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Syria Deplores U.S.' "Total Alignment" With Israel
DAMASCUS, April 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Syria on Tuesday charged the United States, the chief sponsor of the peace process, of being biased towards Israel saying it deplores the U.S.' "total alignment" with Israel, which "directly or indirectly encourages [Israeli] aggressions," Syrian Information Minister Adnan Omran said.
"We are sorry to see the [United States'] position totally aligned with Israel, which directly or indirectly amounts to encouraging Israel on its path of extremism and refusal of international peace efforts," Omran told Radio Monte Carlo.
"The American position is interpreted by Israel and [its prime minister Ariel] Sharon as a green light for continued aggression and occupation," he added.
"When the United States describes events in the region as violence and counter-violence, its means that they think George Washington, who led the American independence movement against British occupation, was carrying out acts of violence in response to [British] violence.
"This means that he who fights against occupation is equated with the occupying force. We do not subscribe to this point of view," Omran said, adding it was the U.S. duty to force Israel to respect international law.
Omran's remarks come a day after Israel raided Syrian military positions in Lebanon Monday, the first time Israel has targeted Syrian since its invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Israel states the attack is in response to an attack by the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, which killed one Israeli soldier Saturday.
The U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, David Satterfield, put the blame for the escalation of violence in the region squarely on Hezbollah's shoulders, criticizing the Shiite militia's "deliberate provocations".
In addition, Syria views Monday's air raid leaving at least one Syrian soldier dead, as proof of the Jewish state's wish to bury the peace process and to maintain its occupation of Arab territories captured during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
Following the raid, Foreign Minister Faruq Shara accused Israel of pursuing a military agenda to justify the continuing occupation of Arab territories.
"Through its aggressive acts, Israel has widened the area of tension and instability in the Middle East ... It is in the process of killing the peace process," he said Monday from Moscow where he was on an official visit and called the raid "a gross violation" of international law.
Since the collapse of peace negotiations with Israel in January 2000, Syria has repeatedly accused Israel of failing to be serious about making peace with its Arab neighbors and using negotiations as a fig leaf for consolidating its occupation of Arab lands.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad equated the Jewish state with Nazi Germany during a summit of Arab leaders in Amman late last month.
"Israeli society is more racist than the Nazis, and all Arab citizens say so," he said, adding there is "no difference between the Israeli leaders, from [former prime minister Yitzhak] Shamir to Sharon."
According to U.S. diplomats, talks over the mountainous Golan Heights region, occupied by Israel since the 1967 war, faltered when Syria insisted that Israel must cede Syria the northeastern shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, Israel's main fresh water source.
From Damascus' perspective, Israel relies on military might when Arab nations refuse to budge in peace talks.
"When Ehud Barak [Israel's former prime minister] was not able to succeed at this mission under the disguise of peace, Israel chose Ariel Sharon," said a Syrian MP on condition of anonymity, referring to the hawkish prime minister's landslide victory over Barak in February.
The MP described Sharon, a former general and defense minister during Israel's disastrous 1982 invasion of Lebanon, as well "known for his repressive methods."
And Monday's bloodshed only bore witness to Syria's worst suspicions about Sharon as he became the first Israeli leader to deliberately target the Syrian military since 1982.
However, Syria continues to hold its own in the light of Israel's attack and U.S. castigation.
"Those who want Damascus to renounce its claims do not know their history," Faruq Abul Shamat, a leader in the ruling Baath party, told the state newspaper Tishrin on Tuesday.
Also, Shara defended Hezbollah raids on Israeli targets as a legitimate act, even as Israel cited the killing Saturday of a Jewish soldier in the Shebaa Farms border area as a justification for Monday's raid.
"The Lebanese are defending Lebanese land which is under occupation. What happens in Shebaa constitutes a legitimate part of the Lebanese resistance," Shara said Tuesday.
The area, captured by Israel in 1967, is claimed by Lebanon, but Israel says it will only return the territory after a comprehensive agreement with Syria.
In a rare show of solidarity with the Syrian government, the outlawed Syrian Muslim Brotherhood on Tuesday called for Damascus to battle Israel on the Golan Heights.
The London-based Muslim Brotherhood, in a statement sent to AFP in Amman, urged Syria to make "the courageous decision and open a Golan front" for the anti-Israeli resistance.
The objective would be "to finally ease the burden carried by our brothers" in the Palestinian territories, who are in the throes of a nearly seven-month revolt against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The movement, which favors an Islamic state, urged Syria's secular Baathist regime to "abandon the strategic option of peace and come out in favor of the popular resistance" against Israel.
The Muslim Brotherhood alluded to its own illegal status in Syria, saying "our exiled brothers and those who have passed their lives in cells for a quarter of a century are ready to fight the [Israeli] tanks and artillery like the Palestinian children."
In response to Syria's call on Arab governments to cut all contacts with Israel, several states reacted with fury towards the attack, but took little action to back their angry words.
Yemen and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on Tuesday strongly condemned Israel's attack.
In Riyadh, the foreign ministry said the air raid, "shows a profound contempt and a flagrant challenge by Israel of international law and rights."
The Omani foreign ministry said the attack was "a flagrant aggression against Lebanon" and warned that, "Israeli policy will plunge the whole region into more tension".
In Sanaa, a spokesman for the foreign ministry underlined Yemen's support for Lebanon and Syria in comments condemning the "aggression" carried by the official SABA news agency.
And OIC secretary-general Abdulwahed Belkeziz said in a statement published from the body's Jeddah headquarters that, "the new Israeli aggression is a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon."
In Bahrain, the foreign ministry deplored what it called Israel's "flagrant violation of the territorial integrity of Lebanon" and the "dangerous escalation" in regional tension.
A foreign ministry spokesman in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) warned that the raid was a "flagrant violation of international law" that could "endanger the security and stability of the whole Middle East."
UAE Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Sultan bin Zayed al-Nahyan, in a meeting in Abu Dhabi with senior PLO official Mahmud Abbas, said the attack "reflects the bloodthirsty policies adopted by [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon".
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