Protesters are furious at the border errors Dozens of people responded to a call published by activists on Facebook for a sit-in today in front of the Qatari Embassy in Amman, following Qatar’s display of a truncated map of Palestine accompanying the entrance of the Palestinian delegation in the Doha stadium at the opening of the Pan Arab Games 2011 on Friday. The games this year are hosted by Qatar.
The broadcast map showed Palestine’s borders as confined to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The ceremony also broadcast a map of Morocco lacking the Moroccan desert, to which it apologised to Morocco afterward. There has reportedly not been any apology offered to the Palestinian people.
Protesters held “complete” maps of Palestine, with its historical boundaries, in addition to pictures of the late Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali and slogans saying: “The Right of Return is sacred”, “To normalise with the enemy is to partake in his crimes”, and “Choosing resistance is the road to Freedom”.
Protesters denounced the Qatari move, which they considered “a full recognition of the Zionist entity” (Israel). In addition, protestors criticised the beahviour of Qatari media, describing it as “misleading”. Protesters’ chants stressed that Palestine stretched “from the sea to the river and was not divided,” summoning with their chants the memory of Palestinian leaders who fought to defend the “dignity and Arab identity of Palestine”.