Gulf newspapers on Tuesday poured scorn on the US-led commission of inquiry into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying it would only serve to protect the Jewish state from blame for the violence.
"It would be too naive to expect this commission to condemn Israel for resorting to force," said the Saudi daily Al-Jazira.
It pointed out that the five-member panel headed by George Mitchell was "none other than a former member of the (US) Congress that has drawn up all the resolutions protecting Israel against any international sanction".
The panel was lacking "objectivity", charged Al-Massaiya, another Saudi paper.
It said Muslims could "not expect the results of the commission to be objective because its points of reference are American, and the United States is immersed in an alignment with Israel."
In Qatar, Al-Watan said the panel was "doomed to fail, lacking any partiality and not worthy of respect".
"The commission was born in the wings of the White House, tailored to meet Israel's needs and lacks any objective," chimmed in Al-Raya, another newspaper in Qatar.
The Emirati daily Al-Khaleej said the commission could only be expected "to accommodate the Zionist entity in its ongoing aggression against the Arab Palestinian people."
The panel started its work on Monday by holding separate talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, before visiting Egypt on Tuesday. It is to travel on to Jordan.
The team has "ruled nothing out" in probing the causes of 10 weeks of deadly Palestinian-Israeli clashes, Mitchell, a former senator and a Northern Ireland mediator, told reporters in Cairo.
It also comprises another former senator, Warren Rudman, former Turkish president Suleyman Demirel, former NATO secretary general Javier Solana of Spain and Norwegian Foreign Minister Thorbjoern Jagland -- RIYADH (AFP)
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