Head of Arab League Rejects Call by Bin Laden for Holy War on the West

The head of the 22-nation Arab League on Sunday dismissed an appeal by Osama bin Laden to Muslims to join a holy war against the West, saying the Saudi militant did not speak for the world’s Arabs and Muslims.

Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country, also rejected the appeal, saying the world was united against Bin Laden.

“There is a war between Bin Laden and the whole world,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher told reporters ahead of a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Syria when asked about Bin Laden’s appeal.

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, himself Egyptian foreign minister before taking up the Arab League post earlier this year, echoed Maher’s comments, saying: “Bin Laden doesn’t speak in the name of Arabs and Muslims.”

But Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shareh, in his address to the opening session, blasted the United States for its “unlimited” support to Israel.

The ministers issued recommendations after the meeting calling for Arab financial support to Palestinians to be extended to the first six months of next year.

An Arab summit had promised Palestinians monthly payments of tens of millions of dollars in 2001 to tackle hardships from their revolt against Israeli occupation.

The ministers also called for a “concrete initiative” by the United States and its allies to revive Middle East peacemaking.

Bin Laden, in his strongest appeal to date, urged the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims on Saturday to join him in a religious war against “infidel” Christians and Jews.

He said in a videotaped statement that Arab leaders who supported the U.S.-led war against Afghanistan were traitors.

The White House said Bin Laden’s appeal showed his isolation from the rest of the world.

But Syria launched its own verbal broadside against the United States. Shareh, apparently responding to international pressure on Damascus to restrain anti-Israeli Palestinian and Lebanese guerrillas, told ministers that Washington had no right to brand countries and groups as “terrorists” without evidence.

“Other than Israel, the last one who has a right to accuse others of terrorism, especially without proof and for political reasons, is the United States because it gives Israel unlimited support,” Shareh said. “We are the most capable side to define terrorism in our countries, and we don’t accept that others define it for us.”

Syria is on Washington’s list of terrorist states for backing groups branded by the United States as terrorist.

Foreign ministers from Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia also attended the Damascus meeting, as did a representative of the Palestinian Authority.

Several of the ministers were due to fly later to Brussels for a European-Mediterranean cooperation meeting.