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Angry Arab Public -
'Why Are We Doing Nothing?'
By Gerald Butt in Nicosia
The Telegraph - UK
2-4-3

There is increasing frustration in the Arab world at the failure of the region's governments to take co-ordinated action to stop the invasion of Iraq.
 
A Palestinian author, Edward Said, in an article published in several Arab papers, described the region as a "panorama of desolation".
 
What was noticeable, he went on, was "the utter passivity and helplessness of the Arab world· How can a region of almost 300 million Arabs wait passively for the blows to fall without attempting a collective roar of resistance?"
 
The failure of Arab leaders to convene an emergency summit to discuss the Iraq crisis has drawn strong media and public criticism. "Here is a sovereign Arab state about to be attacked by an outside power, and Arab heads of state can not even agree to meet and talk about it," said Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of al-Quds al-Arabi.
 
"The ordinary Arab on the street is asking why it is that the regimes have done nothing to save the region and its people from attack," wrote a columnist in the pro-government Jordanian daily al-Rai. "When will the Arabs decide to make a move to stop the expected war?" wondered the opposition al-Dustour newspaper.
 
The opposition Egyptian weekly al-Shaab lamented "the silence that has fallen on the Arab world". "Despite the enormity of what is about to happen, no one, neither officials nor the public, has made a move to do anything about it."
 
"Are we simply going to sit back and wait for the knife to fall on Iraq?" asked a caller from Syria to a phone-in on Abu Dhabi television.
 
Several papers, in their coverage of the recent meeting of regional foreign ministers in Turkey, highlighted the fact that the only attempt to work for regional co-ordination on Iraq was taking place outside the Arab world.
 
"Some people are saying," a columnist in the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat wrote, "that the Arabs are incapable of discussing and dealing with the Iraq issue among themselves. I believe it is best that we recognise the truth of this, rather than go on deceiving ourselves."
 
In the Arab media as a whole there is little confidence in the ability of the region's leaders, or the willingness of Saddam Hussein, to take the necessary steps needed to avoid war.
 
 
© Copyright of <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/pressoffice/index.jhtml>Telegraph Group Limited 2003
At 12:24 PM -0800 2/4/03, jr@rense.com wrote:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/02/04/wirq204.xml


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