In their editorials, Egypt's leading newspapers are harshly criticizing Washington for its perceived bias towards Israel and the apathy shown as Tel Aviv carries on with attacks on Palestinian targets in Gaza and the West Bank, two of which targeted Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
A senior journalist close to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak wrote Tuesday that "he did not imagine" Washington would allow Israel to assassinate Arafat or oust him from power, following heavy Israeli air strikes on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said AFP.
"The prime minister of Israel (Ariel Sharon) boasts that he has snatched from America 'carte blanche' consent to answer the Palestinians with means that he thinks are effective and conclusive," the editor-in-chief of Al Gomhuria newspaper, Samir Ragab, wrote Tuesday.
"I don't imagine that Washington, which is engaged in an international campaign against terrorism, would let Israel assassinate Yasser Arafat or throw him from the territories of the Palestinian Authority, or kill a number of his ministers."
Israeli forces on Tuesday launched attacks on key Palestinian symbols of autonomy, including Arafat's helipad, as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared a "war on terrorism.”
Following suicide bombings on Saturday and Sunday in which at least 25 Israelis died, the Israeli government announced that it would step up military operations against Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, which it branded an organization "supporting terrorism.”
The bombings were billed as the result of the Palestinian Authority's failure to arrest militants "and...a wider scope of activity against Palestinian terrorism,” the cabinet said in a statement.
Ragab, however, wrote that "it is clear that Yasser Arafat has done until now everything he could. He has arrested dozens of citizens, and announced a state of emergency, and this has exposed him to attacks that certain Palestinian groups have begun to launch against him."
Israeli warplanes blasted the Gaza Strip and West Bank again on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, an Egyptian mass circulation paper said in an article published on Tuesday that the US administration "views regional conditions with one eye and its ugly face keeps doves of peace away."
Al Akhbar wrote that if Israel directs its guns in the direction of the Palestinians, Washington views this as self-defense but when the guns are directed against the Israel, "this is terrorism."
The paper noted that the weapons Israel uses to kill Palestinians are US-made. It said they are used to assassinate Palestinian activists and children, crimes never denounced by Washington.
“Washington has not shown grief for the killing of 800 Palestinians since outbreak of the uprising,” it said – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
