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Palestinian Arabs

Arabs slam warming ties with Israel


By Ryan Jones
September 19, 2005

News reports Monday confirmed: the Arab world still doesn't like Israel's Jews.

That despite a series of seemingly groundbreaking high-level meetings between Israeli officials and their counterparts from self-proclaimed enemy Muslim nations over the past week.

In the wake of Israel's ?disengagement? from Gaza and northern Samaria, leaders from nations such as Pakistan, Qatar and Indonesia lined up at last week's UN summit to meet with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.

In Israel, the meetings were hailed as ?historic,? and some television commentators went so far as to predict the dawn of a new era of positive Israeli-Muslim relations.

According to the Associated Press, which interviewed a random sampling of people throughout the region, the current actions of some Muslim regimes do not reflect the wishes of the Arab masses bordering Israel.

?I wonder how they can undertake such a step, forgetting a cause [the annihilation of the Jewish state] they espoused for more than half a century,? said former Lebanese Prime Minister Salim Hoss, before calling for an Arab League summit to ?check this sweeping, ominous tide.?

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center revealed no fewer than 99 percent of Hoss' countrymen still back that villainous cause.

In Jordan, a nation already at ?peace? with Israel, the numbers were even more foreboding, with the poll showing the entire population of the Hashemite Kingdom harboring ill will for the Jews.

Regional feelings towards Israel seemed to be summed up by Sayed Mohammed, a 58-year-old Egyptian museum employee, who said of the Jews, ?These people can never be trusted. Treason runs in their blood.?

So why the apparent sudden urge of many Arab and Muslim regimes to initiate contacts with the ?Zionist entity??

Lebanon's Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah attributed it to American efforts to ?end the Arab and Muslim political and economic boycott of Israel.?

That assessment was backed up earlier this month by one US official who admitted to Middle East Newsline, ?These countries were asked to undertake some high-level gesture to highlight Sharon and the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.?

At home Sharon faces the looming specter of early party primaries and electoral defeat at the hands of Binyamin Netanyahu.

Washington it seemed was loathe to lose Sharon just after he had proven both willing to and capable of actually uproot Jews from portions of their God-given homeland.

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