Islamists in Jordan denounce call to end Intifada; Egyptian security measures besiege 'al-Nakbah' demonstrations
Palestine-Regional, Politics, 5/16/2002

The Jordanian Islamic movement on Wednesday criticized the Arab voices which call for ending the Palestinian Intifada and resistance for a policy of "surrender," while thousands of Egyptian police members besieged several demonstrations organized in Egypt to mark the 54th anniversary of al-Nakbah (Israel's usurpation of Palestine in 1948). An occasion which was commemorated by scores of women in Damascus in a sit in observed in front of the British embassy and the headquarters of the UN in Damascus.

In a statement, the Islamic Labor Front party, the largest Jordanian party said "we condemn the calls made by certain defeated sides which call for halting resistance and treating resistance as equal to the Israeli acts of violence and also trying to make an Arab or national cover for oppressive and political measures." In Cairo some 500 Egyptians representing various political trends demonstrated in the downtown of Cairo amid tough security measures, calling for halting relations with Israel on the occasion of al-Nakbah day, when the Jews displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland to mark the foundation of of Israel in 1948.

The demonstrators, in front of the government's offices complex at the Liberation square ( Midaan al-Tahrir) encircled by lines of the security forces, called for expelling the Israeli ambassador from Cairo and boycotting the American merchandise. They also called for opennig the door for "Jihad" and for end of "pumping the Egyptian oil for Israel." The security forces arrested four demonstrators for a while. One of the organizers said that that number of participants in the demonstration is not that big because it is not a people's demonstration. Abu al-Ola Madi said that the demonstration which is organized by 26 trade union, people's committee and party "only represents the elite, rather the peopleÉ there is a gap between it and the cultural elite."

Egyptian security sources said that hundreds of students organized a demonstration inside the courtyard of al-Azhar university. In Damascus, scores of Palestinian women observed a sit in in front of the British embassy on the occasion of the 54th anniversary of al- Nakbah. The Syrian official news agency SANA said that the women carried banners condemning "the Israeli occupation" and calling for "protecting the unarmed Palestinians from the crimes of killing committed by the Israeli occupation forces against it." The women who observed the sit in including the widow of the secretary general of the People's Front For the Liberation of Palestine Abu Ali Mustafa who was assassinated by the Israeli forces in 2001 handed a memorandum for the embassy in which they call on Britain "to stop supporting the brutal Israeli racist aggression against our Palestinian people."

Previous Stories:
  Islamic Jihad: No change in the Syrian position concerning martyrdom operations   (5/15/2002)
  Mubarak, Arafat discuss Summit outcome over phone   (5/14/2002)
  Jordan postpones massive demonstration in support of Palestinians   (4/13/2002)
  Mahmoud Darwish's speech at the occasion of the 50th anniversary of al-Nakba (the Catastrophe)   (5/14/1998)

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