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Assad Slams Israeli Warmongering, Sharon Threatening
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Sharon’s "government is one of war and war is the justification for its existence," said Assad
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DAMASCUS,
October 7 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – As Syrian
President Bashar Assad accused Israel of warmongering and trying to
drag the Middle East region into war, Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon
threatened Tuesday, October 7, to strike "enemies in every place
and in every way".
In
his first comments on the Israeli
raid on a Palestinian target inside the Syrian territory, Assad
described it as an attempt to distract world attention from the crisis
in the occupied Palestinian territories.
"It
is an attempt by the Israeli Government to extract itself from its big
crisis by trying to terrorize Syria and drag it and the region into
other wars," he told the international Arabic daily Al-Hayat in
an interview published Tuesday.
Asserting
that war is Israel’s reason d’etre, Assad said Sharon’s
"government is one of war and war is the justification for its
existence".
He
also told the daily that hawkish Sharon "lives by and for war,
and there is not a person in the world who believes peace is possible
with such a government."
The
Syrian leader said his country’s role in the region was angering
Israel, vowing that the air strike would only make Damascus more
determined, said the BBC News Online.
"It
is undeniable that the role played by Syria in the region is
prejudicial to the Israeli government. We are hurting this government,
and (the raid) will only reinforce the determination of Syria to have
an ever more effective and efficient role in the region."
Assad
added that the U.S. should stop blaming Syria for all its failures,
including in Iraq.
He
was referring to Washington’s scathing accusations that Damascus
allowed foreign fighters to cross its borders to launch attacks
against the U.S. occupation forces in Iraq.
Syria
repeatedly repudiated
the U.S. accusations as unfounded, asserting that the Bush
administration wanted to exaggerate matters concerning the Middle East
to show that the U.S. security was at stake.
The
White House has refused to condemn the Israeli strike and accuses
Damascus of being "on the wrong side of the war on terror".
Commenting
on the air strike, U.S. President George W. Bush argued: "Israel
must not feel constrained in terms of defending the homeland."
Israel
said it targeted an alleged camp of Palestinian resistance in Syria in
reprisal for a bomb
attack in the Israeli town of Haifa, which left 19 dead.
Syria
and Palestinian groups denied the presence of any Palestinian
resistance fighters or training camps in the country.
Damascus
has asked the United Nations to condemn the Israeli action as
"military aggression", the first so deep into Syrian
territories since 1973.
Defiant
Sharon
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Israel will hit its enemy "in every place and in every way," said Sharon |
On
his part, Sharon reinforced Tuesday his tough line, saying Israel
would not hesitate to strike at its enemies wherever they were.
Also
making his first public comments since the raid on Syria, Sharon said
Israel will hit its enemy "in every place and in every way".
"Israel
will not be deterred from protecting its citizens and will strike its
enemies in every place and in every way," he said at a memorial
service for Israeli soldiers killed during the
1973 war.
Israeli
chief of staff General Moshe Yaalon claimed the strike was a warning
to Damascus to stop giving succor to Palestinian
"terrorists".
Yaalon
also accused Syria, Lebanon and Iran of trying to "torpedo the
calm" in the region.
‘Extremely
Dangerous’
But
Israeli politicians and commentators questioned the logic of the air
strike on Syria.
Ofir
Pines, general secretary of the left-wing opposition Labor party,
voiced fears that the raid would further inflame a volatile situation.
"This
action could have extremely dangerous consequences and provoke an
uncontrollable escalation," he told AFP.
And
former Labor leader Amram Mitzna said Sharon’s "irresponsible
government has endangered the state of Israel and its inhabitants with
its adventures."
An
editorial in the top-selling Yediot Aharonot said the attack had
achieved the opposite of its objective and highlighted the
government's lack of options.
"The
bombing has cancelled out the impact on international opinion of the
attack in Haifa, placing Israel in the dock and giving the Syrian
regime a certificate of good conduct even though it supports
terrorism," the paper said.
The
liberal Haaretz daily also took Sharon to task over the strike in an
editorial headlined "A Steep and Slippery Slope".
"The
bone of contention is not Israel's right to strike against those who
operate against it under the cover of Assad ... but this does not
testify to the wisdom of such moves," it said.
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