Arafat urges Arab summit

By Rasha Saad

He urged the League's secretary-general, Esmat Abdel-Meguid, to continue his efforts to organise an Arab summit. "From this podium, I am calling for an urgent Arab summit which has become a [Pan-Arab] national necessity at present," Arafat said. He issued a similar appeal during a meeting of Arab foreign ministers last March.

The Palestinian leader also welcomed the Egyptian-French initiative to organise an international summit to save the peace process, which has been deadlocked for nearly two years.

Arafat attacked Netanyahu's rejection of American proposals for a second redeployment in the West Bank and said the Israeli government had continued to give a cold shoulder to international efforts to bring the peace process back on track.

He hailed American First Lady Hillary Clinton for espousing the Palestinian right to establish an independent state. In a message to an Arab-Israeli youth seminar on peace held in Switzerland early this month, Mrs Clinton said a Palestinian state was important for peace in the Middle East.

Arafat's audience applauded loudly whenever he affirmed his determination to declare a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

The Palestinian leader said recent Israeli actions in Jerusalem were cause for alarm. "The burning of the Ghawanmeh gate of the Al-Aqsa Mosque earlier this month by extremist Israeli groups is a clear example of the great danger that Jerusalem, with its Islamic and Christian holy sites, is facing," he said.

Arafat's audience included about 300 Palestinians who waved national flags carrying the inscription "Palestine is Arab." The Palestinians, all residents of Egypt, were invited by the Palestine Liberation Organisation to participate in the event.

Arafat said the fact that ceremonies marking the anniversary were held in all Arab countries had shown that the Palestinian cause was still their priority.

He added that by this commemoration, Arabs had conveyed a clear message to those who thought the Palestinian cause would be dead by the end of the 1948 generation. "Time has proved that these people are wrong," Arafat said. "In marking Al-Nakba [the catastrophe] Palestinians from different generations have offered proof that the Palestinian dream is alive and that we shall continue handing it down from one generation to another."

Arafat added that the "million-man march" which Palestinians staged in the self-rule areas to mark the 50th anniversary of Al-Nakba was a revolt against the injustice inflicted on them.

"The million-man march was not only a commemoration of a most dark moment, but a march of resistance against the injustice that our people suffer," he said. "It was a march for the future, much more than a march to lament the massacres, the dispossession and the displacement."

The audience stood up for a minute of silence in memory of fallen Palestinians.

Other speakers at the ceremony included Arab League Secretary- General Abdel-Meguid, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, and Pope Shenoudah of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

Sheikh Tantawi argued that all religions advocate the use of force to confront injustice. He said that it would be better to die honourably than to live in humiliation. Anyone who dies in a suicidal operation in defence of his country is a martyr, he added. Alluding to Israel's expansionist policy, Tantawi said that "when matters reach that extent and require that you blow yourself up, then you are a martyr."

For his part, Pope Shenoudah called for the establishment of a powerful Arab lobby in the United States and Britain. "We have to make sure that our voice can reach foreign diplomats, politicians and intellectuals," he said.

Among the Palestinians who attended the ceremony was a large group of students at Egyptian universities. In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Aliaa Fadel, a Palestinian from Nablus who came to Egypt this year for a master's degree, advocated peace with Israel and expressed hope that the Palestinian people "who have been suffering a lot" will enjoy stability.

She said life in Nablus had improved after the Oslo peace agreement. Before the agreement, there were numerous curfews that continued for six to 15 days, Fadel said. "They used to close the streets and beat the people," she added "They even used to beat old men and force them to erase the slogans."

Living under the Palestinian National Authority was different, Fadel said. There are some problems, but "there is no injustice, there are rules and there is hope," she said.

Munira Shehab, a Palestinian refugee who has lived in Egypt since 1948, also expressed hope. Describing the peace process as "a very long road," she said there was still hope.

Hossam Al-Borai, a 21-year-old Palestinian born in Cairo was bitter. A student at the Faculty of Law at Cairo University, he introduced himself as a Palestinian "refugee" and spoke in the Palestinian dialect.

El-Borai, who was dressed in the Palestinian national dress, was not very optimistic about what can be achieved by the peace process. "Every time they [Israelis] give us some hope, we later discover it was only a mirage," he said.