| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Jan 14, 2003 8:04 pm Post subject: Palestinians unimpressed by London conference |
| Palestinians unimpressed by London conference
By Khalid Amayreh
Occupied Jerusalem: 14 January, 2003 (IAP News)
Most Palestinians in the occupied territories have shown little interest in the British-sponsored conference on Palestinian reforms, which convened in London Tuesday.
Palestinian Authority officials, who have been barred from traveling to London for the conference by the Israeli army, urged the world community to “act swiftly to protect the defenseless Palestinians from this slow-motion holocaust,” an allusion to Israel’s two-year-old violent rampage in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
PA official Yasser Abed Rabbo described the conference as “a symbolic step” showing that the world hasn’t forgotten the Palestinian plight.
Abed Rabbo, who, along with other Palestinian leaders, will participate in the discussions via the “video-conference,” said the Palestinian people needed “immediate physical protection.”
“What we urgently need is physical protection because this bloody Israeli regime is killing innocent Palestinians on a daily basis and destroying all the hopes for peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.”
The Palestinian official accused the United States, Israel’s guardian-ally, of conniving with Ariel Sharon in thwarting Palestinian political reforms.
“Israel doesn’t really care about Palestinian reforms. Israel wants only to liquidate the Palestinian cause and crush Palestinian aspirations for freedom, independence and statehood. I’m sure the Americans are aware of this.”
Ordinary Palestinians denounced the conference as a smoke screen aimed at distracting attention from the looming Anglo-American war on Iraq.
“Do you really believe that Britain and America are sincere about Palestinian rights?,” asked Muhammed Ayyoub, a taxi-driver in Hebron, adding that “the first gave Palestine to the Jews and the second has been embracing Jewish Nazism against our people for the past fifty years.”
Another Palestinian, also from Hebron, lashed out at British Prime Minister Tony Blair for accentuating the issue of political reforms in the Palestinian authority.
“ I don’t know how could Blair possibly convince us that the issue of political reforms is more paramount than stopping the ongoing Zionist carnage against a defenseless civilian population whose only ‘crime’ is their desire to be free from foreign military occupation.”
“If Blair was sincere, he would first call on Sharon to immediately withdraw his occupation army from Palestinian population centers and end the Nazi-like siege on Palestinian towns and villages.”
Hamas leaders have also denounced the London conference as a wily ploy to deceive the Arab public opinion while Britain and the United States are preparing for war against Iraq.
One Hamas leader from the Gaza Strip described the conference as “classical British deception.”
“It would be foolhardy to expect from London anything good for the Palestinians. Britain is the origin of all evils, when it comes to the Palestinian people. “ | |  | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk | 
