Posted on 04/09/2004 10:28:04 AM PDT by Eurotwit
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel expressed its full support for embattled US troops in Iraq (news - web sites), saying it hoped they would crush "terrorism", as several thousand Palestinians marched in support of anti-coalition insurgents.
"We are crossing our fingers for the Americans in Iraq. Their success is vital for world peace," Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told Friday's edition of the mass circulation daily Yediot Aharonot.
"If the Americans manage to control the situation in Iraq, which Israel is convinced they will, it will have a positive impact on the whole Middle East, (on) the oil market and the international community's authority."
But he warned that "if the Americans are forced to withdraw from Iraq as a result of terrorist pressures, a new and dangerous Arab regime will seize power. The axis of evil will lift its head again and threaten world peace."
By contrast, more than 2,000 Palestinians, including masked gunmen, participated in a rally in Gaza City against the US-led occupation, called by the radical Islamic Jihad.
"Death to Israel, death to America," chanted the angry crowd.
They burned effigies of US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) and of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites).
"We want to show the Iraqi people and the whole world today that we are fighting the same battle. Our people's throats are being cut by Sharon's knife and Iraqis are being slaughtered by Bush's knife," said one of the group's spokesmen, Mohammed al-Hindi.
Hamas chief Abdelaziz Rantissi had drawn a similar parallel Thursday.
In the northern West Bank city of Nablus, some 400 Palestinians commemorated the first anniversary of Baghdad's fall, waving banners reading: "Baghdad and Jerusalem -- resistance is the only alternative", and: "Bush and Sharon are the godfathers of terrorism."
The demonstrators, who marched after the main weekly Muslim prayers, set US and Israeli flags ablaze as a large Iraqi flag flew overhead.
An armed offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites)'s mainstream Fatah (news - web sites) movement, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, condemned in a statement "the terrorist massacres" perpetrated by US-led forces.
Also in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites), hundreds of Palestinians answered a fundraising call by Hamas to support their anti-Israeli attacks, donating jewelry and cash.
The Islamist group had invited contributions to "equip fighters going to martyrdom," a euphemism for suicide bombers headed for Israel.
The Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) froze the assets of six Islamist charities in August. Although the High Court ruled last month against the move, its decision has yet to be implemented.
Meanwhile, Israel slammed accusations by Iraq's Ansar Al-Din militia which captured two Arabs, one of them an Israeli citizen, that they were agents for its Mossad overseas intelligence service.
"Everybody knows that they are not Mossad agents and that they were not sent by the Mossad," said minister without portfolio Gideon Ezra.
"I do not believe they belong to the Mossad," said MP Danny Yatom, a former Mossad chief.
Footage broadcast on Iran's Arabic-language television channel Al-Alam Thursday showed two men, who named themselves as Nabil Razzuq and Ahmed Yassin Tikati, alongside close-ups of their identification papers, some of them in Hebrew.
Razzuq, 30, was working in Iraq for the North Carolina-based Research Triangle Institute, a contractor of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), US sources said.
The New York-based refugee relief group, the International Rescue Committee, said they employed the second hostage and that he was a 33-year-old Syrian-born Canadian citizen whose real name was Fadi Fadel.
The chairman of Israel's parliamentary defense and foreign affairs committee, Yuval Steinitz, said his country "should not feel responsible for their release".
"They did not go to Iraq an on official visit," he said.
But a foreign ministry spokesman told AFP Razzuq was "an Israeli citizen and accordingly we keep in touch with his family."
He added nonetheless that Israel was "no longer dealing with this affair which rests with the Americans."
Meanwhile, a Palestinian official said Razzuq's family had asked Arafat to help secure his release.
"The family contacted president Arafat yesterday and he gave instructions to relevant parties to do their utmost to solve this problem and ensure that both men are safe and sound," he said.
"The Palestinian leadership asked for the help of our representative office in Iraq," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Onward Muslim Soldiers - ping.
Well isnt that cute? Lets give them a stae.
There's a headline that says it all.
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But, but, but, I thought they were so "desperately poor" living in squalid refugee camps and subsisting on handouts from the UN...
Every time I see this picture I make sure the AR is clean and ready.
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