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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Erdogan blames Israel, Hamad charges 'war crime' and Mauritania pulls envoy |
| 2009-01-06 |
| Regional leaders have stepped up their criticism of Israel's blistering assault on the Gaza Strip, as Mauritania withdrew its ambassador to the Zionist state in protest and Turkey's premier accused Israel of provoking the outbreak of fighting. For its part, Qatar continued to push for an emergency Arab summit over the Gaza attacks, which the nation's emir described as a "war crime." "The Israeli aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip is a war crime," Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani said late Sunday in a televised address. He also renewed an earlier call on fellow Arab leaders to hold an extraordinary summit in support of Gaza. "The mobilization on the Arab street and several peace movements in the world have proven that this is the least the people expect from us. I believed and still do that we can do something," the emir said. Sheikh Hamad said that "calls for a mutual cease-fire treat the culprit and the victim as equal and justify the aggression." Mauritania, one of only three Arab League countries that has full diplomatic ties with Israel, has withdrawn its ambassador in protest over the Gaza offensive, a Foreign Ministry source said on Monday. Since Israel's offensive in Gaza started 10 days ago, Mauritania has seen daily protests, mostly from students who demanded that Nouakchott break all ties with the country. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday blamed Israel for the ongoing conflict in the battered Gaza Strip, saying it "provoked" the Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the enclave. The premier noted that Israel had continued a stifling blockade on Gaza despite pledging to lift it under the terms of an Egyptian-mediated truce, which Hamas had complied with by reining in fighters launching rockets into Israel. Erdogan told Al-Jazeera: "A return to the situation before the truce happened because Israel continued the blockade, so I consider Israel the one which provoked and incited, not Hamas." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 The usual Muslim/Arab script. Pali's do the dying, everybody else makes lots of noise... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2009-01-06 16:28 |
| #1 Israel should just tell the Arabs that the first Arab state that tries to "help" palestine will receive a nuclear package on their doorstep. Just the THREAT would curb a lot of this BS. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2009-01-06 12:32 |