| October 2000 - Return to Complete Index MiddleEast.Org 10/06/00 |
|
|
To receive MER regularly email to INFOMER@MiddleEast.Org |
RELIGIOUS WAR IGNITED?
PALESTINIAN CASUALTIES APPROACHING EQUIVALENT OF 200,000 U.S.
MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org
- Washington - 10/06/00:
U.S. Embassies
throughout the region have been ordered closed. Americans have been
advised to curtail travel and public appearances. Anti-Israel demonstrations
are growing and could, and many believe should, take an anti-U.S. turn.
Madeleine Albright's hastily arranged Paris summit has failed miserably;
just as did Bill Clinton's Camp David extravaganza trying to trap Yasser
Arafat in an "end the conflict" signing. But then so has the Arab
establishment failed miserably. Unbelieveable, all the Arab League
has done so far is call for another "emergency meeting" -- after last weekend
meeting but doing nothing other than passing the buck to the U.N. -- and
this "emergency meeting" not even to take place until 21 October!
And while they demonstrated loudly today at the Israeli Embassy in Washington
they remain leaderless with no sustainable strategy and few allies joining
them; even though they have had so many years now to prepare. Indeed,
in view of the pathetic response from the Arab League so far, the Washington
demonstrators should also be shouting outside the Arab League Offices demanding
a real emergency meeting and at the very least a severing of diplomatic
relations with Israel (by those Arab countries who have such) and a worldwide
boycott of everything Israeli -- as was done to South Africa in the days
of Apartheid.
Meanwhile, yesterday
in Egypt at Al Azhar the leading Muslim authority in the Muslim world (government
appointed by the way) called for fighting Israel to the end, a holy war.
Today the same message came from the senior Muslim authorities in Lebanon.
The Iranians have been saying the same for some days now.
As for casualties,
adjusted for population size, we are approaching the point where about
200,000 Americans would have been shot in less than 10 days if what is
happening to the Palestinians were being done to the Americans.
ANTI-ISRAEL RIOTS SWEEP MIDDLE EAST
(CAIRO - Middle East Newsline - 6 October): Violent demonstrations erupted throughout much of the Middle East as hundreds of thousands of Arabs demanded revenge against Israel in its mini-war with the Palestinians.
The demonstrations were reported on Friday in most Arab capitals as the Arab League agreed to an emergency summit on Oct. 21 in Cairo.
Clashes erupted in Cairo, Beirut, Amman, Damascus and other major cities as demonstrators fought with police. The Arabs called for a holy war against Israel.
In Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, militants vowed to carry out suicide attacks against Israel.
In Damascus, demonstrators tried to storm the U.S. embassy. They clashed with Syrian police in the second such confrontation in a week.
In Amman, riot police fought demonstrators who tried to storm the Israeli embassy. It was the sixth straight day of protests, the last three of which have turned into clashes with Jordanian police.
In Doha, violent protests erupted as demonstrators burned the Israeli flag and chanted anti-Israeli and anti-American slogans. A similar scene was reported in Manama, the capital of Bahrain.
Bahrain television broadcast a Muslim cleric who told a rally "Jews must be killed wherever they are."
Demonstrations were also reported
in the Egyptian capital of Cairo and in Alexandria.
LEBANON MUSLIM AUTHORITIES CALL FOR WAR ON ISRAEL
BEIRUT (Reuters - Oct 6) - Lebanon's highest
Muslim authorities on Friday urged
Arabs and Muslims to wage a holy war
against Israel to defend their sacred
shrine in Jerusalem. "There is a state of
war. The war for Jerusalem has erupted
and Palestinian determination will confirm
to the world that Jerusalem with all its
sacred places will remain Arab," said
Shiite Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. At least 77
people, almost all of them Palestinians, have been killed in
nine days of clashes with Israeli troops. "It is time to plan
for Jihad (holy war) on a level that will enable the
Palestinian people to keep their steadfastness and
proceed with the uprising," Fadlallah told worshippers at
Friday prayers. He said religious edicts calling for Jihad
needed to be translated into action to free Jerusalem, the
focal point of the struggle. Palestinians said the protests
were ignited by the visit of Israeli opposition leader Ariel
Sharon to al-Haram al-Sharif, the holiest Muslim shrine in
Jerusalem and a site also revered by Jews as the biblical
Temple Mount. Israel said Palestinians seized on Sharon"s
visit as a pretext for fighting. "I renew my call on the Arab
and Muslim nation to start forming Jihad battalions to free
Jerusalem and all of Palestine." said Mohammed Rashid
Kabbani, Lebanon"s top Sunni cleric. "We will not accept
peace with an enemy that occupies our Arab land in
Palestine" Fadlallah said the Israeli occupation of
Jerusalem was a "naked challenge" to Islam and said Arab
countries that have normalized relations with the Jewish
state should reconsider. "Arab leaders are waiting for the
Americans to allow an Arab summit. They are
independent in appearance but in fact they are (U.S.)
slaves," he said. Protests were staged throughout the Arab
world on Friday in a "day of rage" over the deaths at
Israeli hands. Hizbollah, the main Shiite party in Lebanon,
has called on the Palestinians to fight harder against Israel,
citing its success in a war of attrition that drove Israel from
south Lebanon in May.
|
|
Copyright © Mid-East Realities
& The Committee On The Middle East.
|