Arab opinion-makers criticize Bush speech on Mideast crisis

? Arabs demonstrated in their thousands Friday, sometimes clashing violently with police, against Israel’s offensive in the Palestinian territories as opinion-makers criticized U.S. President George W. Bush for his speech on the crisis.

Some 2000 protesters at Al-Azhar Mosque, Egypt’s top Islamic institute, called for military intervention, chanting: “One, two, where is the Arab army?”

In Amman, Jordan, riot police baton-charged about 4,000 demonstrators who converged on the Israeli Embassy. While a police cordon managed to stop them reaching the embassy, elements of the crowd vandalized cars and telephone booths.

Elsewhere in the Jordanian capital, some 2,000 protesters attacked about 50 riot police with shoes and stones following prayers at al-Husseini mosque. The police, who had tried to quell the protest, fled the area.

Minutes later, a larger police force arrived and showered the protesters with tear gas, dispersing them instantly.

Protesers also rallied in the north Egyptian city of Alexandria and Bahrain as Israel’s offensive in the West Bank entered its second week.

Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urged Muslim states to use oil as a lever of influence on countries that support Israel.

“I suggest, only for one month, as a symbolic gesture, that Arab and Islamic countries switch off oil to all countries who have close relations with Israel,” Khamenei said in a Friday prayers sermon in Tehran.

Earlier this week Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri proposed that Arab states use oil as a weapon against Israel and its allies.

Bush said in Washington Thursday that he was sending Secretary of State Colin Powell to the Middle East to try to halt the violence. Hours later, the U.N. Security Council endorsed Powell’s mission and unanimously demanded an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian towns “without delay.”

Bush called on Israel to halt its offensive into the Palestinian territories and to withdraw from the towns and cities it has occupied during the past week. He also said Israel should “show a respect for and concern about the dignity of the Palestinian people, who are and will be their neighbors.”

Turning to the Palestinians, the American president accused Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat of failing to take adequate steps against militants.

“The situation in which he finds himself today is largely of his own making,” Bush said. “He’s missed his opportunities and thereby betrayed the hopes of the people he’s supposed to lead.”

The president urged Arafat to send a message to suicide bombers: “Blowing yourself up does not help the Palestinian cause. To the contrary, suicide bombing missions could well blow up the best and only hope for a Palestinian state.”

In Saudi Arabia, the English-language Arab News daily said that Bush’s intervention “does not seem to be anything more than a fig leaf to disguise American inaction.”

“It is one-sided, holding the Palestinians to blame for the present crisis; and it allows the Israelis the right to hit out at what they want to call ‘terrorism,” the paper said in an editorial.

In Qatar, Al-Rayah newspaper said in an editorial that Bush views the situation “through the eyes of (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon which are deluded and which have no relation to reality or to sound logic.”

Support for Bush came from Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abul-Ragheb who welcomed the president’s dispatch of Powell to the region and his call on Israel to withdraw.

“This direct American intercession in the dangerous situation in the region caused by the Israeli aggression on the Palestinian people is a positive step,” Abul-Ragheb said in a statement.

In the port of Aqaba, southern Jordan, King Abdullah II attended prayers for the “souls of the martyrs” _ the Palestinians killed in the past 18 months of fighting with Israel.

Following the prayers, Abdullah addressed a telethon that he initiated to raise funds for wounded Palestinians. “I tell them (Palestinians) that their steadfastness and their heroism is a source of pride to the whole Arab nation,” Abdullah said.

In Manama, Bahrain, more than 2,000 demostrators marched down a main street leading to the U.S. Embassy, burned an American flag and chanting “Death to America!, Death to Israel!”

The protesters, who carried flags of the Palestinians and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, appeared to come from all walks of life, bringing together workers, students and business executives.

In Cairo, scores of riot police blocked the exit to Al-Azhar mosque, making sure the demonstrators did not take to the streets.

The sermon speaker, university president Ahmed Omar Hashem, called on Arabs to support the Palestinians by all means, including arms.

In Damascus, Syria’s Mufti Ahmed Kiftaro defended Palestinian suicide bombers who have struck Israeli targets repeatedly during the past 10 days.

Kiftaro said such operations were “the only available means of opposing Zionist planes, tanks, artillery and mass-destruction weapons.”

A Saudi cleric, Sheikh Abdullah bin Salman al-Munei, hailed the suicide attacks on national television, saying they were “blessed operations.”

Last year, Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Sheik Abdulaziz al-Sheik drew criticism from fellow clerics after he said that suicide bombings were contrary to Islam and that those who carried them out were “nonbelievers.”

In Tehran, Khamenei referred to Bush’s remarks on the Palestinians, saying: “What have you done to this nation where a 17-year-old daughter wraps herself in bombs and blows them up. You have closed all options for this nation.”