Posted on 03/30/2002 7:31:56 AM PST by veronica
Across the Middle East, thousands of protesters torched American and Israeli flags Saturday and blamed the United States for not stopping the Israeli invasion of Yasser Arafat headquarters. In Egypt, some 1,000 protesters at the northern Munufiya University chanted slogans accusing the United States of "blind support for Israel."
Demonstrators also turned out in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Bahrain. Some marchers lashed out at their own governments for failing to act.
"Where are the Arab armies? Where?" shouted a crowd of about 200 protesters outside the U.N. offices in Beirut, the Lebanese capital.
In Bahrain, nearly 1,000 people marched through the capital, Manama, with banners reading "Yes to holy war. No to negotiations." The procession was headed by a man dressed as an undertaker who dragged an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Arab leaders echoed the alarm over Israel's takeover of Arafat's headquarters in the West Bank on Friday as well as its seizure of the city of Ramallah.
Speaking after an emergency meeting of Arab League ambassadors, league Secretary-General Amr Moussa said Arab states disagreed with the United States' urging the Palestinian leader to take the first step by reining in militants.
"Act first? How (can Arafat act first) while Israeli troops are a few meters away from his office?" Moussa said in Cairo.
Arab newspaper editorials attacked the United States for the Israeli advance.
"The United States gave the green light for the annihilation of the Palestinian Authority and the isolation of its President Yasser Arafat," columnist Abdul-Wahab Badrakhan wrote in the leading pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat.
Referring to the U.S. envoy who has been trying to broker a cease-fire, he said: "Gen. Anthony Zinni has turned from being a 'mediator' to a planner (of attacks) with the criminal Gen. Ariel Sharon."
The column appeared hours before the United States voted in the U.N. Security Council on Saturday for a resolution that called on Israel to withdraw its troops from Palestinian cities, including Ramallah. The resolution passed 14-0.
Israel has defended its raid on Arafat's offices as a response to Palestinian militant attacks, notably a suicide bombing of a Passover meal in Netanya that killed 22 diners Wednesday. The United States has urged Israel to exercise restraint but has said it has the right to defend itself against terrorism.
However, Arab media did not connect Israeli actions with Palestinian militancy. They instead accused Sharon of aggression.
"What happened yesterday against Yasser Arafat is purely a criminal act coming from a crazy person who has lost all (respect for) values, rules and ethics," wrote Samir Ragab, the editor-in-chief of the major Egyptian daily Al-Gomhuria.
In Bahrain, one protester, school teacher Rabha al-Zeera, said: "Sharon is the biggest terrorist in the world and we pray that he will pay the price for what he has done very soon."
Palestinian refugees in the Yarmouk camp outside Damascus, Syria, and in the Baqaa camp outside Amman, Jordan, also rallied against the raid on Arafat's headquarters.
"Our suicide operations are in retaliation for Sharon," read a banner in Yarmouk, where the protesters numbered about 3,000.
In Lebanon, some television stations devoted their entire broadcasts to the fighting in Ramallah.
The popular Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera repeatedly broadcast pictures of Arafat and Israeli tanks, with Arafat speaking to its reporter from his besieged office on Friday.
"They want me under arrest or in exile or dead. But I say to them: Martyr, Martyr, Martyr!" the channel broadcast Arafat as saying, with dramatic music playing in the background.
On Friday, Al-Jazeera broadcast a juxtaposition of photographs of the Arab summit and of an Israeli tank outside Arafat's offices. The caption said: "Israel Responds to the Arab Summit."
The summit, which ended in Beirut on Thursday, endorsed a Saudi proposal for Arab states to establish normal ties with Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from all territory occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.
I see Hershey as a Town of Chocolate.
If we had our own oil supply I wonder how long it would be before the middle east was isolated like the soviets during the cold war. If you can't play on the world stage in a civilized manner you should be banned until you can.
Diners? What, where they gathered for a little nosh? Some bagels and cream cheese?
They were NOT diners. The Passover Seder is the most holy tradition of the Jews. This was an attack on a religious holiday. They weren't diners, they were celebrants, or worshippers, or parishioners. The celebrants were women and children, old people and families. It was one of the most despicable acts this year. The Seder isn't some Washington dinner party, Geesh!
The media's ability to cloud up something so simple is truly amazing.
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