Arab information ministers meet in presence of Palestinian president
Regional, Politics, 8/15/2001

The Arab information ministers council holds an emergency meeting, Wednesday, under the chairmanship of Lebanese information minister Ghazi Aridi Arab league secretary general, Amr Moussa, and Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, will take part in the meeting.

Arafat will brief the participants on the Israeli violations of Palestinian lands and the Palestinians' need for Arab support to expose the barbaric practices of the Israeli forces.

Arab league commissioner for media affairs Hanan Ashrawi will share in the meeting for the first time.

The meeting will discuss activating inter-Arab media action on the international level to back the Palestinian Intifada.

Arab diplomatic sources told Al-Ahram that the Arab media action includes holding contacts at the highest levels with important countries and regional groupings to ask the Security Council to discuss Israeli escalation.

The Arab League plan also includes exposing Israeli measures against the Palestinian people.

Syrian information minister Adnan Umran said the Arabs are now asked to take "applicable" decisions that live up to the serious current challenges besetting the Arab nation.

"The Arab peoples will no longer accept any decision that will not lead to offering the real support the Palestinians deserve," he said.

Speaking to reporters upon arrival in Cairo Tuesday, Umran said, "the Israeli practices are acts of extermination levelled against the Palestinians." The current situation requires revising the Arab media policy because the continuation of Israeli attacks does not only threaten the Palestinians, but the security of the entire region as well, he warned.

About Syria's stance towards operating an Arab satellite channel that would be directed to the international community to expose Israeli practices in the Palestinian lands, Umran said "this channel should have been set up a long time ago, because it is not logical that Arab media remain for ever local." "The Arab peoples are already convinced of the Palestinian cause and so it is important to address the international public opinion in the language they understand to convince them of the Palestinian cause," he added.

He urged the private sector in every Arab country to play a role in this regard by setting up Arab satellite channels to serve the Arab causes.

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