[R-G] Opposition to U.S., Israel unites conference attendees

[Anthony Fenton]

See: http://www.e-joussour.net/en/node/1546

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-lebanon-resistance19-2009jan19,0,351909.story

Opposition to U.S., Israel unites conference attendees

12:34 PM PST, January 18, 2009
REPORTING FROM BEIRUT -- Black clerical turbans bobbed up from the sea  
of long, curly hair and fashionable berets. Venezuelan leftists sought  
a translator to speak with Egyptian nationalists. Iranians handed out  
DVDs celebrating the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat  
and baseball caps that carried a quote from Ayatollah Ruhollah  
Khomeini: "Israel must be wiped out."

Many snoozed during American radical Ramsey Clark's speech about U.S.  
foreign policy in the 1950s. But all perked up when the Shiite militia  
Hezbollah's No. 2, Naim Qassem, delivered a fiery keynote speech  
slamming the United States and Israel's war against Hamas in the Gaza  
Strip.

"Imam Khomeini called America the Great Satan. Others call it  
imperialism or globalization," he said to the hundreds who gathered  
here this weekend for a long scheduled conference of Islamic, Arab,  
Western and Latin American opponents to the U.S. and Israel. "No  
matter what words you use to describe it, it's the same enemy."

While Israel and some quarters in Washington depict the slowing  
conflict in Gaza as a battle to suppress Iranian power and influence  
in the Levant, Tehran and its allies also have escalated the war's  
geopolitical significance. They have assembled an international  
coalition of Islamists, leftists and Arab nationalists to place the  
Gaza conflict as part of a broader fight against the United States.

The Beirut International Forum for Resistance, Anti-Imperialism,  
People's Solidarity and Alternatives, organized by Hezbollah's Center  
for Consultative Studies and Documentation think tank, showed how much  
the self-described "camp of resistance" had invested in the Gaza  
conflict. The gathering also underscored how widely Iran and Hezbollah  
have sought to broaden ties among organizations and governments that,  
regardless of their ideological differences, are united in opposing  
Israel and its primary patron.

The conference was a rare chance to gauge the sentiments, strategies  
and scope of an emerging front of mostly secretive governments such as  
Iran, Syria and Venezuela, militant groups including Hamas and  
Hezbollah and like-minded organizations from around the world that  
define themselves in part by their opposition to the United States.

The motley assortment at Beirut's UNESCO Palace exhibition hall  
included Nasserites from Egypt; Sunnis and Shiites from all over the  
Middle East; Marxists and various activists from India, the  
Philippines and Western Europe; and a delegation of lawmakers  
dispatched by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. He and Bolivian  
President Evo Morales became heroes in the Arab world after expelling  
Israeli envoys to their countries to protest the Gaza offensive.

Some are skeptical of any lasting alliances between committed  
Islamists and leftists who tend to oppose organized religion.

"You can be against America together but nothing more than this," said  
Patrick Haenni, a researcher at Religioscope, a Swiss think tank that  
studies religion. "You cannot build something together."

Though the conference was planned well before the conflict in Gaza  
broke out Dec. 27, the death and destruction winding down 300 or so  
miles south took center stage.

"All the people of the world -- including the people here from 70  
countries -- they are all helping the people of Palestine so that they  
will be free," Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, the Iranian cleric who is  
believed to be have been a founder of Hezbollah, said along the  
sidelines of the conference.

"There are two fronts here," the cleric said in a brief, rare  
interview with a Western reporter. "One front that is humane, that has  
stood against the West and Israel and includes all the peoples of the  
world who are in support of Palestinian freedom and the Palestinian  
nation, and another that is inhumane, against human rights and in  
support of war criminals."

The crowd roared with applause as each speaker denounced the U.S. and  
Israel. Interpreters translated speeches into English, French, Spanish  
and Arabic.

The three-day conference, which began Friday evening, presented a  
curious hodgepodge of ideas. Some participants mixed the rhetoric of  
class warfare with that of the Palestinian cause. "Resisting  
occupation cannot take place unless we fight against economic  
oppression," said Laila Ghanem, a Lebanese journalist and activist.

Gaza, said Belgian social scientist and activist François Houtart, "is  
part of an imperial project for control of the world."

Some, including the firebrand Qassem, praised those who send weapons  
to Hamas. But mostly the ideas voiced at the conference were peaceable.

Some called for more pressure on Arab governments to cut ties with  
Israel. Mauritania, one of only three Arab states with normal  
relations with Israel, announced Friday it would expel the Jewish  
state's envoy, while Qatar said it would suspend low-level diplomatic  
ties. Others urged boycotts of companies that do business with Israel  
and support for Palestinians lobbying European governments to shift  
policies.

Qassem urged more rhetorical support for Hamas, mocking Israeli and  
U.S. contentions that Tehran and Hezbollah were secretly behind the  
militant group.

"They think we will be embarrassed if they say that," he said to  
thunderous applause. "Well, we are with Hamas and Iran, and we add  
Chavez from Venezuela and Bolivia. Yes, we will be one front in the  
face of America and Israel, and our slogan will be, 'Let imperialism  
fall.' "

daragahi at latimes.com

Special correspondent Raed Rafei contributed to this report.