Ramadan made the remarks at the opening session of an Arab Popular Forces conference in Baghdad, which is aimed to show Iraqi solidarity with Palestinian people.

He demanded that Arabs "mobilize the masses" to offer military and political support for Palestine.

Ramadan also called on all Arabs to "reject and resist all forms of relations or normalization of ties with the Zionist enemy (Israel) as it is increasing its brutal attacks against the Palestinian people."

The liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation will not be achieved through a "humiliating" settlement with Israel but through an intifada (uprising), he stressed.

The Iraqi Vice President was apparently referring to the peace proposal by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Ibn Abdul-Aziz who suggested in mid-February that Arab countries normalize relations with Israel in exchange for its full withdrawal from all Arab lands occupied since the 1967 Middle East war.

Ramadan was speaking against the backdrop of escalating violence between Israel and the Palestinians. It is reported that more than 1,400 people, most of them Palestinians, were killed in the 17-month-old bloody violence between the Palestinians and Israel since the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada in September 2000.

Iraq, strongly opposing any peace deal with Israel, has shown vehement support for the Palestinian intifada by pledging 1 billion euros (some US$930 million) in aid to the Palestinians and dispatching shipments of relief goods to Jordan, where the aid is supposed to be transferred to the Palestinian territory.

Iraq has also organized a 6.5-million-strong Jerusalem Liberation Army vowing to fight along with the Palestinians against Israel.

(People's Daily March 10, 2002)