REMARKABLE – AT 8:38 A.M. ET:  Vice President Biden will apparently represent the U.S. at the funeral of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.  Glowing words will be spoken about the importance of the U.S.-Saudi alliance. 

Forgotten will be the true nature of Saudi Arabia and its sordid history, including the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9-11 were Saudi.  King Abdullah did make some modest efforts at reform, but there is still mostly darkness in Saudi Arabia.  Now, as funeral services begin for the king, a remarkable offer is being made by an American professor and great conservative, and others.  From Fox: 

A Princeton University professor and a prominent Muslim American figure, as well as five other religious freedom advocates, are offering to take 100 lashes each for imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi who was sentenced by Saudi Arabia to 1,000 lashes for insulting his country's clerics.

In a letter to the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., Robert P. George, a Princeton professor and vice chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, urged the immediate release of Badawi.

The Saudi blogger was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes after criticizing the country's powerful clerics on his blog. Badawi received the first of 20 weekly floggings almost two weeks ago. The second flogging, which was scheduled for last Friday, was postponed on medical grounds.

George and Jasser wrote in the letter that if Badawi is not released, they will volunteer to receive 100 lashes each. The letter included five other signatories: Mary Ann Glendon, of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Daniel Mark, assistant professor of Department of Political Science at Villanova University, Hannah Rosenthal, CEO of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, Eric Schwartz dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and, Katrina Lantos Swett, president of Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice.

The group of seven religious freedom advocates described Badawi's sentence as a "grave injustice" in their letter and called on the government to show mercy.

"Compassion, a virtue honored in Islam as well as in Christianity, Judaism, and other faiths, is defined as 'suffering with another.'  We are persons of different faiths, yet we are united in a sense of obligation to condemn and resist injustice and to suffer with its victims, if need be," the letter reads. "We therefore make the following request. If your government will not remit the punishment of Raif Badawi, we respectfully ask that you permit each of us to take 100 of the lashes that would be given to him."

"We would rather share in his victimization than stand by and watch him being cruelly tortured. If your government does not see fit to stop this from happening, we are prepared to present ourselves to receive our share of Mr. Badawi’s unjust punishment," the group said.

COMMENT:  This is an extraordinary offer.  Robert George is a distinguished conservative scholar, and probably one of the last conservatives left at Princeton.  Mary Ann Glendon is a conservative, Catholic scholar at the Harvard Law School. 

We hope this offer isn't lost in the coverage of the Abdullah funeral.  It should be turned into a major story. 

January 23,  2015