DAMASCUS: It is not any more the anti-terror battle scenes of the rough mountains in Afghanistan the Arab world is watching but rather Israel’s assaults on Palestinians in the occupied territories that blaze all screens.

Though US President George W. Bush’s blitz on Taliban and their “guest” Osama bin Laden is on the zenith, Syrians, like their fellow Arabs, shifted their attention to the bloody streets of West Bank and Gaza, where 25 Palestinians died within the past 48 hours.

The anti-terror coalition, a bizarre gathering of US allies and regimes that have long been on Washington’s blacklist, stitched together by the Bush administration, seems not to be holding in Syria.

“It is true the Arabs are concerned about what is going on in Afghanistan but naturally they are much more uneasy and emotionally-connected to what’s happening in the occupied territories right now,” says Salem Faham, a teacher.

“We have been taught — and I am now teaching my students — that Palestine is our decisive issue, it is our destiny. Actually, no question can eclipse this rock-solid fact,” he says.

The latest cycle of violence brought to 52 the number of Palestinians killed since the Israeli military offensive in the West Bank was launched on Oct 18. No Israelis have died.

The total toll from the 13-month-old Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation, now stands at 932 dead, including 754 Palestinians and 178 Israelis.

A dozen of Palestinians were killed when a column of Israeli tanks stormed into the Palestinian West Bank village of Beit Rima under cover of darkness, just hours after Washington toned down its call for an “immediate” withdrawal from a string of self-rule towns.

“What is happening in Palestine causes our hearts to bleed - the United States is the only country capable of influencing Israel, but so far we have not seen such an effort,” Samer Halabi, a 19-year old student, says. “All indications point at further repression and suffering of the Arab and Muslim people.”

The escalating conflict between Israel and the Palestinians comes at a bad time for the United States, which is trying to muster Arab support for strikes against suspected terrorists. Reinvigorated anger toward Israel could nullify any existing support for the campaign.

“For many people, the issues are linked. As newscasters show more shots of Palestinian boys being wheeled into morgues, as the stymied Israeli-Palestinian peace process evaporates, many Arabs are becoming increasingly bitter toward the United States, historically Israel’s closest ally,” a university professor here says. “There is such a double standard towards Israel and how it treats the Palestinians,” he says.

Syria, which the United States has kept on its list of states that sponsor terrorism, criticized the United States for not taking stronger stance against violence perpetrated by Israel, viewing the question of terrorism through the prism of the Arab-Israeli dispute.

Instead of Osama, editorials are about Israel and the policies of its Prime Minister Ariel Sharon against Palestinians.

Any global anti-terror campaign should also be directed at Israel for committing “large-scale terrorism” against the Palestinians, according to government-run media organs. “The world must be reminded that Israel carries out constant large-scale terrorism” against the Palestinians, said Radio Damascus in a political commentary this week.

It said Sharon is “one of the biggest symbols of terrorism”, referring to the massacres at the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon in 1982.

Senior Syrian officials, including foreign minister, Farouk al-Sharaa, have been calling almost on a daily basis on the United States to halt Israel’s “aggression” in the region.

In the current crisis, Arabs feel that America has failed to understand that the grievances that cause anti-American sentiment among Arabs and Muslims have deep roots with which it needs to come to terms.

“It is important that America, the champion of free speech and freedom of expression, accepts friendly criticism and gives it serious consideration. It has many sincere friends in the Arab and Muslim worlds who have been trying to give sincere advice. America should listen to them instead of shunning them,” says the professor at the Damascus University. —Dawn/InterPress Service.