Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, ostracized by the Western powers and most of the Arab world, has gained the fervent support of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Thousands of them took to the streets Sunday waving Iraqi and Palestinian flags in demonstrations for the Iraqi leader and against the Western nations arrayed against him with backing from most Arab League states.
Although Hussein is hardly known as a devout Moslem and in fact heads the secular leftist Ba’ath party, his exhortations to an Islamic holy war against the Western allies and Israel have elicited a powerful response from the Palestinians.
Sheikh Sa’ad a-Din al-Alami, chairman of the Supreme Moslem Council in Jerusalem, was one of many religious leaders who sent cables of support to the Iraqi president.
“From Al-Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem, on behalf of the Moslem world, we strengthen your hands and call on you to get rid of the American army and its allies which are deployed on Saudi soil,” the cable read.
“We hope that you will act to purify the places sacred to Islam in Mecca and Medina from the foreign invaders,” Alami added.
In Gaza, 200 Arab youths burned tires and chanted pro-Iraqi slogans. “With spirit and with blood we shall redeem Saddam,” they shouted.
Slogans denouncing the “crusading aggression” of the Western powers were painted on walls.
ISRAELI ARABS BACK HUSSEIN, TOO
There were similar demonstrations in the West Bank, mainly in Tulkarm and the Nablus casbah. In both places, marchers carried large portraits of Hussein and Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Leaflets urging Arab leaders to support Hussein were distributed in the two towns. One leaflet noted that “Iraq’s leader has shown consistency in his solid support for the Palestinians, both materially and financially.”
Baghdad has in fact served as a center for many PLO institutions, and Hussein has emerged recently as one of the strongest supporters of the Palestinians. The PLO’s backing of him therefore came as no surprise to Israelis.
The East Jerusalem weekly A-Nadwa reported over the weekend that 60 percent of Israel’s Arab citizens also support the Iraqi leader.
Palestinian demonstrators in the territories explained that they consider him the new strongman of the Middle East who might upset the strategic balance in the region in favor of the Arabs against Israel. They fear if Hussein fails, it will mean another setback for the Palestinian cause.
So far only one Palestinian leader has publicly warned that Hussein’s aggression could backfire. Mayor Elias Freij of Bethlehem pointed out a week ago that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait diverted attention and sympathy from the Palestinians and focused instead on oil.
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