SPECIAL MEDIA REACTION: CRISIS IN LEBANON

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ABU DHABI 003110 SIPDIS STATE FOR NEA/ARP; NEA/PPD; NEA/RA; INR/R/MR; PA; INR/NESA; INR/B; RRU-NEA IIP/G/NEA-SA WHITE HOUSE FOR PRESS OFFICE; NSC SECDEF FOR OASD/PA USCINCCENT FOR POLAD LONDON FOR MCKUNE PITRANSGRESS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: OIIP KMDR TC SUBJECT: SPECIAL MEDIA REACTION: CRISIS IN LEBANON ¶1. Summary: Editorials continued to portray the United States as responsible for the ongoing conflict in Lebanon. One columnist in "Al-Khaleej" attributed recent comments by a fringe Israeli group as attempts to assuage the American conscience. Another in "Emarat Al-Youm" urged Arabs to take a stand against the true aggressor, the United States. A female Emirati columnist in "Al-Bayan" attributed both U.S. and U.K. actions to a historical pattern of cultural liquidation. Finally, an Emirati columnist in "Al-Ittihad" questioned why certain Islamic figures have chosen to support Al-Zarqawi's sectarian war in Iraq while banning support for the Lebanese resistance. End Summary. ¶2. Under the headline "Rabbis of death", columnist Mustafa Magdi wrote the following in a 08/01 editorial in the Sharjah-based Arabic-language daily "Al-Khaleej" (circulation 90,000): "If either party had a conscience to begin with, the Zionist rabbis have now freed the Americans' from any remorse over the elimination of Lebanon. Killing women, children and civilians, the destruction of their houses over their heads, is allowed and even required according to Zionist law, which notes that 'there are no innocents among the enemy' and that talking about morality only 'weakens the morale of the Israeli army.' Washington's pursuit of this 'fatwa' comes as no surprise, given their persistent refusal to recognize the barbaric massacre of the people of Qana, labeling it not as a war crime, but as something within 'the right of each country to defend itself.' We would be repeating ourselves to say again that this heinous war is a war of American-Zionism, executed by Israelis with American weapons and Zionist rhetoric. They make a bath of the blood torn from young flesh even as they decorate the shoulders of Zionist neo-conservatives in the White House, who look for the road towards the final battle of Armageddon, even as President Bush prays for it nightly. He prevented the Security Council from issuing any condemnation of Israel to advance this Armageddon. And of course there is no chance of an immediate cease-fire, as Bush intends for this conflict to produce the worst possible situation: Armageddon..." ¶3. Under the headline "Who is the monster?" Emirati columnist Adel Mohammed Al-Rashid, wrote the following in a 08/01 editorial in the Dubai-based Arabic-language daily "Emarat Al-Youm" (circulation 15,000): "Israel is not the monster. It is just a claw on the hand of the huge monster raising its face towards the whole world. This monster is 'America'... If there is anywhere that voice needs to be directed, it must be towards the Americans, and if any stand must be taken, it should be taken against the United States. They are the ones who have inflicted this pain upon Arabs and Muslims alike, under the pretext of aiding them! It is America whose sorrow over the victims of Qana's massacre prevented the United Nations from issue even a verbal condemnation of the Zionists' heinous crime." ¶4. On 08/01, female Emirati columnist Aisha Ibrahim Sultan wrote the following in her daily column in the Dubai-based Arabic-language daily "Al-Bayan" (circulation 85,000): "I don't want to write of the Israeli atrocities and crimes in the region, because I don't need to repeat what has already been said. I don't want to write about the atrocities and crimes of Americans, either. U.S. and British support for Israel does not surprise me. The three have the same doctrine and history, focused on eradicating those different from them... The false tears from Bush and Rice only serve to remind us of a quote from an activist of the Sioux Indian tribe: 'Our history is written with white ink. The first thing the victor does is erase the history of the loser. The victors cry much over the bodies of their victims.'" ¶5. On 08/01, Emirati columnist Abdullah Rasheed wrote the following in his daily editorial in the Abu Dhabi-based semi-official Arabic-language daily "Al Ittihad" (circulation 65,000): "When I read the fatwas prohibiting support for Lebanon and Hezbollah, I was reminded of similar fatwas issued by the same people that urged support for the killing of Shi'a by Al-Zarqawi in Iraq. I wrote an article about those fatwas, noting that Islamic organizations and scholars should put an end to fatwas with so much potential for harm, and so little for good... Similarly today, under the pretext of sectarian differences, we see fatwas which ban support for the Lebanese even as they suffer under Israeli gunfire." ¶6. Under the headline "U.S. and Britain share Israel's culpability," British-born journalist Linda Heard wrote the following in a column on 08/01 in the prominent English-language daily "Gulf News" (circulation 95,000): "It's with a heavy heart that I pen this week's column. What I would really like to say isn't publishable... [I]t's hard for me to cast emotion aside." "What was done to Qana for the second time in 10 years is a war crime but Israel isn't the lone perpetrator. The killing would have stopped days ago if it wasn't for the tacit and material support Israel has received from the U.S. President George W. Bush and my own British Prime Minister Tony Blair." "How ironic that the Lebanese are dying from American-made missiles and bombs that are transported from the U.S. to Israel by planes that refuel in Scotland, while other U.S. planes carry food and medicines." QUINN