...

Jordan Islamists: Merkel runs risk of igniting "enmity" of Arabs

Other News Materials 17 March 2008 19:26 (UTC +04:00)

(dpa) - Jordan's largest political party, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), lashed out Monday at the German Chancellor Angela Merkel's remarks on solidarity with Israel, warning she was creating "enmity" with the Arab and Islamic worlds.

"Germany has no record of enmity with the Arabs, but Merkel is now involving Germany in enmity with the Arab and Islamic peoples and her remarks will encourage the Zionists to commit new crimes" against the Palestinian people, Hikmat Rawashdeh, senior official at the IAF Executive Bureau said in a statement.

Rawashdeh said that his party was feeling "extreme anger" over Merkel's remarks of backing for Israel, bringing half of the German cabinet members with her to Israel and her unprecedented move by a German Chancellor of addressing the Israeli parliament.

Merkel arrived in Israel Sunday starting a three-day official visit and committed Berlin to a "special responsibility" for Israel's right to exist and for the Jewish holocaust.

She also visited Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and co- chaired with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert what they called a "historic" joint session of the two cabinets.

"It is illogical to see the German sin complex towards what the Zionists allege as holocaust find expression in an unjust bias against the Palestinian people, who themselves have become the target of another holocaust as a senior Israeli official put it recently," Rawashded said.

"If the Germans have committed a sin against the Jews, they are now committing a big crime when they support the expulsion of a people from their land and placing killer gangs in place of them," he added.

The IAF official criticized the German chancellor for "her failure to mention the dangerous Zionist violations and the ugly siege" of the Gaza Strip where he said more than 130 Palestinians were killed and about 300 wounded by Israel earlier this month.

"What the German Chancellor is doing will be recorded by history as a flagrant aggression on the rights of the unarmed Palestinian people," he said.

Latest

Latest