Wedding is good news for Middle East says Clooney’s new father-in-law

George Clooney’s new father-in-law says that his daughter Amal Alamuddin’s wedding to the Hollywood celebrity was “very good news” amid the turmoil in parts of the Middle East.

Ramzi Alamuddin and Amal Alamuddin on their way to the Aman hotel ahead of the wedding in Venice. AP

George Clooney’s new father-in-law says that his daughter Amal Alamuddin’s wedding to the Hollywood heartthrob was “very good news” amid the turmoil in parts of the Middle East.

“The wedding was more than perfect,” said Ramzi Alamuddin, who is Lebanese.

Clooney and his Lebanese-British bride, a leading human-rights lawyer, got married on Saturday at a star-studded private wedding, although they were expected to officially tie the knot on Monday.

Ramzi Alamuddin said the wedding was a “grand” but “simple” affair, attended by close friends and relatives.

“It is very good news among the bad news we are living now,” he said.

The celebrity nuptials come as unrest grips large parts of the Middle East, where a US-led coalition is carrying out air strikes on the militant Islamic State group in Lebanon’s neighbour Syria and in Iraq. Al-Qaeda’s Syria franchise, Al-Nusra Front, has also threatened reprisals against the coalition which includes several Arab allies.

Others from Lebanon agreed that the wedding provided some much-needed good news for the problem-riddled Mediterranean nation.

“The roads in the country are blocked, we don’t have a president, parliament is paralysed, [the prime minister Tammam] Salam is busy with the issue of the soldiers [kidnapped by Islamists], and the country is on the verge of collapse, but thank God, Clooney has become the son of Lebanon,” said one Twitter user, using the hashtag #congratulations.

Parliament in Beirut has tried but failed several times since June to elect a new president, but a vote has been delayed again and again by political wrangling.

The war in Syria has also heightened existing tensions between Sunnis and Shiites.

But far from the turmoil, Clooney, Alamuddin and their close friends and relatives danced until dawn on Sunday at one of the most eagerly awaited celebrity marriages in years.

“It was grand, simple and perfect. The couple really do match,” said the actor’s new father-in-law. “The couple was very happy about how they were welcomed in Venice.”

He said the guest list included “the closest from the family and the closest from friends”.

Among the guests were Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cindy Crawford and her husband Rande Gerber, who was rumoured to be Clooney’s best man.

Amal, 36, is a prominent international lawyer who in 2004 worked at the International Court of Justice. She has represented WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Ukraine’s ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

She was a child when her family left Lebanon for Britain, during a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.

She comes from the Druze community, a minority sect of the Muslim faith who live mainly in Lebanon and Syria.

Watching from afar, a Twitter user welcomed Clooney, 53, as Lebanon’s new “son-in-law”.

“God bring you prosperity and children,” she tweeted. Nisreen, a 24-year-old technician, joked that Clooney should have chosen her instead.

“Where was I?” she wrote, adding “She must be a special one for him to have chosen her.”

Amal’s father taught tourism at the prestigious American University of Beirut. Her mother, Baria, heads the international section at London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat.

*AFP