AMMAN, Jordan, May 4 (UPI) -- Arab press roundup for May 4:
The United Arab Emirates' Gulf News daily Thursday quoted a top UAE official as blasting President George W. Bush as "cruel" for leading a campaign to stop aid to the Palestinians. In a rare public criticism of the U.S. president by a UAE official, the English-language daily quoted chief of Dubai police, Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, as saying: "I congratulate the American president on his extraordinary ability to starve the Palestinian people. This can only be done by a leader as cruel as Mr. Bush." Tamim told the mass-circulation paper that by suspending assistance and providing unlimited support to Israel, Bush "is responsible for creating hatred in the Arab world and contributing to the suffering of the Palestinian people." He insisted there was "no humanity" in the Western suspension of aid when the Palestinian people, "particularly those in need of desperate medical attention," pay the price. Criticizing Western powers for "compounding an already dire humanitarian situation," the police chief said it was "hypocritical" to support the recent Palestinian elections and then cut aid to the government. "I hope the Arab leaders jointly defy this humanitarian blockade because the Palestinians are suffering greatly and they need help and support," he told the newspaper.
Egypt's al-Ahram warned in its editorial against an escalation over Iran's nuclear program as the issue is being handled by the U.N. Security Council. The semi-official daily said that international sanctions have proven to be a "bad idea and don't achieve the aspired objectives," and they will not work on Iran should the international community impose an embargo. It argued the sanctions experience in Iraq and Libya, for example, ultimately resulted in harming the people, not the regimes, adding that only a peaceful approach to resolving the crisis will work. "The region does not need new pockets of struggle, tension and instability," the mass-circulation daily said, "especially that it is the most heated area filled with struggles in Iraq, Palestine, Sudan and elsewhere." This requires calm and the only solution for Iran's nuclear program is for the adversaries to work towards building confidence and dialogue, it stressed. The paper added Iran should avoid defiant rhetoric and be fully cooperative and transparent with the International Atomic Energy Agency, while the United States should avoid an escalating policy. "Otherwise, there will be dire consequences for all the parties," it warned.
Lebanon's independent as-Safir said it was a dangerous game for Lebanese forces to support Syrian opposition endeavors against the Syrian regime. The mass-circulation daily added in a commentary that a banned Syrian Muslim Brotherhood delegation openly visited Lebanon to build an alliance with the anti-Syrian forces in the country. In principle, it argued, the meetings were natural and necessary since they reflect that Lebanon has become free from the Syrian political and security services and constitute a process of reconciliation with the Syrian people. However, it said, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which it said represents a wide section of the Syrian public, did not come to Beirut for a reconciliation with Lebanon or with the Damascus region. The paper, with pan-Arab nationalist trends, said the delegation came to Lebanon "because the movement seeks to return to Damascus from the Lebanese border."
Saudi Arabia's Okaz daily said in a commentary the large number of Saudis held in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay is not as shocking as the ages of some of the teenaged men who were arrested. The Jeddah-based paper added that a 15-year-old was not qualified to carry weapons, saying reports of their conditions was a "disgrace." It said these innocent boys should have been in schools and playing ball instead of being recruited by "unethical people to bring them to battles in the mountains and valleys" of Afghanistan. The semi-official paper said when the young teens sought to escape the battles, they were "hunted down by gangs and handed over to the American forces in return for a financial reward." The boys, it opined, were "innocent and a result of a campaign by those devils hiding behind the veil of religion," adding it sympathizes with the parents of these youth who try to find justifications for their boys going to Afghanistan. What is puzzling, it opined, is why "we never hear that one of (Osama) bin Laden's sons joined the war to blow himself up or drive a booby-trapped car, nor any of (Ayman) Zawahiri's sons, or for that matter, any of the Hamas leaders' sons in the occupied territories." The real criminals, the paper stressed, are those who deceive the youth to fight their battles.
Jordan's ad-Dustour daily published a cartoon portraying the nuisance that some Latin American leaders are posing to the United States through their refusal to submit to U.S. policies. The cartoon in the mass-circulation daily, which describes itself as independent but is partially owned by the government, shows happy-looking Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Cuban leader Fidel Castro and recently-elected Bolivian President Evo Morales throwing banana peels behind them. An enormous boot, with a printed sign reading "American foreign policy," is about to step on the banana peels.
