The following is a sampling of the sentiments expressed in the Arab press on the latest Israeli defensive measure.
Cairo’s al-Ahram Weekly says that Prime Minister Sharon seeks a situation in which, “the Palestinians will find themselves barricaded inside two large prisons, surrounded by electric fences and huge concrete barricades. As for the residents of the Palestinian villages that Israel has seized, they will be stripped of all their rights.” Egyptian columnist Salama A. Salama wrote that the fence’s very length “confirms Israel’s plan to incorporate Palestinian areas and villages beyond the Green Line. These are precisely the areas in which Israel has implanted large numbers of settlements, which it has no intention of dismantling.”
The al-Quds newspaper, printed in Jerusalem, sees things going for the Arabs the way of the American Indian. The separation fence leading to “a Palestinian state... surrounded by Jewish settlements and besieged by separation walls and barbed wire. Who would believe that this is a state by modern standards? Rather, it would be a group of separated areas like the Native American reservations, which still exist in the US and bear witness to the extent of people’s cruelty toward one another.”
The Arab view - at least that view the Arab rulers seek to promote at home and abroad - can be summed up by a news headline from Egypt’s al-Akhbar newspaper: “Israel's security fence seeks to isolate Palestinians, seize more land”.
Cairo’s al-Ahram Weekly says that Prime Minister Sharon seeks a situation in which, “the Palestinians will find themselves barricaded inside two large prisons, surrounded by electric fences and huge concrete barricades. As for the residents of the Palestinian villages that Israel has seized, they will be stripped of all their rights.” Egyptian columnist Salama A. Salama wrote that the fence’s very length “confirms Israel’s plan to incorporate Palestinian areas and villages beyond the Green Line. These are precisely the areas in which Israel has implanted large numbers of settlements, which it has no intention of dismantling.”
The al-Quds newspaper, printed in Jerusalem, sees things going for the Arabs the way of the American Indian. The separation fence leading to “a Palestinian state... surrounded by Jewish settlements and besieged by separation walls and barbed wire. Who would believe that this is a state by modern standards? Rather, it would be a group of separated areas like the Native American reservations, which still exist in the US and bear witness to the extent of people’s cruelty toward one another.”
The Arab view - at least that view the Arab rulers seek to promote at home and abroad - can be summed up by a news headline from Egypt’s al-Akhbar newspaper: “Israel's security fence seeks to isolate Palestinians, seize more land”.