Jordan's King Abdullah said on Thursday that Israel's offensive against Hizbollah had turned its fighters into heroes among ordinary Arabs.
AMMAN: Jordan's King Abdullah said on Thursday that Israel's offensive against Hizbollah had turned its fighters into heroes among ordinary Arabs.
In the toughest rebuke against his peace partner Israel in recent years, the monarch said the rise of guerrilla groups such as Hizbollah who targeted the Jewish state stemmed from Israel's reluctance to give up Arab territory captured in the 1967 war in return for lasting peace.
"They (Israelis) want to destroy Hizbollah by tanks and air force. Peace comes by returning occupied territory and setting up a Palestinian state," he said.
The staunchly pro-US ally said Israel's three-week bombing campaign against Hizbollah guerrillas had given a boost to radicals fighting to end occupation of Arab land.
"The war will not solve anything and Arab peoples see now in Hizbollah a hero facing aggression and defending their land," the monarch told al-Ghad and al-Rai dailies in an interview released by the state news agency Petra.
"OK, if you (Israel) destroy Hizbollah and, let's say, after a year or two there is no solution to the Palestinian cause or Lebanon or Syria .. then a new Hizbollah would emerge, maybe in Jordan, Syria or Egypt .. Israel should know this."
"A fact America and Israel must understand is that as long as there is aggression and occupation there will be resistance and popular support for the resistance," the monarch said.
The Israeli response to Hizbollah's abduction of two soldiers in a raid into Israeli territory has put Arab conservatives on the defensive at home, where public opinion is overwhelmingly anti-Israeli, analysts and politicians say.
Echoing discomfort among Arab states friendly to Washington about its public defence of Israel, the monarch said the US administration should move quickly to end the Arab-Israeli conflict to regain its credibility among ordinary Arabs.
The king said Israel's tough policies against the Palestinians in recent years and its Lebanon bombing campaign spread radicalism and undermined moderates.
"Unfortunately Israeli policy ... has contributed to the rise in the wave of extremism in the Arab world and this war has come to weaken the voices of moderation," he said.
"People cannot sleep and wake up to pictures of the dead and images of destruction in Lebanon and Gaza and for us to say we want moderation. Moderation needs deeds," he added.
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