Arab newspapers splashed their front pages Monday with graphic pictures from the southern Lebanese town of Qana after a deadly Israeli air strike killed at least 55 civilians, most of them children.
Commentaries condemned Israel and the United States, describing them as "bloodthirsty." Lebanon's as-Safir commented that Israel's massacres can no longer be counted, saying "the massacres are the basis of the Jewish state's foundations in its ideology and army."
Israel, it asserted, established its state through massacres in Palestine and its war machine is always accompanied with slaughtering civilians. The independent daily, with pan-Arab nationalist trends, insisted Israel seeks to kill children "because it wants to kill the future, not just the present, and wants to wipe out the memories of three Lebanese generations."
It said that whenever Israel gets stuck in a crisis, "it becomes more barbaric and does not dare to look into the eyes of the innocent children, but looks at them with missiles because it fears to turn them into resistance; it wants them to turn into terrorists to continue its own terrorism and war crimes."
It said the Qana massacre embarrassed even the U.S. administration and its Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to whom, it added, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "audaciously told her he needs ten more days to end his operations, in other words, more massacres and destruction."
Lebanon's Daily Star said in its editorial Israel's attack on Qana opened up old wounds as it brought back memories of a similar Israeli massacre in the same town ten years ago when the Lebanese vowed never to forget it. "Now that the fresh images of the broken bodies of the women and children of Qana are being shown on our television screens, the idea of forgetting has become all the more unthinkable," the independent paper said. It added the images have stirred anger of "even the most moderate Lebanese, proving that Israeli brutality -- not Hezbollah -- has become Israel's own worst enemy," saying the raid has only proven there is a legitimate need for resistance.
The English-language daily insisted it was unrealistic to expect the Lebanese to be forced to accept being killed off by the hundreds with "utter impunity." It said the tragedies in Qana suggest to the Lebanese that the Israelis, "who are waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing in south Lebanon, have forgotten their own suffering during the Holocaust," and asked how Israeli mothers and fathers "sleep at night knowing their government is conducting massacres in Lebanon." It urged the Jewish state to "abandon the logic of death and destruction that they have been showering on the people around them," and to pursue meaningful negotiations according to all U.N. resolutions. "What is needed is a sense of humanity and an intelligent resolution of this conflict, not America's laser-guided 'smart' weapons," it said.
Mainstream Jordanian newspaper commentators called on their government and Egypt to close down the Israeli embassies in Amman and Cairo and to pull out their ambassadors from Tel Aviv in the aftermath of the Qana massacre. Ad-Dustour, partially owned by the government, called on shutting down the "embassy of crime" and for the "filthy flag that flies in our countries to go to hell, for they have no place or justification to remain in our midst at the expense of the blood of our people in Lebanon and Palestine."
The commentary in the mass-circulation daily urged every Jordanian who passes in the district of al-Rabiyeh, where the Israeli embassy is located, to spit and call for the expulsion of the ambassador and embassy. It insisted the Jordan-Israel peace treaty, signed in 1994, has "only brought us embarrassment," saying the Qana massacre should prompt Jordan to take a firm position. Amman, it argued, has been sad from the first day of the war on Lebanon and the Palestinians, but Sunday's massacre has added outrage and anger. "All of Jordan regards Israel as an enemy, and it has been as such since this strange, hateful and sick entity emerged," it insisted, adding that it regrets seeing the Israeli embassy and ambassador "remaining a thorn in our throat."
Another Jordanian daily, al-Ghad, said in a commentary by its chief editor, Ayman Safadi, that condemning Israel for its continuous onslaughts and massacres, the American support for it, the impotence of the Arab regimes and the United Nations was not enough to protect the lives of children. The independent mainstream paper said "we are enraged when Israeli flags are raised in Amman and Cairo as the voices of the victims of Israel's terrorism rise in the skies of Lebanon and Palestine."
It argued it has now become more clear than ever that the Jewish state is responsible and the reason for all the wars, massacres and destruction in the region. The mass-circulation daily added the features of the future have been drawn: More wars, more killing and more hatred; "and whoever wants otherwise will face the Israeli crimes and realize that Israel is the source of wars and extremism." In light of all this, it insisted, the Israeli ambassadors must not remain in Amman and Cairo, and neither should the Jordanian and Egyptian envoys remain in Tel Aviv. "Let the Jordanian and Egyptian anger at the Israeli crimes be consolidated with the ambassadors," it urged.
Egypt's opposition al-Wafd daily blasted Egyptians calls to stay away from the Israeli clashes with the Lebanese and Palestinians to avoid threatening Cairo's relations with Tel Aviv. The daily, mouthpiece for al-Wafd Party, said it was wrong to stand idly by without doing anything because some believe that Hezbollah "entered the battles unilaterally" and should therefore resolve its crisis on its own. "Did these people want (Hezbollah leader) Hassan Nasrallah to hold a popular referendum to disturb Israel? Were they expecting Hamas to take permission from the kings and presidents before launching a rocket at a Jewish settlement in Gaza?" it asked.
The paper argued such people have long waited for America to move towards peace, but is instead consolidating the Israeli occupation and "speeding up the establishment of greater Israel according to the Old Testament embraced by (President George W.) Bush and is seeking to achieve before his second term ends." It asked if these Egyptian thinkers and politicians understand that the establishment of greater Israel from the Litani River in Lebanon to Gaza on the outskirts of the Sinai means there is no Egyptian escape from a confrontation in the future.
Sources and Relevant Links:
Big News Network.com Arab media voices outrage over Qana bombing 1st August 2006
