Kuwait Times

Published Date: March 18, 2010
By Hussain Al-Qatari, Staff Writer

KUWAIT: Student unions from Kuwait University and the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training organized a demonstration yesterday at the Determination Square opposite the National Assembly to protest the Israeli violations on the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

In a press release issued by the Kuwait University branch of the National Union of Kuwaiti Students, the union condemned the Israeli offensive and demanded that immediate action be taken by all the people of Kuwait. "The least we can do to show our disapproval is to voice our condemnation towards the Israeli crimes against Islam; it is our duty to support the people of Palestine against the tyranny of the Zionists," said the statement.

During the demonstration, Islamist MP Waleed Al-Tabtabaei took the stage and criticized Arab leaders for their negligence towards the Palestinian people. "Jerusalem is being violated by the Zionists, and the Arab leaders are doing nothing but sitting back and watching the events as if it were a football match," he said, adding that if it were truly a sports event, Arab leaders would have taken more initiative and used more resources to help the situation.

Tabtabaei stated that he has lost hope in Arab leaders today after they repeatedly failed the Arab people. "The Arab League has become useless to the Arab people. Our only hope are devout, faithful Muslims and the people of Jerusalem and Palestine. We pray that Allah gives them the strength they need to fight the enemy.

Ahmad Al-Kandari, a poet and an activist, echoed Tabtabaei about the failure of Arab leaders towards the Palestinian cause. "We ask the Arab leaders to stop being naive - peace talks have proved to be fruitless on many occasions. We demand that these leaders become true allies of the Palestinian people" and not of traitors, he emotionally appealed.

Earlier this week, the National Union of Kuwaiti Students collected signatures of student political groups and blocs condemning the Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people. The head of the Union's cultural committee Mohammad Al-Matar said to the press that the student groups will sign a petition and send it to the United Nations asking for its interference in the case. "We ask all student groups, regardless of their political affiliations, to unite for this cause. The Palestinian cause is a shared cau
se among all the Arab people regardless of whether they are religious or liberal," he said.