Frank Viviano Writes Arab world glued to TV sets — streets
appear calm
But anger at U.S. lies under surface
- Cairo — Despite fears that U.S. military action against
Afghanistan would set off angry demonstrations in the Middle
East, the initial reaction to yesterday’s air strikes was subdued
in Cairo, the largest city in the Arab world and a longtime focal
point of Islamic activism.- In coffee shops, small clusters of people gathered around
TV sets, quietly watching broadcast news on Egyptian and other
Arabic stations — most of which carried the same footage as
CNN and the BBC.- “America, Afghanistan, boom! boom!” one of them
said to a reporter. On learning the reporter was American, he
shrugged and smiled, then went back to watching the set.- Official comment was slow in coming here — and in most of
the rest of the Arab world — as was reaction from the streets.
“Anybody who might be inclined to protest is probably watching
TV like all of us,” remarked a senior diplomat at the U.S.
Embassy in Cairo.- Nevertheless, he added, the embassy put out a new caution
to U.S. citizens in Egypt.- “The fear here is that the conflict might spread to
other countries,” said the diplomat. “If it is limited
to Afghanistan, it will probably remain calm in Egypt.”- Iraqi TV, quoted by the Associated Press, denounced the U.S.-British
missile assault on Afghanistan as “treacherous aggression.”- In Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Assefi branded
the attacks unacceptable, saying they were launched “regardless
of the world public opinion, especially the Muslim nations, and
will damage the innocent and oppressed Afghans.”- Initial Palestinian reaction was milder. “The crucial
thing is that we must differentiate between attacks launched
against a military force and acts against civilians,” Zuhair
Sanduqa, the chief of parliamentary affairs of the Palestinian
National Council, told The Chronicle last night.- Egypt, like other moderate Arab governments, has voiced general
support for the U.S. campaign against terrorism. While President
Hosni Mubarak has refused to commit Egyptian troops to the effort,
he is reported to be sharing intelligence information. He has
also called for a U.N. anti-terrorism conference.- But public opinion in Cairo, as elsewhere in the Arab world,
has been more critical, and in the aftermath of the strikes,
appeared to remain that way.- “No way the U.S. military should do this, for their
own sake,” said a Cairene shopkeeper of Afghan descent.
“I know my people. Afghans can live for days on a cup of
water and a piece of bread.- “This will make Muslims everywhere hate America — but
also, they will very happy, because America will now learn lessons
in defeat. It will be much worse than Vietnam.”- On Tal’at Harb Street, in the heart of downtown Cairo, large
numbers of people were milling around at midnight — on their
way home from movie houses, cafes and restaurants. But few appeared
to have paid much attention to the U.S.- and British attacks.
- “In killing this one man, bin Laden, can you justify
what will happen to men, women and children in Afghanistan?”
asked one man, leaning against a car. “What he has done
to America is a violation of Islam. But what of the harm that
America has done to innocent people here?”- “I don’t care at all about what happens to this bin
Laden,” said a businessman. “What he does is something
that (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon does all of the time.
And what America has done to children in Iraq.”- Before yesterday’s air strikes, a popular belief in Cairo
was that the Sept.- 11 attacks were not the work of bin Laden nor of Islamic
extremists, but a plot by Israel and its secret intelligence
service, the Mossad, aimed at discrediting Arab and Islamic countries.
The televised videotape of bin Laden saying the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon had been “hit by God in one of its softest
spots . . . Thank God for that,” changed few minds here.- “No Arab has the necessary technology to make such a
broadcast,” a lawyer said about the bin Laden tape, which
had been broadcast by the Al-Jazeera station in Qatar. “Mubarak,
King Abdullah, all of them know that Mossad did it,- so that America could be goaded to destroy the Palestinians,
and so that the world’s eyes would be closed to the Palestinians’
fate.”- Another Egyptian businessman wasn’t so sure. “Yes, if
bin Laden did admit to it, he has broken Islamic law,” he
said. “So it is appropriate that he be killed. But only
him, and no one else.”- The secretary general of the Islamic Action Front in Jordan
was also taken aback when told of the bin Laden tape.- “If it does turn out to be true that bin Laden accepts
responsibility for this crime — that it was not a conspiracy
involving the Israelis or someone else — then it changes matters,”
said Abdul Latif Arabiyat. “As Muslims, we cannot possibly
approve of what happened in New York and Washington. It goes
against the most basic principles of our value system.”
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