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Pro-Lebanon protesters attacked the Australian prime minister's car Saturday, condemning his support for Israel and demanding action to bring peace in the Middle East.
Prime Minister John Howard was leaving a party conference in the western city of Perth when about 200 protesters of Lebanese descent and others broke through a police cordon and mobbed his car. The protesters punched and kicked police and threw projectiles at the car, the Australian Associated Press reported.
Howard's entourage sped from the scene as police wrestled protesters off his car, television news images showed. At least two protesters were arrested.
The prime minister has blamed Hezbollah for the current Middle East crisis and has defended the Israeli retaliation for the cross-border raid in which Hezbollah militants killed eight Israeli soldiers and captured two others.
In his key note address at the party conference, he said Hezbollah is "not some kind of inspirational liberation organization; it's a terrorist organization."
He said there would be no lasting peace in the Middle East until both sides accepted the right of both Israel and the Palestinians to be independent states.
Protest leader Muhammad El Khatib said he has family in Lebanon and the Australian government was not doing enough to broker peace in the region.
"Hezbollah is protecting Lebanon, they are freedom fighters, not terrorists," he said.
"There should be aid. They say there is aid getting through to Lebanon. There isn't," he added. "There are people hiding from bombs. We just want peace."
Many of the protesters waved Lebanese flags and shouted: "We want peace." People in cars with Lebanese and Palestinian flags attached circled the protesters and police, sounding their horns.
Hundreds of Lebanese civilians have been killed in more than two weeks of Israeli airstrikes. Israel says it has killed some 230 Hezbollah militants, but the guerrillas say 35 have died. On the Israeli side, Hezbollah rocket attacks have killed 19 civilians, and 33 Israeli soldiers have died in the fighting.
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