The Robin Williams Peace Plan and His Arabic “I Love New York” Shirt

Did Robin Williams deliver his own “peace plan” while wearing a shirt that read “I Love New York” written in Arabic?

He wore the shirt, but didn’t deliver such a speech.

For information about the death of Robin Williams, including a discussion about death hoaxes in the actor’s name, see this post.

The Speech

The remarks attributed to Robin Williams (see below) actually pre-date his appearance in the Arabic shirt photo. Only the very last sentence of the “plan” can be attributed to Williams, dating back to a 2002 article. The text of “this plan” was circulated via email until it appeared in a couple of discussion groups in March of 2003, when it was not attributed to Williams (see here and here). The words re-appeared only a few months later in another forum, this time attributed to Williams. Even then, a commenter pointed out that only the last line belonged to the comedian, and other debunking sites addressed the issue at that time. At this time it is unclear where this “plan” originated, but it appears to have been circulated via email for at least a couple of years before appearing on the web. Some have argued that the conservative-leaning diatribe would probably not reflect the liberal views of Robin Williams.

The Shirt

Photos of the Arabic shirt in which Williams is wearing date from a December 19, 2003 appearance he made on the USS Enterprise. According to the Navy News Service account of his appearance, he delivered “a half hour stand-up routine, and then signed autographs and took photos with many crew members.” The photo is not doctored, and you can find many other photos of him wearing that shirt from the same day (see right).

It has been suggested that the shirt’s Arabic is an incorrect translation of “I love New York”, which instead reads, “I love ? New York.” (We’d appreciate any feedback on the translation from readers versed in Arabic!)

Here is the “peace plan” erroneously attributed to Robin Williams

You gotta love Robin Williams……..Even if he’s nuts! Leave it to Robin Williams to come up with the perfect plan. What we need now is for our UN Ambassador to stand up and repeat this message.
Robin Williams’ plan…(Hard to argue with this logic!)

‘I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here’s one plan.’

1) ‘The US, UK , CANADA and AUSTRALIA will apologize to the world for our ‘interference’ in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, and the rest of those ‘good ‘ole’ boys’, we will never ‘interfere’ again.

2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting withGermany , South Korea , theMiddle East , and the Philippines . They don’t want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one allowed sneaking through holes in the fence.
3) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave We’ll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of whom or where they are from. They’re illegal!!! France will welcome them.

4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit!!!! No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in. If you don’t like it there, change it yourself and don’t hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don’t need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers.

5) No foreign ‘students’ over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don’t attend classes, they get a ‘D’ and it’s back home baby.

6) The US, UK , CANADA and AUSTRALIA will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while
7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don’t like it, we go someplace else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.)
8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not ‘interfere.’ They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.

9) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don’t need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us ‘Ugly Americans’ any longer. The Language we speak is ENGLISH..learn it..or LEAVE…Now, isn’t that a winner of a plan?
‘The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.’ She’s got a baseball bat and she’s yelling, ‘you want a piece of me?’ ‘
The Plan!

Bottom Line

Robin Williams wore the Arabic shirt at an appearnce, but only the very last line of the “peace plan” can be attributed to the comedian.

Williams passed away on August 11, 2014.