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Arafat Praises Mubarak for Egyptian Support for Palestinians
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has spoken highly of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's efforts aimed at uniting Arab ranks in support of the Palestinian people.
Arafat said, in an interview published by Egypt's Arabic-language daily Al Ahram on Saturday, that "nobody can harm Egypt's leadership and its people, and undermine the Egyptian-Palestinian unity."
The Palestinian leader was believed to hit back critics who had said that Mubarak failed to push Arab leaders to take tough measures against Israel at the two recently-held summits in Egypt.
In the past few days, several Palestinian commentators appeared on the Qatari al-Jazeerah satellite television, accusing Egypt of helping orchestrate "too moderate" a position against the Jewish state during the emergency Arab summit, which was held a week ago in Cairo.
The summit was convened to address the weeks-long bloody clashes between the Palestinians and Israeli security forces, which have killed over 130 Palestinians and injured some 4,000 others.
At the meeting, Arab countries called for freezing normalization with Israel but stopped short of cutting off relations with the Jewish state.
"We support a political separation with Israel," the Egyptian pro-governmental daily quoted Arafat as saying.
The attitude of the Palestinian commentators have infuriated Egyptians. On Thursday, Samir Ragab, editor-in-chief of the Egyptian government newspaper Al-Gomhuria, slammed Palestinian "ingratitude" for the stand Mubarak has taken in light of the deadly clashes in the Palestinian territories.
He accused the Palestinians of "biting the hand that feeds them"and denied Palestinian charges that Mubarak had pressured Arafat into attending the emergency Middle East summit on October 16-17 in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh.
The summit extracted verbal commitments from Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to a cease fire, but Arabs viewed the summit result as meeting no expectations and favoring Israel.
On Friday, Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator, also hailed Egypt, in an interview with Egypt's official Middle East News Agency, as the main sponsor of the peace process, denying that the country had pressured the Palestinians to sit down with Israel.
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