Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Shiite Muslim Lebanese movement Hizbullah, urged the Arabs to boycott the United States, economically and politically. He warned that the US would face defeat if it assaulted the Arab world by attacking Iraq.
Israel is “merely a brigade in the US Army,” stated the Hizbullah secretary general, who was speaking at a three-day conference in Damascus aimed at reactivating the Arab boycott of goods produced by Israel and its allies.
Nasrallah’s call for boycott was joined by Former Lebanese Prime Minister Salim Hoss. Enraged by Washington’s “blind pro-Israeli bias,” Hoss nonetheless also called for the Arab boycotts to be “peaceful.”
The Office for the Boycott of Israel (OBI) was set up in the Syrian capital by the Arab League in May 1951. The executive office's main job is to update every six months a "blacklist" of Israeli companies (direct boycott) or foreign companies dealing with Israel (indirect boycott). After the 1991 Gulf War and launch of the Middle East peace process, most Arab states and lifted the indirect boycott, under US pressure.
In Muslim regions as far away as Thailand's southern province, “US product free zones" were declared in a boycott organized by the Thailand National Association of Muslim Youth (NAMY) along with the Muslim Council of Thailand, reported IRNA. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
