JEDDAH, 25 April — The Kingdom’s ambassador in London, under fire from British media and Jewish groups for praising Palestinian suicide bombers, says he would reconsider his statements if Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and some of his predecessors were branded terrorists.
“If and when the Board of Deputies of British Jews has the moral courage to refer to these notorious terrorists as terrorists, and the actions in Jenin of the Israeli government as war crimes, I would be very glad to modify my view of Palestinian freedom fighters,” said Ambassador Ghazi Al-Gosaibi.
He was replying to a letter from Neville Nagler, director general of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, who expressed “shock” at the envoy’s “support (of) the terrorist bombing campaign against innocent civilians in Israel.”
Nagler was referring to a poem by Al-Gosaibi published in the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat on April 13 in which he hailed Palestinians who carry out suicide attacks against Israeli targets as martyrs, singling out for praise Ayat Al-Akhrass, an 18-year-old female suicide bomber.
The poem was criticized by some British media and pro-Israeli groups.
But the Foreign Office denied reports that it would summon Al-Gosaibi to “rebuke” him, saying it only planned to make clear to the envoy that it viewed suicide bombings against Israeli targets as “a form of terrorism.”
Arab newspapers yesterday quoted Al-Gosaibi as saying after a meeting with a Foreign Office official late Monday that the talks dealt with the Middle East conflict and a blueprint for Arab-Israeli peace proposed by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, and endorsed by an Arab summit last month.
The envoy, a prominent poet and novelist, made no mention of his poem.
The poem expressed the feelings of all Muslims, Saudi scholar Saad Al-Braik told AFP.
Braik, one of the organizers of a telethon on Saudi Television that raised $160 million for the Palestinians, said the ambassador had done nothing but voice the feelings of Muslims, who believe martyrdom is legitimate when a Muslim has no other means of self-defense.
“Why is the west kicking up a fuss about martyrdom (suicide) operations while turning a blind eye to Israel’s massacres of Palestinians, perpetrated in full view of the whole world in Jenin, Nablus and elsewhere?” he asked.
“These crimes, which are worse than the crimes committed by the Nazis, prove that the Israelis are the enemies of God, the enemies of Islam and all religions who must be fought with all available means,” the scholar said.
But Arab journalists in London said pro-Israeli groups were trying to exploit the poem to stick the “terror” label to the Arabs at a time when European public opinion was increasingly opposed to Israel’s military campaign against the Palestinians.
“Blowing the poem out of proportion is part of an attempt by pro-Israeli groups to cover up Sharon’s crimes against the Palestinians, while conveniently forgetting that Saudi Arabia was the architect of the peace initiative endorsed by an Arab summit in Beirut last month,” said one.
“And what was Sharon’s response to the Arab offer of peace? An onslaught on the West Bank,” said the journalist, who requested anonymity.
In his reply to the British Jewish leader, Al-Gosaibi accused Sharon of genocide, saying an Israeli commission had blamed him for the murder of 2,000 innocent Palestinians in Beirut refugee camps in 1982 and he had killed a similar number of civilians in Palestinian lands.
“His destruction of Jenin would make Attila the Hun proud,” the diplomat wrote in a reference to the West Bank refugee camp where Israeli troops perpetrated a massacre of Palestinian civilians during the current offensive in the West Bank.
Al-Gosaibi named former Israeli premiers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir as terrorists besides Sharon.
