Middle East crisis turns into a rallying point

These are divisive times, not only in the Middle East, but in Canada and the United States as well. The graphic images of the violence taking place there are causing anxieties and raising tensions among different ethnic groups on either side of the Arab-Israeli divide.

Diversity, the great boast of both these societies, is increasingly under stress. The roiling emotions are straining relations between Muslims and Jews, Christian fundamentalists and Christian moderates and arch Conservatives and civil libertarians.

As the Israeli incursions in Palestinian lands continue with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon thumbing his nose at his main benefactors in the west - Americans, Canadians and Europeans - tempers are rising even among usually tolerant people. There is a clear erosion of the values that define these countries, and Arabs and Muslims are finding it hard to remain respectful of the views of Jews and vice versa.

Both groups and their supporters are taking to the streets, to university campuses and houses of worship to mourn the dead in the Middle East, and to express their horror and disgust at the inability of their governments to stop Sharon and his marauding military.

Consequently, almost daily demonstrations are now a standard feature in cities like Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, New York, Boston, Detroit, San Francisco and Miami, where large concentrations of Muslims and Jews have been living in civility for decades.

Anti-semitic chants, graffiti on walls and racial outbursts are on the rise, indicating heightened states of emotions.

Even people who have managed in the past to channel their anxieties over the unending conflict in the Middle East into constructive dialogue, are showing signs of fraying tempers.

For Arabs and Muslims especially, the anger they are feeling is palpable. They are angry, frustrated and often heart-broken over each report coming out of West Bank and Gaza.

Of course, Arab and Muslims do not have the numbers to make a difference in most cities, but they have not been silenced. They are as much vociferous in expressing their opposition to Israeli offensive in Palestinian lands as Jews are in calling for the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority and banishment of its leader Yasser Arafat.

With the result, there are clashes, many of them reported in places like New York, New Jersey and Detroit. Some of them are ugly reactions to killings in the Middle East. Others are the cause of fraying tempers, with neighbours turning on each other.

The story of Adam Shapiro, the humanitarian worker from New York who visited Arafat in his besieged compound in Ramallah last week, is a good example.

After the meeting was reported in the American media, his parents in New York became targets of abuse and were forced to leave their apartment as death threats became ominous.

Street demonstrations have been particularly heavy in New York. People in Jewish strongholds in the city have regularly come out on the streets in growing numbers this week to rally in support of Israeli strong-arm tactics in Palestinian controlled areas and to hurl abuse at the U.S. President George W. Bush for demanding a halt to Israeli incursions.

So have thousands of Arabs and Muslims and their supporters who have found time to march across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall to demonstrate against Israeli actions in the occupied territories. Protesters at that rally carried signs and yelled chants that compared Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Adolf Hitler.

In Los Angeles and San Francisco, pro-Palestinian rallies drew thousands of protesters as they marched across streets, demanding withdrawal of Israeli forces from Arab lands and more concerted American efforts to rein in Sharon.

Several scuffles were reported as Muslims burned paper Israeli flags, but police say they were not serious incidents and that the demonstrations were peaceful.

"Sharon, Sharon you can't hide; we charge you with genocide," they chanted to a chorus of honks and beeps from passing cars. One Israel supporter carrying the country's flag charged the crowd, prompting a brief scuffle that police broke up.

In Boston, about 1,000 Palestinian supporters marched past the downtown Israel consulate, some carrying signs reading 'Zionism = Nazism.' The demonstrators also denounced American support of Israel.

Last weekend, street demonstrations were also reported in Miami and Crawford, Texas, where 1,200 people gathered blocks from where President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were holding a news conference, insisting that Israel halt its escalating offensive in the West Bank and withdraw troops.

The rising tension is not restricted to the streets either. President Bush's tougher line on Israel is prompting a Jewish backlash against his administration. Former discredited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's lambasting of Bush on Capitol Hill on Tuesday was clear evidence of this.

Some 20 senators not only gave Netanyahu a warm reception, but also praised his suggestion that Bush erred last week when he asked the Sharon government to end the military incursion.

Lobbyists for American Jewish organisations are also hard at work rallying their friendly lawmakers in the Congress to undermine the White House, denigrate Arabs and build support for new anti-Palestinian measures, especially legislation to brand the Palestinian Liberation Organisation as a terrorist group, close down its Washington office and deny visas to its top officials.

Arab Americans are countering these with calls for even more stringent measures by the American President. They want him to respond to Sharon's 'ingratitude' by suspending U.S. aid to Israel. "This is a direct defiance of the President, a direct challenge," says Charles Freeman, a former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. "It underscores the extent to which the Israeli lobby in the United States has had a hammer lock on Mideast policy, and I suppose it sets the President for either a humiliating capitulation to that lobby or a very costly political confrontation with them."

In Canada, a country that places a high premium on civility, tolerance and diversity, reflect activity on most major city streets that goes well beyond normal political disputes and emotional loyalties over the conflict in the Middle East.

The discourse is definitely uncivil between the Muslims and the Jews, and both groups are regularly out, holding rallies, demanding attacking one another. Arab and Muslim Canadians want Ottawa to denounce the Israeli killing and wounding of hundreds of ordinary Palestinians and help end the despair now gripping them.

But Jewish groups and their leaders are not letting that message get through, keeping up a steady drum-beat of anti-Palestinian rhetoric with competing rallies and behind-the-scene political pressure.

The only time that the Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham tried to weigh in on the side of the Palestinians with some strong words, he had his knuckles rapped by the powerful Canada Israel Committee.

To be sure, most ordinary Canadians are appalled by the growing carnage in West Bank and Gaza. But if they are looking for some moral leadership in Ottawa,