Nazir Majally, Asharq Al-Awsat

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 6 October 2003 — Stung by the Palestinian bombing of a Haifa restaurant, Israel yesterday took it out on its northern neighbor Syria, bombing a refugee camp near Damascus.

The UN Security Council called an urgent session at Syria’s request after receiving a letter from Damascus describing the attack as “a grave escalation” of Middle East tensions. Secretary-General Kofi Annan deplored the airstrike.

Saudi Arabia condemned the Israeli attack and voiced its solidarity with Syria, saying that the attack was “a provocative act that will endanger the Middle East peace process and threaten world security. ”

The United States urged both countries to do nothing that would further heighten tensions or lead to hostilities in the Middle East. But an administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, left no one in doubt as to whose side the world’s lone superpower was. “We have repeatedly told the government of Syria that it is on the wrong side in the war on terror and that it must stop harboring terrorists. That is still our view,” said the official.

Israel announced its warplanes had hit a training base used by Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack that killed 20 people, including the bomber. It said it did not intend to pick a fight with Damascus. But it wanted the airstrike to serve as a warning to stop Palestinian groups operating on Syrian territory, an accusation consistently denied by Syria. Israel could launch new attacks on Syria if the country continues to shelter “terrorist organizations,” Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s spokesman Raanan Gissin said.

A Palestinian official said two people were wounded in the attack on the refugee camp run by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shara sent a letter to the United Nations, calling on the Security Council to consider steps to deter “provocative and aggressive policies.” Damascus, however, would exercise restraint, he said.

The Arab world reacted with fury and Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, called an emergency meeting of the pan-Arab body. Moussa called the strike “state terrorism.”

At a joint news conference in Cairo with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak said: “We condemn what happened today concerning the aggression against a brotherly state under the pretext that some organizations exist there.”

Schroeder said regional peace efforts “become more complicated when... the sovereignty of a country is violated. This is why the action in Syria is not acceptable”.

“An attack on a brotherly Arab country... would push the entire region into a continuous cycle of violence,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Al-Muasher told state television. — Additional input from agencies