PARIS, April 20: Arabs in the Middle East hate the United States more than ever following the invasion of Iraq and Israel's assassination of two Hamas leaders , Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in comments published on Tuesday.
Mr Mubarak, who visited the United States last week, told French newspaper Le Monde that Washington's actions had caused despair, frustration and a sense of injustice in the Arab world. "Today there is hatred of the Americans like never before in the region," he said in an interview given during a stay in France, where he met President Jacques Chirac on Monday.
He blamed the hostility partly on US support for Israel, which assassinated Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi in a missile strike in the Gaza Strip on Saturday weeks after killing his predecessor, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
"At the start some considered the Americans were helping them. There was no hatred of the Americans. After what has happened in Iraq, there is unprecedented hatred and the Americans know it," Mr Mubarak said.
"People have a feeling of injustice. What's more, they see (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon acting as he pleases, without the Americans saying anything. He assassinates people who don't have the planes and helicopters that he has."
Israel says such killings are self-defence. But Mr Mubarak said the assassination of Rantissi could have "serious consequences" and that instability in Gaza and Iraq would not serve US or Israeli interests.
"The despair and feeling of injustice are not going to be limited to our region alone. American and Israeli interests will not be safe, not only in our region but anywhere in the world," he said.
Asked about Mr Sharon's plan to pull out of Gaza, Mr Mubarak welcomed any withdrawal that was agreed with the Palestinians and in line with a peace "road map" drawn up by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia.
ARAB CONCERNS: The United States will be able to address Arab leaders' concerns about its commitment to the roadmap for Middle East peace, Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Tuesday amid unabated Arab anger at President George Bush's endorsement last week of a controversial Israeli disengagement plan.
Mr Powell acknowledged that those concerns had prompted Jordan's King Abdullah and Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath to postpone meetings in Washington this week, but said he believed Mr Bush's decision was the best way to move forward in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"The concerns that he (Abdullah) has, I am sure that we can address," he told reporters at the State Department after meeting with top EU diplomat Javier Solana. "The concerns that others have expressed, I think we can address."
Mr Powell stressed that Washington had not abandoned the roadmap - which calls for reciprocal Israeli and Palestinian steps leading to a two-state solution - with its embrace of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza but maintain some Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
In endorsing the plan, Mr Bush said it would be unrealistic for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders and implicitly rejected the long-held Arab demand for the right of Palestinian refugees to return to land they fled or were forced from when Israel was created in 1948.
Mr Powell said those "realities" had to be faced but insisted that Washington had taken no formal position that would prejudge or interfere with future Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on the borders of the two states or the status of the refugees. -AFP