August 9, 2002	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 29,1423

DUBAI, Aug 8: Arab countries should declare US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld “persona non grata” after he justified Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, the Dubai government-owned daily Al-Bayan said Thursday.

“A united Arab stance is called for to demand that Rumsfeld apologises and to declare him persona non grata in Arab capitals where he must not be received,” the newspaper said.

Rumsfeld on Tuesday referred to the “so-called occupied territories” of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and appeared to condone the building of Jewish settlements in the territories as a right of Israel’s victory in the 1967 Middle East war.

The adminstration hawk also dismissed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and said there was “no question that the Palestinian Authority has been involved with terrorist activities. So that makes it a difficult interlocutor.”

Al-Bayan said Rumsfeld showed “that he deserves to lead the Zionist Likud Party, if not the extremist Kahana (Hia) movement of the Temple Mount Faithful.”

Rumsfeld “shames every American concerned at the image of America, the sole world power which claims to defend international legitimacy and freedom,” the paper said.

“The most dangerous part is that Rumsfeld employed thinking worthy of medieval pirates and brigands.”

Without printing his name, Al-Bayan also hit out at Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher who said Rumsfeld had made a slip of the tongue.—AFP