Palestinian riot police prevented dozens of angry protestors from breaking into a building where the offices of Al Jazeera TV channel are located in the center of Ramallah.
The Fatah Youth movement called for a demonstration against Al Jazeera after a guest attacked the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
Ibrahim Hammami, a pro-Islamist writer and head of the Palestinian Affair Center said that Abu Ammar, another name Arafat is known by, is a traitor. Arafat, who died in 2004, is still seen a symbol for the Palestinian people.
Two days before the show, on the 20th anniversary of signing the Oslo agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Hamami wrote on his Facebook page that Arafat accomplished the Israeli dream 20 years ago.
A few days before that, Al Jazeera published a documentary called “The Price of Oslo,” unveiling what they called new historical information showing that the PLO recognized Israel and turned its back on the “revolution.”
At the demonstration, protestors held signs and pictures of the late Arafat, while chanting slogans.
“Yasser Arafat is a red line,” said employee Nibras Hussein, after she was not allowed to leave her job to partake in the demonstration. “Most people are working at this time. I am sure much more people wanted to protest Arafat’s insult but can’t leave their jobs.”
In front of the building, more protesters came to participate in the demonstration. Amna Mustafa was one of them: “I came to say I reject the Zionist-American conspiracy that is being waged through Al Jazeera channel by insulting and distorting the national figures and symbols,” Mustafa, a 33-year-old protester, said.
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| See how peaceful he is? |
You will not have to look hard to find Israelis or Jews willing to call Sharon or Begin or Shamir "terrorists." But you will never find any Arab in an Arab country who would publicly say the same about Arafat. Both the insults and the defenses in the Arab world consistently come from the perspective that "my side is more anti-Israel, more intransigent, than your side is."
Arafat's family is threatening to sue Al Jazeera unless Hamami apologizes.
(h/t EBoZ)