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Arabs Apply Different Rules to Iraq - Interview with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari

(National Review) Jay Nordlinger - Interviewed at the World Economic Forum conference in Jordan, the foreign minister of Iraq, Hoshyar Zebari, said: Jordan's King Abdullah "has been supportive and helpful, but beneath, if you go to the media, if you go to the mosques, to the street, the attitude is different. There is a disconnect. The attitude is not supportive of Iraq, not helpful to the Iraqi government. The situation is still perceived as an occupation, and those who are in government are collaborators with the Americans. If Americans are in some other country, that's not a problem - only if they are in Iraq is that a problem." "While we were waiting here, the Israeli minister of infrastructure, Ben-Eliezer, who is Iraqi-born, comes by, accompanied by a Jordanian minister. The Jordanian minister says to me, while I'm drinking coffee, 'Let me introduce you.' So we shake hands. And dozens of Arab photographers and reporters descend on me and say, 'Oh, is this the normalization of relations with Israel?'...They will beat you with a stick if you're the Iraqi foreign minister and shake hands with an Israeli minister....There are many, many contacts between Jordanians and Israelis, but if they see an Iraqi interact with an Israeli - that is taboo."
2005-06-10 00:00:00
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