Muslims demand Lebanon peacekeeping role

The Islamic world’s biggest bloc today demanded an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and a role for Muslims in a UN peacekeeping force, stressing that a slow end to Israel’s warfare could drown chances for lasting peace.

Malaysia, which chairs the 56-country Organisation of the Islamic Conference, rallied presidents, prime ministers and policy-makers of 17 Muslim-majority nations – including Iran, Indonesia, Pakistan and Turkey – for an emergency summit to articulate their anguish over Israel’s attacks in Lebanese and Palestinian territories.

Hostilities must be halted “before the spiralling violence engulfs the entire region and kills the hope for a durable and just peace in the Middle East”, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said in a speech at the one-day talks.

The leaders called for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, as well as a multinational force to stabilise the Israeli-Lebanon border under the United Nations and well-co-ordinated humanitarian aid to Lebanese and Palestinian sites.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said Muslim countries must play a more proactive role to “bring an end to the madness, bloodshed and devastation currently going on in Lebanon and in Palestine”.

“We must show preparedness to contribute forces for peacekeeping operations under the United Nations banner,” Abdullah told the conference, which assembled member governments of the OIC’s executive committee and primary stakeholders. “Malaysia is ready to do that.”

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia said the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict would “surely add to radicalisation in the Muslim world, (which) will increase difficulties for those of us on the side of moderation”.

Other top figures who flew into Malaysia included President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, which Israel and the US accuse of being a principal arms sponsor for Hezbollah.

Iran has said it only provides moral support to Hezbollah, whose July 12 abduction of two Israeli soldiers sparked the region’s latest war.

Also present were President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation, and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz of Pakistan, the only known Muslim nuclear power, and leaders of Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Brunei and Turkey.

Foreign ministers, royalty members and senior officials represented Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Senegal, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, as well as the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Fouad Siniora updated the leaders on latest developments from Beirut through a video link.

About 100 Malaysian Muslim activists demonstrated outside the summit venue as the leaders arrived, chanting anti-Israeli slogans and holding banners that read: ”Israelis are real terrorists” and: “Don’t allow Muslims to be slaughtered.”

Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas controlling southern Lebanon have been locked in fierce fighting for three weeks, resulting in hundreds of Lebanese civilian casualties.

Diplomatic efforts have faltered amid international differences over what to do first: impose a halt in the fighting or send in peacekeepers to disarm Hezbollah.

Israel has also escalated offensives against Palestinian targets, hitting Gaza hard after a June 25 cross-border raid by Hamas-linked militants who killed two Israeli soldiers and captured a third.