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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (24040)	4/9/2002 6:48:44 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

King Abdullah of Jordan, for whom i respect his opinions, and is King Husseins son, said in brutal candidness that the isolation of Arafat is, amongst Arab people, elevating him , in their minds, into a saint. Speaking of King Abdullah, look what his Queen has been up to: washingtonpost.com Jordan Queen Protests Israel Action Associated Press Writer Tuesday, April 9, 2002; 2:26 PM AMMAN, Jordan –– In a rare protest by a member of Jordan's royalty, Queen Rania led a pro-Palestinian demonstration through the capital, underlining Arab frustration with Israeli incursions into the West Bank and the pressure on moderate leaders to show they share their people's anger. Protests also took place elsewhere in the Arab world Tuesday, as they have every day for more than a week. Rania, whose family comes from one of the Palestinian towns Israeli troops took over in their West Bank operation, and three other royal family members walked behind the first row of protesters: five Jordanian children in wheelchairs with signs draped around their necks calling on Israel to "stop disabling our children." Some 2,000 women activists, children and wives of Arab diplomats in Jordan took part in the peaceful demonstration, a rare exception to the royalty's policy of staying out of politics. Rania was silent during the 400-yard march from the Jubilee Square in Amman's suburbs to a U.N. office. But at a benefit for Palestinians earlier in the day, she accused the world of standing idle as Palestinians suffered the "ugliest forms of human rights violations." She affirmed Jordan's commitment to its 1994 Israeli peace treaty, but urged the international community to "take action to stop (the) massacres being committed on Palestinian soil, against a defenseless people who strive to live in dignity, peace and tranquility." The demonstration came a day after King Abdullah II told an emergency Cabinet meeting that the Jordanian "people and leadership are all angry at what is taking place in Palestine." "I am ready myself to take part in a demonstration," added Abdullah. So far, he has not done so. Jordan is seen as an important mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict and a key ally of the United States. Rania, 31, hails from the wealthy al-Yassin family from Tulkarem, one of two West Bank towns from which Israeli troops pulled out earlier Tuesday, a week after taking over the town. She married Abdullah in 1993. Her march wound up at the Amman offices of the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, where Rania handed over a memorandum addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. It appealed for U.N. intervention to "save the Palestinian people from a policy of systematic killing and starvation that is being practiced against them." Elsewhere in Jordan, at least 2,000 businesses were closed in the capital and Palestinian camps. The opposition called the strike in defiance of the government's public stance against "obstructing daily life." In other protests Tuesday, Egyptian demonstrators directed some of their ire at Secretary of State Colin Powell, who met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during a brief stop in the Egyptian capital as part of a Mideast peacemaking tour. "No welcome to Powell," university students chanted in the northern port city of Alexandria. Thousands of students also staged loud but peaceful protests against Powell's visit at Cairo's Al-Azhar University, Tanta University and in front of the Egyptian parliament building. In Yemen, witnesses said one person was killed and two others injured by police during a violent protest in the southern port of Aden. Security officials were not available for comment. It was one of two large protests in Yemen on Tuesday. In the capital San'a, more than 300,000 people took to the streets. In Lebanon, several thousand people preceded by religious leaders and lawmakers marched in the southern market town of Nabatiyeh and later gathered in the central square. © 2002 The Associated Press