Libyan Leader Decries Israeli-Plo Accord As ‘Treason, Lies, Sham’

With customary bravado, Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi offered Wednesday to camp out with Palestinians stranded in a no man’s land and promised to build a city there if other Arabs refused to let them enter.

Speaking to 3,000 people gathered at a border desert camp, the mercurial Gadhafi said the plight of the Palestinians whom he threw out of his country illustrated to the world that the Israel-PLO accord was useless.

“I consider this - although it is agony for you - an international and strategic gain to show that the Palestinian people’s issue has not been solved and that all that you have heard on the media is treason, lies and a sham,” he said.

As many as 1,000 Palestinians, some of whom lived in Libya for decades, are stranded at this border post near the Mediterranean Sea. A handful have crossed to PLO-run areas; others without travel documents are simply biding time.

Gadhafi resumed the expulsions last week after reportedly agreeing to stop them under pressure from the Palestine Liberation Organization and Arab countries, which have harshly criticized what they call a propaganda ploy.

By deporting the Palestinians, Gadhafi wants to show that the PLO-Israel accord is a hoax that fails to account for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians whose families fled when Israel was created in 1948. The future of those refugees is to be left until the last stage of Israel-PLO talks starting next year.

During the speech, hundreds of Libyans and Palestinians clapped, chanted and called on Gadhafi to defy the “new imperialism.” Palestinian women, standing near the green military tents, ululated every time he brought up the Palestinian issue.

“Increase your defiance, oh lone hawk,” the crowd chanted. “We are always behind you.”

Surprisingly, there was no sign of opposition to Gadhafi despite bitter complaints by Palestinians at the camp in recent days over the expulsions and their treatment inside Libya.

Gadhafi promised to build a city at the border if other Arab countries did not allow them to enter. He invited Palestinians in Lebanon and Syria to come as well.