Key Gulf Arab allies of the United States are stepping up criticism of the administration of President George W Bush over what they see as its blind support for Israel's war against the Palestinians.
Most dailies across the Gulf, including OPEC powerhouse Saudi Arabia, today accused the Bush administration of effectively encouraging Israel to step up violence against Palestinians by vetoing a Security Council resolution calling for sending an international force to protect Palestinians.
"The Middle East is on the verge of an extremely dangerous era that will spare nobody, thanks to the bloodiness of terrorist (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon who is leading an unequal war against the unarmed Palestinian people," Qatar's al-Watan daily said in an editorial.
"It will be a losing war for the Israelis and the United States which gave Tel Aviv the green light when it used its veto power against a draft resolution calling for sending an international force to protect Palestinians against Israeli violence," it added.
Saudi Arabia's al-Madina newspaper slammed the US veto as an attempt to prevent anybody from stopping Israel's violence against Palestinians.
"This honest (peace) sponsor does not want anybody to intervene in the ring of death to ensure that the result was in favour of the stronger party," it said.
Israeli troops killed six Palestinians in fierce clashes in the West Bank and Gaza yesterday, underscoring what its Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer called a gloves-off policy towards an uprising now in its seventh month.
The escalating violence came after the United States used its veto this week to block a UN Security Council resolution which would have created an international observer force to protect Palestinians.
It also coincided with comments by Assistant Secretary of State Edward Walker criticising Arab governments, including Egypt and Syria, for their stands towards Israel.
Although the US administration distanced itself from the Israeli crackdown, Gulf newspapers say that Prime Minister Sharon has received the green light from Washington to step up violence against the Palestinians.
Gulf Arab media had criticised the previous administration of President Bill Clinton as being pro-Israel, hoping that Bush would promote a more even-handed policy.But many said Bush was fast proving to be worse than his predecessor and called on Arabs to pressure Washington to take a more even handed stand.
"The blatant US bias towards Israel and its repressive practices against the Palestinian people...reveals the contempt of the United States towards Arab feelings and human rights," the Arabic-language al-Bayan of the United Arab Emirates said.