- BEIRUT - Chanting "death
to Israel" and "death to America," more than 100,000 of
Lebanese marched Friday through the streets of Beirut to demonstrate support
for Palestinians as the intifada enters its third year.
-
- Smaller anti-Israel demonstrations were held in other
Arab capitals as well, with speakers also condemning the United States
for backing Israel and for leading attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq as part
of the war on terrorism.
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- "No matter how much the world changes after Sept.
11, 'death to America' will remain our reverberating slogan," the
leader of the militant Hezbollah group, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, said in
his fiery address in Beirut. Hezbollah, which is on the U.S. list of terrorist
organizations, called for Friday's demonstration, which was attended by
several Lebanese and Palestinian officials.
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- The black-turbaned Nasrallah urged Arabs and Muslims
to support the Palestinian uprising, which, he said, "is heading toward
victory." Echoingatening us with death and humiliation...we are people
who adore martyrdom." "We are people who await you everywhere
and will continue to await you everywhere...until the end of time,"
added Nasrallah,
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- Nasrallah, who opposes peace with Israel, urged Arabs
to rally behind Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat despite political
rifts over Arafat's signing of unilateral peace deals with Israel in 1993.
He also called on Arabs to boycott American goods to punish the United
States, which he said was waging a campaign to attack Iraq and could stretch
its adventure to Syria and Lebanon.
-
- During the rally, Hizbollah bands played revolutionary
anthems while its scouts marched around a big model of Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa
mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine.
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- Pro-Palestinian protests across Arab world
- About 400 to 500 worshippers chanted "God is greater
than America" at Cairo's Al-Azhar mosque, the most respected theological
center in the Muslim world, in a prelude to a larger demo pe reading "Bush,
Blair, don't kill any more children." Another group of 100 Palestinians
marched from Khan al-Sheeh Palestinian refugee camp, 25 kilometers (16
miles) south of Damascus, to the southern city of Quneitra on the Golan
Heights. They burned copies of Israeli and U.S. flags and a dummy meant
to represent Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
-
- "We are walking ... to express our support and backing
for the (Palestinian) uprising, which will keep going until its goals are
achieved," said one protester, Ali Saleh Shakosh, 50.
-
- In Jordan, about 1,000 bearded men and veiled women chanted
"death to Israel" in a peaceful but noisy rally organized by
the Muslim Brotherhood Movement, Jordan's largest Muslim opposition group,
in a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood of Amman.
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- http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=213
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