CAIRO, 19 July — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said yesterday he saw no hope for a Palestinian-Israeli peace settlement under Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. “With Sharon there is no solution. He is a man who knows only murder, strikes and war,” Mubarak said in an interview published by Egypt’s state-run news agency MENA.
Mubarak gave his assessment as violence escalated sharply in recent days and Israel sent in mass reinforcements of tanks and infantry to the West Bank, leaving a US-brokered June 13 truce in tatters.
“By nature, he does not accept peace, and very frankly, I don’t believe there is hope with Sharon and his group, which includes extremists,” Mubarak said in an interview with the Chinese news agency Xinhua, carried by MENA.
It was the Egyptian leader’s strongest attack on Sharon since the Israeli was elected prime minister in February. The Egyptian leadership had initially taken a wait-and-see attitude toward him despite skepticism.
Mubarak, according to the full text of the interview given in Arabic, described as “useless” any dialogue with Sharon’s government and blamed it for the failure to restore calm.
Mubarak said Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who was here at the weekend and again for a meeting of Arab foreign ministers, had made a “huge effort to lower the level of violence,” adding he cannot control violence “100 percent.”
The Israeli government expressed dismay at Mubarak’s interview. “If he really made those comments, it is certainly not helpful to the atmosphere,” Avi Pazner, spokesman for the Israeli government, said.
Meanwhile, Arab foreign ministers agreed here yesterday to ask the G-8 group of industrial countries, meeting in Rome, to send observers to the territories as well as provide $45 million a month to the Palestinians.
The point was included in a communiqué ending the meeting here, along with a pledge from Saudi Arabia to provide the $45 million to the Palestinians every month until the end of the year. An Arab League summit in March decided to send monthly aid until September only.
The Palestinians have repeatedly called in vain for international observers to monitor the violence in the Palestinian territories since it erupted in late September.
The ministerial committee was created during the October 2000 Arab summit in Cairo to follow up on the decisions taken then to support the Palestinians, weeks after the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising.
The committee groups Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen and the Palestinian Authority.
