Posted on 04/01/2002 12:34:09 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Beirut, April 1, IRNA - Anti-Zionist sentiment in Egypt intensified
Monday as the racist-Zionist regime, led by war-criminal Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon maintained its siege on Palestinian leader
Yassir Arafat.
With arrogant Zionist forces whose pictures were dispatched
urinating on the outside walls of Palestinain Authority headquarters
in Ramallah, frequenting in all rooms of President Yasser Arafat's
PA headqurters, the Palestinan leader's reistance has not only
enraged his racist-Zionist and enemies and their US supportes, but
encouraged the Islamic and Arab world masses to pour into streets,
asking their leaders to take effctive measures in ending the
Zionists' attrocoties.
The sudden wave of anti-Israeli protests on university campuses
that has gripped much of Egypt, for instance, in recent days has been
followed by similar actions organized by opposition political parties,
trade unions and human-rights groups.
The deteriorating situation in the Palestinian territories and
the Israeli army siege of Arafat has also infuriated senior government
officials.
President Hosny Mubarak branded Israel's conditions for lifting
the siege on Arafat "humiliating" and Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher
lashed out at the "ferocious" actions of Israeli Premier Ariel
Sharon.
The student protests, fuelled largely by Islamist students, have
been steadily gaining strength as the situation in the Palestinian
territories rapidly deteriorates.
The protest banners and slogans urge Arab leaders to do more to
support the Palestinian Intifada and to adopt a tougher stance
towards Israel.
"Oh you Arab rulers say it out loudly, Jerusalem will remain
Arab", "Liberation shall be achieved through the barrel of the gun,
not by a Saudi initiative", "We are ready to fight again, October is
not far", are some of the many slogans chanted by tens of thousands
of students across Egypt.
In the past, protests such as these, banned under a state of
emergency that has been in effect since the 1981 assassination of
President Anwar al-Sadat, were restricted to university campuses
where security forces have no authority to intervene.
But even then, security forces maintained a heavy presence around
campuses to prevent trouble developing.
However in recent days, protesters are reported to have been
spilling on to the streets in certain areas.
In the Cairo suburb of Dokki, for example, protesters reportedly
breached security lines and hurled stones at a McDonald's restaurant.
Four people were arrested in the district of Helwan, south east
of Cairo, on Sunday after a crowd of protesters became unruly,
according to interior ministry sources.
These incidents might seem insignificant but they reflect an
abrupt change of heart by the government, which has in the past gone
out of its way to suppress all forms of protests.
And, in a rare break with tradition, state-owned television,
radio and newspapers have all been covering the anti-Israeli protests
- and appeared to have a freer hand vilifying the Jewish state and
glorifying the Palestinian Intifada.
"The gallant Palestinian resistance responds to the siege of
Arafat by Sharon", reads a banner headline in Monday's issue of the
state-owned al-Gomhuriya. "Zionist terrorists execute 41
Palestinians", reads a sub-headline in the same paper.
The paper also highlighted an open letter written by the Speaker
of the Egyptian parliament, Fathi Sorour, to his Israeli counterpart,
Avraham Borg, in which a scheduled meeting in the Egyptian resort
city of Sharm el-Sheikh with Palestinian legislators was scrapped.
Al-Gomhuriya also ran a front-page story quoting Egypt's new
state theologian, or mufti, as describing Palestinian suicide attacks
on Israeli settlements as "the highest degree of martyrdom".
For its part al-Ahram, Egypt's flagship paper, reported on a
statement released by an influential journalists' group, the
Journalists' Syndicate, urging the government to review its relations
with the United States.
The statement also called on journalists to boycott the U.S.
embassy. Egyptians blame the U.S. for supporting Israel in its
"aggression" against the Palestinian people.
Meanwhile, the independent el-Isboa wondered why the government
had not yet expelled the Israeli ambassador in Cairo - a popular
rallying cry for anti-Israeli protests across the country.
Egypt, the first Arab country to establish full diplomatic ties
with the Jewish state - in 1979 - recalled its ambassador in Tel Aviv
in 2000 in protest against what Cairo said was Israel's use of
excessive force to suppress the Palestinian Intifada.
Protesters were particularly forceful in calling on their
government to close down the Israeli embassy in Cairo, only a few
metres away from Cairo university - the scene of some of the biggest
anti-Israeli protests in Egypt - and to expel its diplomats.
They also urged the government to open up the borders and allow
them to go and participate in a "jihad" or holy war alongside
Palestinians in defending the "dignity of the Arab nation" and the
sanctity of Islamic sites in "occupied Jerusalem".
Arafat is Egyptian. And there are no Palestinians. Just Arabs and whatnot. Muslims that apparently believe in human sacrifice considering they lay their children down for death before the moon god.
Here's my favorite synopsis of the situation by John Derbyshire of the National Review:
We are dealing here with people who are, not to put too fine a point on it, nuts. The Arabs, the Iranians, the Pakis, the Libyans: they are nuts, the great majority of them. Nuts. Not playing with a full deck. Not too tightly wrapped. One brick short of a load, one coupon short of a toaster. The smoke not going all the way up the chimney. Not quite 16 annas to the rupee. Nuts.
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