Benjamin Weinthal

Last year, Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said during his visit with Assad that Syria is indispensable for a “constructive solution” in the Mideast. Westerwelle, like his counterparts in the EU, was largely fixated on Syria’s contribution to the Israel-Palestinian peace process, rather than the fulfillment of democracy in Syria itself. As to his reasons for not traveling with his gay partner to Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries last year, Westerwelle gave this explanation: “We want to encourage the idea of tolerance around the world but we don’t want to achieve the opposite either, by acting imprudently.” And the German Foreign Ministry’s main think-tank adviser ,Volker Perthes, described Assad in a March New York Times opinion piece as a “modernizer.” Syria’s democracy movement should not expect too much from Germany.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/265802/will-europe-break-its-pro-assad-course-benjamin-weinthal

See also:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/europeans-blame-israel-murders-committed-islamists_558274.html
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=217861
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=217667