Posted on 10/06/2001 5:29:37 AM PDT by kattracks
DUBAI, Oct 6 (AFP) -
A newspaper in the United Arab Emirates Saturday played down the apparent chill in relations between Israel and the United States, describing it as a "scratch" that will quickly heal.
The United States "has a long record of injustice toward the Arabs and their causes," and has invariably been a strong defender of Israel, the Sharjah-based daily al-Khaleej said.
"What is happening right now is a scratch in (US-Israeli) relations, and experience has taught us that such scratches heal rapidly," the paper said.
The United States fired unusually strong criticism at Israel Friday, blasting as "unacceptable" Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's warning not to appease Arabs the way allies did Nazi Germany before World War II.
"The president (George W. Bush) believes that these remarks are unacceptable. Israel could have no better or stronger friend than the United States and better friend than President Bush," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered that stern message to Sharon in a telephone call on Friday, a day after the Israeli leader warned the United States not to placate the Arab world at the expense of Israel.
Sharon had warned Bush not "to appease the Arabs at our expense. We won't accept it" and urged Western nations not to pursue appeasement as they did when they "sacrificed Czechoslovakia" to Adolf Hitler at the 1938 Munich conference.
The rare row came after the US president on Tuesday signaled support for a Palestinian state in an apparent bid to rally Arab and Muslim states behind a US-led global coalition in retaliation for September 11 terror strikes.
"The United States' commitments to Israel have invariably been on the rise, and whenever that process stops, it is only to resume at a faster pace," al-Khaleej said.
Bush's remarks do not amount to an "earthquake," the paper said in a reference to the US president's endorsement of a Palestinian state, voicing doubt that Bush would risk antagonizing the powerful pro-Israel lobby in the
Al-Ittihad, another UAE newspaper, said "the cheap warning delivered by the terrorist Ariel Sharon to the United States" was consistent with "the Zionist strategy that has always been founded on deceit, lies and blackmail."
"Sharon is trying to deceive world public opinion... by projecting the usurper state he heads as a victim which the democratic West, led by the US, wants to sacrifice in order to placate the Arabs," the Abu Dhabi-based daily said.
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