PMs illness 'God's gift' - Jibril

2006-01-05 14:43

Steven R Hurst

Cairo - Arab media on Thursday closely watched the hospital condition of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

While Sharon was widely despised among Arabs, newspapers and televisions ran straight forward reports about him. In the Gulf particularly, news about the Israeli leader competed with the funeral prayers for Sheik Maktoum bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Dubai ruler who died on Wednesday.

In Damascus, Syria, a radical Palestinian leader called Sharon's health crisis a gift from God.

"We say it frankly that God is great and is able to exact revenge on this butcher... We thank God for this gift he presented to us on this new year," said Ahmed Jibril, leader of the Syrian-backed faction Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a small radical group.

He said Sharon's legacy would be one of huge damage inflicted on the Palestinian people.

Unexpected praise

A Palestinian commentator on the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya network offered Sharon unexpected praise as "the first Israeli leader who stopped claiming Israel had a right to all of the Palestinian's land," a reference to Israeli's recent withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

"A live Sharon is better for the Palestinians now, despite all the crimes he has committed against us," said Ghazi al-Saadi.

Sharon's illness cast a huge shadow across the political life of the region, where the Palestinians were to vote in parliamentary elections on January 25 and Israel slated a nationwide vote March 28.

In Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, a key figure in the militant Hamas group, said he saw no justification for postponing the Palestinian vote because of the political turmoil in Israel.

Possible political instability

In Beirut, a newspaper editor said he feared Sharon's absence from the scene could lead to more Israeli-Palestinian violence.

"This is a big event," said Sateh Noureddine, managing editor of Lebanon's As-Safir newspaper. If Sharon dies, it "could lead to the postponement of the Palestinian elections and the Israeli elections and possibly could lead to a security deterioration," he said.

He predicted, however, the repercussions would largely be limited to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Leadership challenge

The leadership of the Palestinian Authority is being challenged in the elections for the first time by the wildly popular Hamas and has suggested postponing the vote on the grounds that Israel may not allow Palestinians in East Jerusalem to vote.

The city is seen by the Palestinians as the site of their future capital while Israel claims the entire city as its eternal capital.

Ali Badwan, a Palestinian living in Damascus, said Sharon was "the dinosaur of the Israeli political right and his legacy was the bloodiest of any Israeli against the Palestinian people... The Palestinian people would not mourn his passing from the political scene."

- SAPA