Amidst public anger over the Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Al-Rantisi, Gihan Shahine finds the US has also come under fire for its widely perceived complicity in the bloodshed "To Jerusalem we march, martyrs in the thousands," chanted 5,000 students in Al-Azhar University in a protest immediately following the Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Abdul-Aziz Al-Rantisi on Saturday evening. "We are seething with anger," said Mohamed Salah, former president of Al-Azhar University's student union, as he stepped out of the protest. "We can't remain at a standstill. This act will not go without revenge. The Israeli murders will escalate violence, and will definitely give birth to a million other Al-Rantisis and Sheikh Ahmed Yassins throughout the Arab region." The murder came less than a month after Israel assassinated Hamas founder and spiritual leader Yassin and, more tellingly perhaps, three days after United States President George W Bush gave unprecedented concessions to Israel, publicly dubbed as "Balfour II", when he backed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "disengagement plan". Following talks with Sharon in Washington on 14 April, Bush said Palestinian refugees should not expect to reclaim their homes in what is now Israel because "new realties on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centres" render a full withdrawal from land captured by Israel in 1967 "unrealistic". Bush added that Israel might thus be able to retain parts of the occupied West Bank, and that a "just, fair and realistic" end to the five decades of exile of Palestinian refugees would come in the form of resettlement in a future Palestinian state, not in Israel. The flat tone with which Bush declared his fully-fledged support for Israel led most Egyptians to believe that Al-Rantisi was assassinated with the complicity of the US. Protests broke out in university campuses and syndicate headquarters throughout the country the country -- Cairo, Alexandria, Qena, Sohag, Kafr Al-Sheikh, Al-Mansoura -- where thousands of protesters chanted slogans against America and Israel, burnt the US and Israeli flags, and condemned the Arab regimes' "silence" and "apathy". The US' image is now at an all-time low in Egypt; there is a general insistence that the US can no longer be regarded as a fair broker, having abandoned all claims of neutrality. Whereas Israel was condemned for having sabotaged all prospects of peace in the region by escalating violence, many were also frustrated that the US has "treated Arabs with contempt" by endorsing Israel's unilateral decision one day after President Hosni Mubarak's meeting with Bush. With little hope in peace, many declared resistance and jihad as the only way out. Public calls for boycotting Israeli and American products have, once again, gained momentum, and next week has been designated as a week of popular boycott. The Press Syndicate gave voice to the angered public reaction in a statement blaming Al-Rantisi's murder on "the US support and blind bias to Israel". The syndicate also held a public rally on Tuesday night in support of the Iraqi and Palestinian resistance. Meanwhile, the Arab Lawyers' Federation went on a one-hour strike in protest of "Zionist terrorism" while hundreds of protesters gathered at the Bar Association condemning the assassination and calling for jihad and the expulsion of the Israeli and US ambassadors in Egypt. Earlier on Sunday, the Labour Union issued a statement condemning Israel's "awful crime", which was "committed with the support of US President George Bush". The union condemned Israel as a "terrorist state", which "blatantly violates international laws and UN conventions". For his part, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar (the most prestigious seat of Sunni scholarship in the Arab world), Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, condemned the assassination of Al- Rantisi as "extremely blatant and treacherous". According to Tantawi, Al-Rantisi is a "martyr" who "fulfilled his duty towards religion and homeland" and "those stepping in his footsteps will defeat their enemy with the support of God." The assassination, Tantawi said, is "a crime that should be avenged". "The US has declared itself as an enemy country, and definitely not a strategic ally," Salah said. Marwan El-Refai, head of the Cairo University student union, agrees that almost everyone regards America and Israel as "two sides of one coin". "Arabs do not have the least political weight in US foreign policy," El-Refai said. Egyptian political analyst Gamil Mattar said that, though the US has been an Israeli ally since 1976, the tone with which Bush declared his support to Israel "means the US regards Arabs as England did back in the early 20th century, when the Balfour Declaration was made and no Arab country had sovereignty over its lands ... I would safely say that the Arab [world] has reached its worst condition ever in 50 years". El-Refai urged "Arab leaders to unite and do something. Otherwise, they will [let] thousands of time bombs explode at any time". Doctors' Syndicate Deputy Chairman Essam El-Erian, however, warned that public unrest only serves the US' and Israeli colonial interests in the region. El-Erian -- a leading member in the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood -- insisted that US foreign policy has been biased against the Arabs since 1976 and that Bush has put it bluntly this time "only to wreak havoc in the region". "The US-Israeli policy is to drive a wedge between the public and Arab leaders by showing the incompetence of regimes in facing up to external challenges and settling disputes in the region," El-Erian maintained. Ahmed Bahaaeddin Shaaban, the secretary- general of both the Egyptian and Arab Committees for Popular Boycott, says the only way to curb possible chaos is for "Arab regimes to enhance democracy ... Demonstrations, public rallies and popular boycott -- albeit necessary -- have almost lost effect in comparison to the magnitude of political developments," Shaaban said. But meanwhile, Shaaban argues that "the Israeli-biased US policy has also created unprecedented Arab unity on the public level, reuniting all political and religious trends," which could provide fertile ground for political reform. "Being an Islamist or a leftist does not matter now: we are all in the same boat," Shaaban went on. "What happened to Al-Rantisi could happen to anyone and whoever objects to the US policy will be immediately labelled a terrorist." "We are on the verge of a volcanic [eruption]," said Ahmed Seif El-Islam Hassan El- Banna, secretary-general of the Bar Association and a leading Brotherhood member. "The US actually wants Arabs to surrender and remain silent, which can never be the case. Resistance will never die out in Israel or Palestine." Even the man on the street seems to perceive the fact that the Bush-Sharon deal was also meant to serve the personal interests of the two leaders. Bush will now gain the votes of the Jews and the extreme right in the upcoming elections while, with the US' enthusiastic endorsement of the disengagement plan, Sharon's government will survive after facing increased criticism of his performance and the possibility of being indicted over a bribery scandal. El-Erian and El-Banna insist Arab countries should provide all kinds of support to the Palestinian and Iraqi resistance in order for the whole region to survive. Otherwise, if the disengagement plan is fully implemented, political analysts predict Palestinians will be imprisoned in several cantons divided by six Israeli settlements, with no sovereignty over land, sea borders or airspace. "Without resistance there will be no Palestine, no Iraq and no Arab region," El-Banna said. And, according to Mattar, the danger could be universal: "Israel has no respect for any international treaty. So how can we expect it to respect Camp David? What else should we wait for before we move?" International Response to the Bush Declaration on the Palestinian Right to Return
