DATE=10/16/03

TYPE=WORLD OPINION ROUNDUP

NAME=AMERICANS / GAZA BLAST

NUMBER=6-130131

BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Assignments

TELEPHONE=619-3335

INTRO: The killing of three U-S embassy security guards in Gaza has increased friction between the White House and the Palestinian Authority. The foreign press has been quick to react, and we get a sampling now from V-O-A's __________in this week's World Opinion Roundup.

TEXT: The three men were from a Virginia company providing security services to the U-S Embassy in Tel Aviv. The blast, which ripped apart their armor-plated vehicle was the first fatal attack on U-S personnel in the Palestinian territories or Israel during the three-year-old Palestinian uprising. Reacting to the attack, Britain's London Times suggests:

VOICE: The gulf of suspicion that separates the Muslim world and the West will now be even wider… The bombers could not have devised a quicker way to snuff out the flickers of hope in this benighted region.

TEXT: Moving to France, a columnist in Liberation from Paris worries:

VOICE: The bomb … is not just a terrorist attack. It is a veritable challenge to the world's number one power and its regional policy…

TEXT: In Germany, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung speculates about the possible motive, suggesting:

VOICE: … Washington's unequivocal siding with Israel serves to consolidate the widely held view in the region that when in doubt, regional super power Israel can do whatever it likes as the Americans will always prevent it from international condemnation.

TEXT: In Munich, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung feels that this attack probably means that the 'roadmap for peace' "… has failed once and for all…" As for an Italian reaction, we find it in Milan's Corriere della Sera where a columnist proposes:

VOICE: The ambush in Gaza risks opening a new phase which will turn a regional conflict into a global clash with the Americans who are no longer only mediators but actors in the crisis…

TEXT: To the Middle East, where a columnist in Yediot Aharonot from Tel Aviv worries that Americans will simply group this terrorist attack to those that kill their troops in Iraq.

VOICE: From an internal-American point of view, this has tremendous significance. Every such incident threatens [President] Bush's next term…

TEXT: While one Palestinian daily from the West Bank, "Al-Ayyam" repeats an official Palestinian statement blaming Israel for the bombing, another, the official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida writes:

VOICE: We are appalled by yesterday's [10-15] attack … and are extremely worried that a malicious plan is being hatched against us as a result … We may disagree with the American administration's policy … concerning our cause, but we have no interest whatsoever in killing Americans or even stopping their convoys … on [our] roads.

TEXT: The Saudi Arabian English language daily Arab News ties the attack into the U-S veto of the Security Council resolution condemning Israel's construction of the wall, while in Doha, Qatar's capital, The English-language Gulf Times worries that the attack: …"can only exacerbate the tragedy of the Palestinian people and increase the risk of the Arab-Israeli conflict spinning out of control…

TEXT: Moving on to Africa, Kampala's Muslim weekly Message in Uganda has this view.

VOICE: Israel has demonstrated to the world that terrorism and aggression are part and parcel of its policies by attacking Syria without justification. … The [U-S], the strongest ally of Israel, is increasingly being exposed as having double standards, as it chooses to keep quiet or just cheer on these wanton acts. … Violence begets violence.

TEXT: We give the last word to our northern neighbors, Canada, where in the capital, The Ottawa Citizen grieves:

VOICE: If the Palestinian struggle is supposed to be about securing an independent state and improving the … lives of its citizens, the terrorism being used to promote those aims is self-destructive. … Yesterday's bombing … is the latest example of this …behavior.

TEXT: On that note from Canada's capital, we conclude this survey of the foreign press on the Wednesday bombing of a U-S diplomatic convoy in the Gaza Strip.

NEB/ANG/KBK