 Muntazer al-Zaidi (Palestine News) |
JERUSALEM – Official news websites of Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas’ U.S.-backed Fatah organization have joined in the chorus of
celebration here in the Middle East hailing as a hero an Iraqi journalist who threw
his shoes at the “idiot” and “cruel” President Bush.
“We thank your arms that threw at Bush and that taught this idiot and
unbeliever what happens when you are cruel and invade Arab lands,” read a Fatah
forum at Fatah’s Palestine News website, addressing Muntazer al-Zaidi, the
Iraqi journalist who shot to pan-Arab stardom for his attack on Bush earlier
this week and his cry: “This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog.”
The forum is administered by registered Fatah members. Its comments were
translated from Arabic by WND.
Continued the Fatah forum: “Before the end of his term, Bush received
exactly what he deserved from every Iraqi. The first shoe was thrown at him as a
person, and the second, as a U.S. president, and then the crown was telling
him he is a ‘dog.'”
Firas, another Fatah news website browsed today by WND, fumed, “Bush doesn’t
deserve from Iraqis more than to be hit with the shoe over his face and in
the face of his soldiers. Long live Zaidi.”
Numerous other Fatah websites embedded pictures of Zaidi, calling him a
“hero,” the “lion of Iraq” and the “crown palm tree of Iraq.” Palestine News
posted a Che Guevara-like picture of Zaidi.
All Fatah websites demanded Zaidi be freed from Iraqi prison. Zaidi pled
guilty yesterday to insulting a visiting head of state, which is punishable by
up to two years in prison in Iraq, although some reports claimed prosecutors were
seeking a longer sentence.
The U.S. considers Fatah to be moderate. It supplies the Palestinian
organization with hundreds of millions of dollars per year in direct aid, weapons
and military training.
WND reported earlier this week Zaidi’s act prompted excited reaction here from across the Palestinian arena and
the larger Middle East, with one senior terrorist declaring 2008 the “year of
the shoe.”
“This is the main historic event of the year of 2008, the year of the shoe,”
Muhammad Abdel-Al, spokesman and a top leader of the Popular Resistance
Committees terrorist group, told WND. He was speaking by cell phone from the Gaza
Strip.
“There are people that go into history by their inventions, by their
martyrdom, by their sacrifices, but this guy went into history by his shoes,” said
Abdel-Al, praising Zaidi.
Zaidi’s act dominated the talk in the Palestinian “capital” city of Ramallah Monday, where 227 Palestinian criminals freed by Israel as a goodwill
gesture to the Palestinian Authority rejoined their families in a ceremony
attended by WND.
Muhammad Siale, the uncle of one of the released criminals, told WND, “One
Arab among 250 million Arabs and among billions of Muslims had the courage to
do what every one of us wanted to do.”
A second Siale family member commented, “We are celebrating this heroic act
in Iraq first and the prisoner release second.”
Abu Abdullah, a Gaza-based a senior leader of Hamas’ so-called military wing,
told WND by cell phone, “It’s important that this was from a journalist and
not a motivated resistance group. It’s from the average Arab person.”
The Committees’ Abdel-Al explained that in Islam hitting someone with the
sole of a shoe is the most humiliating act.
“Bush deserves no more than to be hit by a shoe,” he said. “When you hit with
your hand, you respect him, and he’s a rival for you. When hit with a shoe,
it means you have no respect for him and see him as dirt. In the West,
protesters can throw ice cream and tomatoes, but this doesn’t reflect the
humiliation of a shoe. This is the most original way to close Bush’s period in power
with the shoe.”
The terrorist warned, “If the successor of Bush will continue with America’s
policy of occupation and massacres of Muslims, then America and the West will
finish under the shoes of all the Arabs and Muslims.”
Slow motion clips of Zaidi throwing his shoes at Bush were broadcast
continuously the past few days on Al Jazeera and other Arab networks. Arabic
commentators said the act was a reversal of a more glorious moment for Bush when
Iraqis were filmed using their shoes to beat a statue of Saddam Hussein toppled
by U.S. invading troops in 2003.
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