Posted on 04/11/2004 12:51:50 AM PDT by yonif
Thousands of people took part in dozens of demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the weekend in support of the armed uprising of the Shi'ites and Sunnis in Iraq against the U.S. and coalition forces.
The military wings of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah used the demonstrations as an opportunity to call for an escalation of the intifada.
The largest demonstrations took place in the Gaza Strip. At one protest, senior Islamic Jihad member Mohammed al-Hindi called for participants to "learn the lesson of the Iraqi intifada and the determination of the groups in Iraq to expel the American conqueror.
"The Sunnis and the Shi'ites must continue their armed opposition, which brings respect to themselves and to all Arabs and Muslims. And we here in Palestine must also learn the lesson of the previous uprisings, work together, and not allow the American and Zionist conquerors to sow the seeds of disunity among the groups struggling for their freedom."
Addressing Shi'ite forces in Iraq, Gaza Strip Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi declared, "We are with you in your struggle. Bush and Sharon are the enemies of Islam. Strike and burn them and teach them the lesson of the suicide actions."
Rantisi's call, which was met by loud cheering, may be seen as an expression of his view that the uprising in Iraq is a pan-Arab act of revenge for the killing of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
The usual burning of the U.S. and Israeli flags and effigies of George Bush and Ariel Sharon were accompanied for the first time at the protests by the appearance of photos of Iraqi Shi'ite militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Participants in Friday's Islamic Jihad demonstration called on Nasrallah and al-Sadr to cooperate in Iraq to expel the Americans. Masked men read part of an item that had appeared on a popular Islamic news Internet site that stated representatives of al-Sadr and Nasrallah had met over the past weeks and were cooperating. The item, which has not been verified, drew cheers from the crowd.
Islamic Jihad also held a mass protest march in Ramallah, and in Nablus some 2,000 people demonstrated, including about 200 armed men. Protests were also staged in Qalqilya, Tul Karm, and Jenin.
Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and "the monitoring committee of the national Islamic groups" (the umbrella organization of groups taking part in the intifada), headed by Fatah, published statements of support for the Iraqi people and drew comparisons between events in Iraq and those in the territories.
The presence of large crowds is seen as a response to Yassin's killing, and to the fact that Hamas and the other organizations have been unable to perpetrate a revenge attack, as well as to the chaos the armed groups in Iraq have managed to sow and the damage to Bush's status.
The official Palestinian media is also covering events in Iraq extensively, calling Arabs killed in Iraq "martyrs" and praising opposition to the U.S. as "a continuation of the strong stand of the Palestinian people," in the words of the official Palestinian Authority daily, Al-Hayat al-Jadida.
Palestinian Authority leaders, however, have avoided expressing themselves publicly with regard to Iraq, with Yasser Arafat making do with offering a special prayer on Friday for "those killed among the Palestinian and Iraqi people."
That would be a good place to drop a daisy cutter. Get them while they are in one place.
Keep the people agitated, always agitated...
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