Diplomatic & Public Pressure Mount Against Israel

03/04/2002| IslamWeb

* EU Ministerial Session Discusses Mideast Wednesday; * Robinson To Send Fact-Finding Mission; * Iraq Proposes Cutting Off Oil Supplies to USA; * Anti-Israeli Demos Erupt Across the Globe; Will Egypt & Jordan Sever Ties With Israel? ____
WORLD CAPITALS, (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Israel meanwhile came under mounting diplomatic pressure on Tuesday to ease its military crackdown on Palestinian militants as anti-Israeli street protests erupted from Indonesia to Brazil.
The European Union called an extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers, to be held on Wednesday in Brussels or Luxembourg, to discuss the Middle East, and Canada urged Israel to end its "disproportionate use" of military force against Palestinians.
The extraordinary meeting of EU foreign ministers called by Spain would be the first since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, underlining the gravity with which the Europeans regard the latest escalation of the crisis in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Spain, now holding the rotating EU presidency, summoned Israel's ambassador in Madrid to demand that Israel withdraw its troops from Palestinian cities, free Arafat and agree to an immediate cease-fire in the West Bank.
In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Israel should end the campaign quickly, but suggested the United States would not insist on an immediate Israeli withdrawal.
The State Department, citing a "deteriorating security situation," warned Americans to defer travel to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza and said dependents of American diplomats in Jerusalem were being encouraged to go home.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, called for the United Nations to send an urgent fact-finding mission to the West Bank and Gaza Strip to report back on human rights violations by Israeli and Palestinian forces.
Baghdad pressed the Arab League to endorse an Iraqi draft resolution calling on Arab countries to cut off oil supplies to the United States if it did not end its support to Israel.
Washington was also the target of an appeal by the heads of churches in Jerusalem, who urged President Bush and other heads of government to intercede with Israeli leaders.
Bush, all but alone among major world leaders in publicly condoning Israel's military crackdown launched on Sunday, unashamedly insists the onus lies on besieged Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to denounce Palestinian Resistance bombings.
Anti-Israeli demonstrators took to the streets in Indonesia, Brazil, Jordan and Egypt, some burning the U.S. flag along with the Israeli Star of David. (Read photo caption within)
Passions aroused by the Israeli actions in the West Bank sparked anti-Israeli attacks in several European centers.
In Berlin, a group of seven or eight men attacked two American Jews walking along one of Berlin's smartest streets after they visited a synagogue. The incident, which happened on Sunday, followed attacks in recent days on synagogues in France and Belgium.
Two Indonesian Muslim groups vowed on Tuesday to supply fighters for a holy war to defend Palestinians against Israeli forces.
In Chile, more than 10,000 miles (16,000 km) from the Middle East, Jews and Arabs were at odds over a professional soccer club's support for the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel.
Acting on a complaint by Chile's Jewish community, soccer authorities summoned the chairman of First Division club Palestino for talks after he refused to stop holding a minute's silence for Palestinian "martyrs" before matches.
In Amman, thousands of Jordanians took to the streets of the capital city on Tuesday to demand that ties with Israel be severed, piling pressure on the government to take firm action in protest against Israeli attacks on Palestinians.
An official said Jordan's King Abdullah would meet President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, the only other Arab state with a peace treaty with Israel, soon. He did not say if the two leaders would coordinate joint diplomatic action against Israel.
Diplomats say Jordan has been weighing several options since Israel began besieging Arafat last week, including reducing the Israeli embassy staff and downgrading its own embassy in Tel Aviv.
In the reoccupied territories, Israeli occupation forced their way into the office of Jordan's commercial representative to the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday and damaged property inside.
Meanwhile, thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians marched through Beirut Tuesday to denounce Israel's invasion of Palestinian cities and demand an end to its siege of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
Some Palestinian refugees carried a huge Palestinian flag, while others donned white hoods and robes in emulation of the Palestinian Resistance bombers.
Similar demonstrations took place in the northern city of Tripoli and in Sidon to the south.
Lebanon is home to 360,000 registered Palestinian refugees. They have been staging frequent demonstrations in support of Arafat and the Palestinian people under Israeli attacks in the occupied West Bank.

PHOTO CAPTION:
Activists burn posters depicting the U.S. and Israeli flags in front of the U.S. consulate in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, Tuesday, April 2, 2002. Anger on the streets of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, was matched by government condemnation of Israel's attacks on the Ramallah headquarters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. (AP Photo/Guntur Alp