Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat deplored Wednesday the Israeli army's use of weapons produced by the region's main peace broker, the United States, to "assassinate" his people.
"The arms used by Israel's murder and destruction machine are unfortunately American arms, while the United States is the sponsor of the peace process," Arafat told a meeting of Arab businessmen in Cairo.
"These American arms are in the hands of the Israeli army's gangs, which use them to assassinate our children and our people," he told the gathering, which later pledged 13.5 million dollars to support the Palestinians.
The US provides Israel with about 3 billion dollars a year in aid. Of that, 1.8 billion is in military aid, with the bulk of the US aid tied to Israeli purchases of arms and material from the US.
"We have demanded an international protection force like the one that was sent to Kosovo, but they (the Israelis) refuse because they want to continue their conspiracy," he said.
"In this way, they want to push us to give up our rights to the holy Muslim and Christian places in particular, but none of us has the right to give up a jot of Jerusalem," Arafat said on a visit to the Egyptian capital.
More than 260 people have died in nearly eight weeks of clashes between Israelis and Palestinians, the majority of them Palestinians shot by Israeli soldiers -- CAIRO (AFP)
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