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Muslims Protesting Sharon U.S. Visit
contributions by Dina Rashed
WASHINGTON, March 19 (IslamOnline) - Calling on the U.S. administration to try him for crimes against Palestinians and Lebanese, a number of Muslim, Arab and American organizations are protesting the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the U.S. and Washington.
A demonstration front of the Washington Hilton, on Connecticut Ave, where Sharon is staying, is scheduled to take place 6 pm Eastern Time Monday.
"We expect about 500 demonstrators to join in the protest," said Nabil Mohamad of the Arab-American Anti Discrimination Committee (ADC), one of the main organizers of the event.
The protestors are gathered under an umbrella body called the Coalition For Justice in the Holy Land, which includes several nation-wide organizations such as the Muslim Students Association, the American Muslim Council, al-Awda Palestine Right of Return Committee and others.
Al-Awda has been actively advocating supporters of Palestinian rights in the occupied territories to write to the U.S. President George W. Bush and prominent foreign policy officials such as Secretary of State Colin Powell to indict Sharon for committing war crimes against Palestinian civilian.
They also are asking for a review of his record as a war criminal against humanity, with special emphasis on his role during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
In a statement issued by the organization, al-Awda said, "The United States actively supported indictments against former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, even while he was in power, as well as the international tribunal for Rwanda.
"Failing to apply standards of justice to Sharon and protections for the victims of the crimes of which he is accused would be evidence of a gross double-standard and a signal that the United States is willing to tolerate atrocities against innocent civilians as long as they are committed by the leaders of 'friendly' states."
Mazin Qumsiyeh, one of the founders and chair of the media committee at al-Awda said that the organization is in the process of forming a lawyers committee to look into the numerous cases of Palestinians who lost lands and rights due to Israeli invasions and incursions.
Unlike successful efforts to bring some Bosnian war criminals to justice, coupled with the recent International War Crimes Tribunal ruling conviction and sentencing of three Bosnian Serbs with imprisonment for crimes committed during the Balkan war, Palestinian efforts have yet mount to such an international recognition of atrocities committed against them.
"We will be fighting an uphill battle in doing so," said Qumsiyeh.
Al-Awda will be holding a major rally in New York on April 7th, to advocate for the Palestinian's right of return. Similar events are expected to take place in major European cities where Muslim and Arab communities are concentrated.
In conjunction with the Washington protest, several Muslim organizations took out a full-page advertisement in the Washington Times calling on U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan to establish a war crimes tribunal for Israel.
Excerpts from the advertisement read, "We make this request as the brutal nature of Israel's occupation of Palestinian land becomes apparent even to those who have for decades accepted that state's founding mythology negating the Palestinian people's very existence.
"On a regular basis, Israeli death squads carry out extra-judicial killings of men, women and young people in the Occupied Territories. Muslim and Christian Palestinians are routinely barred by Israel from religious sites in Jerusalem," it read.
The statement then briefly informs that hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli "death squads" called into action "following an intentionally provocative violation of Jerusalem's Al-Haram Al-Sharif [Noble Sanctuary] by now Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon."
The statement calls Sharon a war criminal akin to Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic.
Among those sponsoring the statement were the Muslim American Society (MAS), American Muslims for Jerusalem (AMJ), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA).
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