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Arab/Muslim States

Arab world reacts to, vacillates over, Israel's strike on Gaza


By Stan Goodenough
December 28, 2008

The Arab and Islamic world, which has rejected Israel's right to exist in "their" Muslim Middle East, which has leveled both passive and active aggression against the Jewish state for decades and which has supported the establishment in Gaza of a base for anti-Israeli terrorism fumed Sunday at Israel's successful smashing of Hamas' terrorist infrastructure in the strip.

According to international media reports, these nations reacted with shock to Israel's attacks, with protests around the region and calls for retaliation against Israel.

They also appeared to have been caught flat-footed by the speed and ferocity of the Israeli attack, and were unprepared to respond in a united way.

Syria, Qatar and Yemen called for an emergency Arab summit but the Arab League delayed at least until Wednesday an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo to address the issue.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said that "everybody has to stand by the Palestinian people's side and stop this blind military action." He did also blame Hamas for ignoring warnings that Israel would attack if rocket fire from Gaza didn't cease.

A spokesman for Gheit said the minister had made it clear Egypt is "opposed to this type of action."

"We are upset that this operation is coming at a time when we were exerting our efforts in order to reach a renewed cease-fire," he complained. "It is definitely undermining our efforts."

According to the Egyptian, Israeli ambassador to Egypt Shalom Cohen had been hauled onto the carpet where he was told that his country should stop its action "immediately."

Other Muslim leaders were less ambiguous.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Sunday issued a religious decree ordering Muslims around the world to "defend" Palestinian Arabs against Israel's attacks.

"All Palestinian combatants and all the Islamic world's pious people are obliged to defend the defenseless women, children and people in Gaza in any way possible. Whoever is killed in this legitimate defense is considered a martyr," state television quoted Khamenei as saying in a statement, according to Ha'aretz.

The Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hizb'allah called the attacks "an Israeli war crime and a genocide that requires immediate action from the international community and its institutions, especially the United Nations and the Security Council, because their suspicious silence is a clear collusion with this aggression."

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora called Israel's actions a "criminal operation" and said there were now "new massacres to be added to [Israel's] full record of massacres."

Libya called for a united Arab response to Israel's "brutality against Gaza."

Hamas' top leader, Khaled Meshal, who has long enjoyed the protection of Syria while living in Damascus, called for the resumption of "suicide" bombs in Israel.

"This is the time for a third Intifada," he said.

A number of the other "Palestinian" terrorist factions based in Damascus, Syria, vowed that they would renew attacks against Israeli towns.

Ha'aretz reported that television images of dead and wounded Gazans has inflamed Arab public opinion, triggering protests in Arab Israeli villages, Samaria and Judea, and elsewhere in the Arab world.

In Lebanon, supporters of Hamas and Islamic Jihad chanted calls for retaliation against Israel.

Israel-haters in other countries also lashed out at the Jewish state.

Notoriously antisemitic South African Anglican clergyman Desmond Tutu charged that Israel was committing "war crimes."

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