By Ashraf Mohammad
Albawaba.com – Amman
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat will be able to stop the Palestinian Intifada, which has been raging for two weeks against Israeli aggression, if the Jewish state recognizes the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and withdraws from the occupied lands, including east Jerusalem, according to Saleem Za’noun, speaker of the Palestinian National Council (PNC).
At a press conference held at the PNC offices in Amman Wednesday, Za’noun said that “President Arafat has the final word and knows the best timing to say it, well aware that the Palestinian people will respond to him due to their confidence in his credibility.”
In response to a question on the Palestinian demands from the upcoming Arab summit, scheduled for October 21, the speaker said “we want the summit to be like the one in 1973 when the late King Faisal bin Abdul Aziz [of Saudi Arabia] used the oil weapon to protect Egypt, and the summits that were presided over by the late [Egyptian] leader Jamal Abdul Nasser.
“We want the borders opened between the Palestinian entity and the neighboring Arab countries Jordan and Egypt, because that is the only guarantee that protects a Palestinian state from strangulation,” Za’noun demanded.
Commenting on the Fateh’s decision to form armed militias in the West bank and Gaza, the speaker said that the PLO’s mainstream movement has never given up its guns and that the Palestinians have the right to defend themselves.
“If the peace negotiations fail completely, the palestinians have the absolute right to take all the available measures to regain their rights,” he said.
Za’noun criticized the world leaders who were mobilized to free the three Israeli POWs detained by Hizbollah , while remaining silent over the Israeli massacres of the Palestinian people.
“They consider Israel a part of Europe, and the Israelis as a nation with blue blood,” he protested, adding that the Western world looks at the Palestinians “as a tenth-class people whose blood is so cheap.”
“The Palestinians are not surprised that Annan was paying efforts in this issue,” he said.
On the other hand, Za’noun hailed Hizbollah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, and said he had sent the group and the Lebanese people “a letter of congratulations for the victory” saying that for the first time there are Israeli POWs in an Arab country. The parliamentarian confirmed that Hizbollah will ask for the release of all the Arab prisoners in Israel, including the Palestinian, in return for the soldiers.
On the Palestinian-Syrian relationship, Za’noun said that the telephone conversation between Arafat and President Bashar Assad of comes in the framework the Palestinian-Syrian coordination, agreed upon during the two leaders’ meeting at the funeral of the late Syrian president Hafez Assad.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
