a Muslim male receives. Women receive 50 percent of what men receive in each of these categories.

    In a sense, every time we put our credit card in the gas pump--and flinch from taking the necessary steps toward energy independence--we perpetuate this supremacist creed of our oil-masters. Fie on us.
    But that doesn't mean civilized people want to shake hands with them.