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**http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/03/news/islam.php
Cartoons unify angry Muslims
By Ian Fisher The New York Times
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2006
GAZA Tens of thousands of Palestinians, divided by recent elections,
marched in angry unity on Friday against cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that
they consider blasphemous.
Muslims took to the streets in numbers here in Gaza City, Jerusalem,
Nablus and Ramallah, as well as in Britain, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia and
Malaysia. They called for boycotts of European goods and burnt the flag of
Denmark, where the cartoons first appeared.
While the huge rally here in Gaza was peaceful - and many leaders spoke
against violence - some of the oratory was not.
"We will not accept less than severing the heads of those responsible," a
preacher at the Omari mosque here told worshipers during Friday prayers,
according to wire service reports. Other demonstrators called for severing the
hands of the cartoonists who drew the pictures, which they consider an attack
on Muhammad and Islam.
The cartoons have outraged Muslims, although many Europeans have defended
their publication under the right to free speech. One cartoon depicts Muhammad,
the founder of Islam, with a turban in the shape of a bomb.
Since being published in Denmark in September, they have been reprinted
in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland, as well as in Jordan.
They also were televised in Britain. Editors at the papers in France and
Jordan were fired afterward.
In France, where rioting broke out last year among its sizable Muslim
population, President Jacques Chirac released a statement Friday defending free
speech but also appealing "to all to show the greatest spirit of
responsibility, of respect and of good measure to avoid anything that could
hurt other people's beliefs."
Here in Gaza, which has been split since the radical Islamic group Hamas
won a surprise victory in last week's parliamentary elections, the issue has
played out in local politics over the last two days.
On Friday, during one of the largest demonstrations here in recent years,
Hamas supporters carrying their green banners marched side-by-side with those
carrying the yellow banners of Fatah, which was beaten badly in the elections
after decades of running Palestinians' affairs. With them were supporters of
other factions, including Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP.
While factional fighting is common, and has flared between Hamas and
Fatah since the election, the rally on Friday was quiet with almost no guns in
sight.
"Even after these elections, the biggest concern is that we are an
Islamic society," said Salah Hashish, 42, an Islamic judge and Hamas supporter,
who was driving his car with his wife and six children in the protest. "This is
a new phase in the war against our religion."
A Hamas spokesman and new legislator, Mushir al-Masri, addressed the huge
crowd outside the parliamentary building, seizing on the issue of unity over
the cartoons. He said Hamas would seek to duplicate that unity when its
government officially takes office.
"Hamas will be merciful to everyone," he said, calling for the various
factions to join Hamas in a new government. "Merciful to Fatah. Merciful to
PFLP. Merciful to Islamic Jihad."
Masri, like many other leaders here, condemned any violent retaliation
for the cartoons. On Thursday, two armed groups swarmed the office of the
European Union here in Gaza, while another group threatened citizens of
countries where the cartoons were published.
"Those who threaten, this is not the real Islam," an imam, Walid El
Amudi, told worshipers at the Western Mosque in a refugee camp here. "We should
show mercy and beauty."
A pamphlet released by gunmen at the EU office threatened harm to
churches - and Hamas leaders, showing how their role has changed since the
elections, quickly and publicly reacted to calm fears of Gaza's small Christian
minority of 3,000 people. On Thursday, a top Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar,
visited the only Catholic church in Gaza to condemn any threats against
Christians.
"He said he is protecting us not because he is Hamas," said the Reverend
Manuel Musallam of the Holy Family Church, who said he has had long and
friendly relations with Hamas. "He is protecting Christians and our
institutions as the state of Palestine and as a government."
Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and a top leader of
the defeated Fatah, arrived in Gaza late Friday to begin initial talks with
Hamas about forming a new government. He said he would not begin those meetings
until Saturday.
Hamas also seemed to be making moves toward Israel. In an article
published on Friday in a Palestinian newspaper, Khaled Mashal, the top Hamas
political leader, who lives in Syria, said that Hamas would never recognize
Israel's right to exist but it was prepared to discuss a long-term truce.
"If you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, then we
will be ready to negotiate with you over the conditions of such a truce," he
wrote.
Previous Hamas statements about a truce included, among other demands,
the requirement that Israel first pull back to its 1967 borders.
In a moment of particular tension on all sides, at least two homemade
rockets were fired from northern Gaza into an Israeli kibbutz on Friday,
seriously wounding a 7-month-old baby, the Israeli military reported.
Three others were slightly wounded when one of the rockets hit a house on
the outskirts of Kibbutz Karmia, about eight kilometers, or five miles, north
of Gaza.
The army reported that it fired artillery back into Gaza. Islamic Jihad
later claimed responsibility for the attack.
Meanwhile, in Nablus, the army reported, two Palestinian men were
arrested while trying to smuggle two explosive suicide belts into Israel.
Each of the belts was packed with about seven kilograms, or 15 pounds, of
explosives.
No group has claimed responsibility for the effort.
Hezbollah stages attack
Hezbollah guerrillas attacked an Israeli military position along a
disputed part of the south Lebanon border on Friday and the Israelis swiftly
responded with airstrikes on suspected Hezbollah sites, The Associated Press
reported from Beirut, citing Lebanese security officials.
Hezbollah said it was retaliating for the death on Wednesday of a
15-year-old boy. Hezbollah added that it attacked the same Israeli position
that had fired on the boy.
A Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said his group's attack Friday was
a message to Israel that "the resistance was, still is and will always be there
to defend the dignity and blood of its people."
The Israeli Army confirmed that Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets at
an Israeli military position in Shebaa Farms.
It said there were no immediate reports of injuries.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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