Arabs, rebels condemn attacks on Syria

Arab League calls for UN to act to stop “Israel’s aggression,” says attacks are a “dangerous violation of an Arab state’s sovereignty.”

By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON
Arab protesting Israel Syria strikes370 (photo credit: REUTERS)
Arab protesting Israel Syria strikes370
(photo credit: REUTERS)
The Arab League, Lebanon and Egypt condemned Israel’s reported attacks on Syria on Sunday. The League called for the UN Security Council to act to stop “Israel’s aggression,” according to AFP. It said the attacks were a “dangerous violation of an Arab state’s sovereignty.”
Following suit, the Syrian opposition condemned the air strikes. Israel had “taken advantage” of the conflict, the Syrian National Coalition said, AFP reported.
“The Syrian Coalition deeply regrets the deafening silence and powerlessness of the international community in the face of such grievous violations of international laws, continued by the Assad regime and taken advantage of by Israel in order to fulfill clear objectives,” according to the report.
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s office released a statement saying Israel was “exploiting” the Syrian crisis.
“Despite Egypt’s strong condemnation of the bloodshed in Syria, in which the Syrian army is firing on its own citizens, we also reject the breach of Syria’s sovereignty and the exploitation of its domestic crisis [by Israel],” the statement read.
Cairo also denied that the Arab League Peace Plan was amended to allow land swaps.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr said there had been no change in the 2002 plan, AFP reported.
Michel Suleiman, Lebanon’s president, also condemned the attack and the use of Lebanese airspace by the Israeli air force.
His office put out a statement that “strongly condemned Israel’s aggression on Syrian sites [which it carried out] by violating Lebanese airspace to carry out these attacks which killed a number of civilians,” the Lebanese Daily Star reported.
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati also condemned the strikes stating, “[The attacks] fall within the series of continuous aerial violations to Lebanon’s sovereignty and its threats against Lebanon,” according to the paper.
The exception was Turkey, which did not condemn Israel directly as Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan focused his ire on Bashar Assad, saying, “If God permits, we will see this butcher, this murderer receive his judgment in this world...
and we will praise [God] for it,” AFP reported.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu taunted Damascus saying, “Why doesn’t it [Syria] throw even a pebble [at Israel]?”