AMMAN/CAIRO, 23 March 2004 — Israel’s assassination of Hamas’ revered spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin yesterday sparked a wave of anger across the Arab world, embarrassing moderate governments Egypt and Jordan which have peace treaties with the Jewish state.

Both countries were swift to join more radical states in condemning Yassin’s killing in a morning air raid which drew street protests across the region and calls for dire revenge against Israel by Palestinian militant groups.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced he was canceling his government’s participation in 25th anniversary celebrations for the Camp David accords with Israel, as thousands demonstrated on university campuses around the country.

Mubarak said the Israeli assassination “aborts all efforts” to revive the Middle East peace process, including those of Egypt. A delegation led by foreign affairs committee chairman Mustafa Al-Fekki was to have traveled to Israel for the festivities marking the first peace agreement between an Arab government and the Jewish state.

Demonstrations were held in several universities in Cairo as well as those in the Delta town of Kafr Al-Sheikh, the southern city of Asyut, and in the Mediterranean cities of Alexandria and Port Said, witnesses and police said.

The Palestinian Authority government also “condoled lofty Palestinian people and the Arab and Islamic nations on the death of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and a number of his aides and other Palestinian citizens, who were assassinated by Israeli terrorists.

The Palestinian government expressed “deep concern for this serious worsening of the ongoing Israeli aggression against our people and our political leadership, an aggression which opens the door for the escalation of violence between the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.”

In Jordan, the government faced demands for an immediate end to its own 1994 peace treaty with Israel. “We’ve had enough and can no longer remain silent in the face of governments’ treating with the enemy,” the main opposition Islamic Action Front said in a statement.

“The agreements signed, contacts and constant coordination amount to a smokescreen for the crimes of the enemy that is tantamount to complicity.

“Those who establish contacts with the enemy are isolating themselves from their (Arab and Islamic) nation,” it said, promising that the Yassin’s killing “will shred all the evil agreements” between Arab countries and the Jewish state.

The Israeli strike against by far the most popular Palestinian leader came at an awkward time for Jordan’s moderate leadership, following just days after an unannounced visit to the Jewish state by King Abdallah. The king was quick to condemn the killing, saying “this crime will lead to more escalation, violence and instability” in the region.

Thousands took to the streets of both the capital and the kingdom’s Palestinian refugee camps to condemn the killing and demand revenge.

At a rally in Amman, the head of the lawyers’ association, Hussein Mjalli, demanded an end to his government’s dealings with Israel and called for an hour’s protest strike at Jordanian courts today.

In Baghdad, Iraq’s US-installed interim Governing Council warned the killing could fuel violence in Iraq and endanger the whole region. And an outspoken Shiite Muslim cleric Adnan Al-Assadi said he and his followers were ready to give “moral or real support” to Hamas.

In the Gulf state of Kuwait, Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah predicted the killing would ignite more violence. In Qatar, Foreign Ministry spokesman accused the Jewish state of trying to “destroy all chances for peace”.

In neighboring Bahrain, Information Minister Nabil Al-Hamr condemned the killing as a “crime” that will only complicate the Middle East crisis and heighten violence.

Syrian President Bashar Assad condemned the killing as a “dangerous escalation” and “an odious crime”. And the Libyan Foreign Ministry denounced “the hideous crimes committed by Israel in an arbitrary and indiscriminate way against the Palestinian people.”

The head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance fighters said Israel would pay the highest price yet for Yassin’s assassination. “The Zionists will discover soon that they have committed a very big folly, to add to their series of previous follies,” said Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.