Activists of a Pakistani Islamic organization set fire to Israeli and U.S. flags during a demonstration in Karachi (AFP)

Asif Farooqi, IOL Correspondent

ISLAMABAD, April 20 (IslamOnline.net) – The Pakistani Foreign Ministry and political parties joined hands in blasting Israel over its cold blooded murder of Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip Abdelaziz Rantissi.

The 56-year-old Rantissi was assassinated late Saturday, April 17, in an Israeli air strike that also killed at least two other Palestinians.

The seven party alliance Mutahidda Majles e Amal (MMA) condemned the extra-judicial execution and urged the Muslim world to rise to the responsibility and take the Israeli regime to task.

"If the OIC [Organization of Islamic Conference] cannot condemn and take effective action to check this Israeli and Anglo-American terrorism against the people of Palestine at such a crucial time as the present one, I do not know when their conscience would awaken and when they would show loyalty to Muslims and their aspirations," Professor Khurshid Ahmed, leader of MMA, said in a statement issued Monday, April 19.

"The shameful endorsement by [U.S.] President [George] Bush and [British] Prime Minister Tony Blair of [Israeli Premier] Ariel Sharon’s terrorist plan to annex more than half of the West Bank and deny the Palestinians their right to return to their homeland is the worst form of legitimizing imperialism and terrorism," he said.

Bush triggered Arab wrath by saying Palestinian refugees could not return to land lost in 1948 and then exchanged with Sharon letters cementing his position, in what is dubbed as a “Bushfour Promise”.

The United Nations and the European Union immediately rebuked  the Bush’s policy shift, which completely ignored dozens of U.N. resolutions in that regard.

The MMA warned the scheme "is tantamount to theft of Palestinian land by the Israeli colonial settlers and an end to the U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 and whatever peace plan pursued after that."

Professor Khurshid regretted that while Bush and Blair have endorsed and tried to legitimize this usurpation, occupation and terrorism, the entire Arab and Islamic world is not acting to counter this heinous crime against the innocent people of Palestine.

Jamaat e Islami Pakistan attacked United Nations for its pro-Israeli policies and urged it to take steps to stop Israel from terrorizing the Palestinian people.

U.S. Overbearing

"The increasing terror activities by Israel were a big slap on the face of the United Nations while an evidence of the U.S. overbearing. Israeli activities have become a threat for the global peace," said Liaquat Baloch, vice chief of the party.

In a statement, he said that if any foreign journalist was killed in a Muslim country, the U.S. would make hue and cry while it did not even condemn Israel for targeting a recognized freedom fighter movement.

He said that the Palestine liberation struggle could not be stopped through these killings and terror activities which would rather provoke bloodshed and unrest in the entire Middle East.

Chief of main Shiite party, Millat-e-Jafaria , Allama Sajid Naqvi, said Israel was able to pursue its aggressive policies against Palestinians with the support of the U.S.

In a statement, he branded the assassination of Rantissi as "an ugly example of Israeli state terrorism".

Sajid Naqvi said that the unarmed innocent people were being slaughtered in Iraq and Palestine in bloody attacks.

"It is high time for the Muslim Ummah to take cognizance to this savagery," he added.

Bush’s statements gave Israel a green light to massacre innocent Palestinians, Sajid Naqvi added.

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan had called on the international community to intervene to stop Israel’s "cycle of violence".

"Pakistan condemns the killing. Such arbitrary and extrajudicial killings contravene international law and are a bane of the efforts aimed at fostering peace and security in Middle East, with the ultimate objective of creating a viable, independent and sovereign Palestinian state, " he said in a statement.