Occupied
Palestinian, Arab Land Is Real Estate Israel Won: Rumsfeld
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Focusing
on settlements at the present time misses the point: Rumsfeld
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DUBAI,
August 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Arab countries should
declare U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld “persona non grata”
after he justified Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, the
Dubai daily Al-Bayan said Thursday, August 8.
“A
united Arab stance is called for to demand that Rumsfeld apologizes
and to declare him persona non grata in Arab capitals where he must
not be received,” the newspaper said.
Rumsfeld
on Tuesday, August 6, referred to the Palestinian territories under
the Israeli occupation as the “so-called occupied territories” of
the West Bank and Gaza Strip and appeared to condone the building of
Jewish settlements in the occupied territories as a right of
Israel’s victory in the 1967 Middle East war, Agence France-Presse
(AFP) said.
“My
feelings about the so-called occupied territories are that there was a
war, Israel urged neighboring countries not to get involved in it once
it started, they all jumped in, and they lost a lot of real estate to
Israel because Israel prevailed in that conflict,” he said in a town
hall meeting at the Pentagon.
“In
the intervening period, they’ve made some settlements in various
parts of the so-called occupied area, which was the result of a war,
which they won,” he said, referring to the 1967 Middle East war
during which Israel occupied large areas of Arab lands in Egypt,
Syria, Lebanon and Palestine.
“The
settlement issues – it’s hard to know whether they’re
settlements in portions of the real estate that will end up with (a
Palestinian entity) or Israel. So it seems to me focusing on
settlements at the present time misses the point,” Rumsfeld said.
The
administration hawk also dismissed Palestinian President Yasser Arafat
and said there was “no question that the Palestinian Authority has
been involved with terrorist activities. So that makes it a difficult
interlocutor.”
“Israel
has been trying to interact with and ...have, for whatever reason,”
not found “an effective interlocutor,” added the defense
secretary, who is regarded in the Middle East one of the U.S.
officials who has pushed for Arafat to be sidelined from power.
Palestinian
chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said Wednesday, August 7, in a press
conference in Washington where he will meet U.S. officials, that these
remarks are contradicting with U.S. President’s statement about the
same issue.
Earlier
in June, the United States reaffirmed its opposition to Israel’s
continued efforts to build new settlements in the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip, calling them “unhelpful.”
“I
thought the United States has one strategy declared by the President
of the United States,” he said.
In
Ramallah, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said Wednesday
it was “very surprised” at Rumsfeld’s remarks about the occupied
Palestinian territories and Arafat.
“We
are very surprised at the comments by the American minister which
defend the occupation and colonization and contradict U.N. resolutions
and the accords concluded under the aegis of the United States,” the
PLO executive said in a statement after gathering in the West Bank
town of Ramallah for a meeting chaired by Arafat.
The
statement, published by the official WAFA news agency, criticized the
comments as “harmful to the chances of a political solution and a
just peace (in the conflict) and encourages the Israeli government to
pursue its terrorist war against our people.”
Egypt,
a major broker in the Middle East peace process trying to end the
22-month conflict and also a key regional U.S. ally, played down the
remarks which apparently contradict U.S. policy on the Palestinian
territories.
“It
has to be a slip of the tongue by the U.S. defense secretary, as he
was speaking spontaneously and not from a written speech,” Foreign
Minister Ahmed Maher told reporters in Cairo when asked about
Rumsfeld’s “so-called” remark.
“The
whole world, including the United States of America and Israel
themselves, recognizes that Palestinian lands were occupied in 1967
and Israel agreed to withdraw from these lands,” Maher said.
Without
printing his name, Al-Bayan hit out at the Egyptian Foreign Minister.
“No Arab should volunteer to make excuses for statements littered
with terrorism by Rumsfeld by saying they were a slip of the
tongue,” it said.
Al-Bayan
said Rumsfeld showed “that he deserves to lead the Zionist Likud
Party, if not the extremist Kahana (Hia) movement of the Temple Mount
Faithful.”
Rumsfeld
“shames every American concerned at the image of America, the sole
world power which claims to defend international legitimacy and
freedom,” the paper said.
“The
most dangerous part is that Rumsfeld employed thinking worthy of
medieval pirates and brigands.”
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