Surprise response?

FoxNews.com: Arab World Reacts Harshly

"Hours after the Arab peace initiative was issued from the Beirut summit, Israel replied with a barbaric war and a flagrant and brutal aggression," said a statement issued by Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, chair of the Arab summit that ended Thursday.

This from the man whose nation would not let Arafat address the very conference where this "peace initiative" was drafted. Was this their way of saying he is irrelevant?

Even better:

Ahmed Maher, the Egyptian foreign minister, said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's action is "foolish, illegal and a message of war and aggression to the Arabs as a response to their message of peace."

This from a nation that didn't even attend, and therefore sign/endorse, this "message of peace."

And the hits just keep on coming:

In Iraq, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, President Saddam Hussein's deputy and Iraq's top representative at the Beirut gathering, said the latest Israeli incursions inside Ramallah were "a Zionist reaction to the Arab unity in the summit."

This from the country that demonstrated its sense of "Arab unity" by waging a long, bloody war against a neighboring Arab country, invaded another (from which it had to be forcibly ejected), and slaughters its own citizens. Peacelovers, these.

And our friends the French:

Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri telephoned French President Jacques Chirac who told him that "the French leadership condemns this attack" and was ready to help, according to Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath, who met with Hariri Friday.

Just makes one want to shake their head in wonder.