Thousands of Iraqi demonstrators took to the streets of Baghdad on Saturday burning an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in anger at "massacres" of Palestinians by the Israeli army.
Three separate protests, each estimated at between 10 and 15,000 people -- some brandishing weapons -- burnt Israeli and US flags as they marched through the capital.
The demonstrators carried banners decrying "Zionist massacres" and calling for revenge for the Palestinian dead, AFP journalists reported.
"The Iraqi people stand alongside the Palestinian people in jihad (holy war) and triumph" chanted the marchers, including ruling Baath party officials.
Other banners called on Arab leaders meeting in Cairo to take "serious measures to liberate Palestine and end the aggression of occupying forces in the Palestinian territories."
Meanwhile, at the summit, Iraq's number two, Ezzat Ibrahim, called Saturday for a jihad, or Muslim holy war, against Israel to free occupied Arab lands.
"Iraq's position is to call for the liberation of Palestine and the other Arab lands occupied by the impure Jews through a jihad, which is the only way," he said.
And Iraq's official media echoed the call for a jihad, gave strong voice to doubts that the summit will succeed and urged a boycott of Israel.
"Any resolution not based on armed struggle against the Zionists will have no more effect than an aspirin which dissolves rapidly," said Babel, run by President Saddam Hussein's eldest son Uday.
"The summit will not escape the narrow framework drawn up by the Sharm el-Sheikh summit .. and the treacherous regimes, including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia will try to turn it away from the reason for which it was called," the daily said.
A jihad was needed to liberate Palestine, it added. Some 4.5 million Iraqis have reportedly volunteered to fight in an answer to a government call.
Uday was himself quoted in the press swearing vengeance against Israel which would "pay dearly" for the death of Palestinian civilians.
"The anger of the Arab people will stop only with the end of the Zionist entity," he said.
Deputy Information Minister Hamid Said urged Arab leaders to "throw off the burden" of the Sharm el-Sheikh summit which last week produced a ceasefire that fell apart in renewed bloodshed on Friday.
The Cairo meeting should "put an end to normalization with the Zionist enemy and prepare for liberation" of the occupied territories," Said told the Al-Qadissiya newspaper.
Al-Irak, the daily of Kurds loyal to Baghdad, repeated the call and demanded "firmness in the face of the United States and Great Britain, the two enemies of the Arab nation."
Senior Iraqi official Saad Kassem Hamudi called in a televised interview for anti-Israeli protests in all Arab countries during the two-day summit which opened Saturday.
He said this would be a "people's summit" to press Arab leaders to adopt "a liberation strategy for Palestine, a return to the Arab boycott of Israel and the use of oil as a weapon in the fight," against Israel – BAGHDAD (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
