Additional Reporting By Yazeed Kamaldien, IOL South Africa Correspondent

JOHANNESBURG, August 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – The United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002 has become playing ground for the Middle East conflict as Palestinian and Israeli supporters clashed within the first few days of the international event being held in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The Summit officially opened on Sunday, 25 August, and runs until September 4. Pro-Palestinian events have been organized for the duration of the event by international organizations such as LAW, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment (http://www.lawsociety.org), and the South African-based Palestinian Support Committee (PSC), started
four years ago to lobby South African support for Palestine.

Pro-Palestinian events scheduled for the summit include a panel discussion, titled No Sustainable Development in Palestine During Occupation, on August 29 at Nasrec. Nasrec is the venue hosting the Global People’s Forum where non-governmental organizations from around the world are networking.

On Friday, August 30, a Palestine Solidarity Evening will be held at the
Johannesburg City Hall at 7pm. Speakers include Fadwa Barghouti, the wife of Marwan Barghouti, the secretary-general of the Fatah movement in Palestine currently imprisoned by Israel.

PSC spokesperson Naeem Jeena said Zionists disrupted PSC press conferences on Monday and Tuesday and hoped this would not continue at future PSC events. Jeena said Israelis also intimidated the Palestinian delegates by photographing them.

“It’s easy to laugh them off here in South Africa, but the Palestinian
delegates have to go back home. We believe those photographers could be
Mossad agents. And the Palestinians lives could be at risk,” said Jeena.

“The Zionist lobby has been aggressive and acted like thugs and hooligans.

They were mostly members of the World Union of Jewish Students and mostly from outside South Africa. They sounded like they were mainly American and Israeli.

“At one press conference there was an Israeli who caused arguments. He also told everyone at the press conference to follow him if they want the Israeli view, while we were having our event. He was very disruptive.”

He described the Zionist delegation behavior as “hooliganish” as they
“shouted and a group jumped on the tables (at the press conference) and unfurled a banner”.

“The PSC wanted to allow the media to interact with Fadwa Barghouti and her husband’s lawyer, Khader Shkirat. As soon as Shkirat began addressing the media, the Zionists in the press briefing room began heckling.

“The Zionists continued to disrupt the media conference until police removed some of them. We condemn the Zionist action and hope that they will show better behavior for the rest of the Forum,” said Jeena.

PSC has lodged a complaint with the International Secretariat at the Global People’s Forum.

“We’ve asked that if the disruptions by Jewish and Zionist delegations
continue that they be disqualified from the summit,” said Jeena.

Meanwhile PSC have continued with solidarity marches at Nasrec. On Saturday, August 31, a mass march against Israeli atrocities is planned for Johannesburg, starting in a township – a common informal settlement of shacks in South Africa – called Alexandra.

Tens of thousands of participants are expected and they will proceed to Sandton, the township’s neighboring up market area where the summit is occurring.

Co-organizers of the march include a leading Islamic authority in South
Africa, the Muslim Judicial Council (MJC), the South African
Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).

Fresh scuffles broke out Wednesday, August 28, between Israeli and Palestinians delegates to the Summit over a map illustrating the encroaching desert which showed the West Bank as part of Israel.

The trouble erupted when the Jewish National Forum, an ecologist group, produced the map to illustrate the problem of desertification, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

“You have no right to do this. What are these lies? You are showing our occupied territory as part of your state,” blasted Khader Shkinat, a lawyer representing Marwan Barghuti the leader of the Fatah movement.

“You talk about sustainable development when you are killing our children, stealing our water and preventing us from leaving our homes,” he shouted from the back of the room, AFP reported.

The Palestinian delegation - from Ramallah, Jenin, Nablus and other West Bank cities – traveled to attend the Earth Summit.

They shouted out anti-Israeli slogans, with cries of “Murderers, Nazis, Liars!” at the Israelis present, who responded angrily.

But members of the Israeli delegation shouted back: “Nazis, us? Stop your own terrorists first” and demanded an end to the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, which has now lasted nearly two years.

Fighting broke out in the room, involving members of other delegations, and the police stepped in and took the Palestinian delegation outside the room.

It was the third such skirmish between pro-Palestinian activists and Israelis at an event organized by non-governmental organizations from around the world on the fringes of the summit.

On Tuesday, Faruq Qaddumi, a Palestinian official from the Palestinian delegation said that they will present to the summit evidence of Israeli environmental damage to the occupied territories.

He told reporters at Cairo airport before leaving for the summit in Johannesburg that Israel had stolen Palestinian water, uprooted orchards, and bulldozed agricultural land.

“The Palestinian delegation will give the summit participants a picture of the agony of the Palestinian people in occupied Palestinian lands,” said Qaddumi, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s political department.

Pro-Palestinian activists clashed Tuesday with Israelis showcasing the widespread use of solar energy in their country.

Some 30 Israelis and members of the World Union of Jewish Students were singing, dancing and handing out leaflets on the diverse use of solar energy in Israel at Johannesburg’s Nasrec expo center when a similar number of pro-Palestinian activists stormed the area.

They shouted anti-Israel slogans and scuffled with the Israelis before police separated the two groups. The Israelis retaliated by loudly singing “Give Peace a Chance.”

Ghulam Mohammed Jassad, a South African member of the Palestine Solidarity Movement, shouted: “Free Palestine. Israel is stealing the wealth of Africa and the Middle East.”

His colleague, Riaz Tayob added: “Our comrades are fighting with stones and the Israelis are using F-16s.”