Protests Erupt in Islamic and Arab Nations

CAIRO —  As Israelis and Palestinians battled Friday for a ninth day in a row, angry crowds took to the streets in Arab and Islamic nations to protest what they are calling “the Jerusalem war.”

Riot police fired tear gas to disperse crowds marching on the Israeli Embassy in Amman, Jordan, and the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, Syria.

Egyptian police sought to stave off violence here by corralling furious demonstrators at the Al Azhar mosque after noon prayers. But at Cairo University, students burned Israeli and American flags before police doused the flames with water hoses.

U.S. officials expressed concern that the protests, triggered largely by questions over the fate of holy sites in Jerusalem, have broken out in even the most pro-American Arab states, including Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

Demonstrators chanted “death to America!” in Bahrain, where the U.S. 5th Fleet is based, and small protests were reported even in Saudi Arabia, a pillar of American foreign policy for decades. Demonstrations also were held in Pakistan, Indonesia and Iran.

U.S. officials and Arab political analysts said they feared that the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians was fast becoming a broader conflict between Israel and the Muslim world.

“The Al Aqsa uprising is transforming the struggle. It now pivots around Islam and religion, and it’s sending shock waves through the Mideast,” a senior U.S. official in Washington said on condition of anonymity.

In anticipation of more violence, the U.S. government closed all of its embassies in the Middle East, from Morocco to Oman, for three to four days.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak this week invited Arab leaders to attend an emergency summit later in the month in what would be the first gathering of Arab heads of state since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which led to the Persian Gulf War the following year.

Friday’s demonstrations were a response to a call for “a day of rage” to protest clashes in Israel and Palestinian areas that have left more than 75 dead, the vast majority Arabs, since Sept. 28. On that day, right-wing Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the Al Aqsa site in the contested area that Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims call Haram al Sharif.

The United States is seen by much of the Arab world as a blind supporter of Israel, unwilling to criticize the Jewish state for what is deemed by most people in the region to have been an excessive use of force.

Palestinian peace negotiator Hassan Asfour said Friday that “Israel is staging warfare against our people, and the United States is giving it cover.”

He said the state of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which has been largely stymied since Camp David talks failed in July, could strengthen Muslim extremists and more militant members of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement. That concern is seconded by Arab moderates in Egypt and Jordan.

The seeds of this shift could be seen on the streets of Amman, where protesters shouted Islam’s rallying cry of “Allahu akbar! [God is great!]” as they tried unsuccessfully to breach a cordon around the Israeli Embassy. Some of them chanted slogans backing Hamas, a radical Palestinian group opposed to the peace process with Israel.

“Hamas march on--you are the gun, and we are your bullets,” they shouted.

About two-thirds of Jordan’s nearly 5 million people are of Palestinian origin. King Abdullah II donated blood this week in a symbolic gesture of solidarity with Palestinian victims of the clashes, but he has maintained a far lower profile during the violence than his father, the late King Hussein, did during previous crises.

Jordanian political scientist Radwan Abdullah said the Arab and Muslim protests are an expression of anger and frustration with Israel over the peace process, and of unhappiness with what is viewed as the Arab leadership’s weak support for the Palestinians.

“For Palestinians to be left alone while they pursue peace is one thing, but to be left alone to be massacred with tanks and gunships is something else,” Abdullah said. “The Arab world accepts the peace process as long as it works.”

Mubarak’s call for an Arab summit Oct. 21-22 appeared to a response to the mood on the streets of Arab capitals and an attempt to get ahead of Muslim radicals trying to capitalize on the situation.

Lebanon’s highest Shiite Muslim authority urged Arabs and Muslims to wage a holy war against Israel to defend their sacred shrines in Jerusalem.

“The war for Jerusalem has erupted, and Palestinian determination will confirm to the world that Jerusalem, with all its sacred places, will remain Arab,” Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah told worshipers. “It is time to plan for jihad [holy war] on a level that will enable the Palestinian people to keep their steadfastness and proceed with the uprising.”

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Miller reported from Cairo and Wright from Washington.