Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has charged Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with “complicating the situation further” and throwing obstacles in the way of establishing a Palestinian Authority state. Mubarak criticized Netanyahu in interviews with Arab media following Netanyahu's policy speech at Bar Ilan University on Sunday night.
He flatly stated that Egypt will not support the Israeli position, which repeats the policy of previous governments in rejecting the demand of the 2002 Saudi Arabian Peace Plan for the immigration into Israel of five million Arabs claiming Israeli ancestry.
Mubarak dropped a sharp hint that violence will follow if Israel does not accept the Saudi plan. "The Middle East will be a scene of unrest if there is no comprehensive peace," he said.
"The solution to the major problems of the Arab and Islamic worlds is through Jerusalem,” he added, referring to the Arab world's demand that Israel surrender sovereignty over all of eastern Jerusalem, including several neighborhoods in the capital where more than 250,000 Jews live.
The entire Arab world has lambasted the Prime Minister, who until Sunday night had resisted American pressure to accept the creation of a new Arab state on the land of Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
Most of the conditions he stated are already incorporated in the American Roadmap plan or have been stated by previous governments. Critics, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, accused the Prime Minister of adding new terms.
Hamas called the speech “racist” for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s demand that the PA recognize Israel as a Jewish State.
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas called on the major powers throughout the world to isolate the Prime Minister. "They must isolate and confront this policy which Netanyahu is adopting and exert pressure on him so that he adheres to international legitimacy and the Roadmap," he said.
The wall-to-wall Arab opposition throws the ball into the court of the Western world and places U.S. President Barack Obama into a tight spot. Both the U.S. and the European Union praised the speech as a move in the right direction, but Prime Minister Netanyahu made it clear that his conditions are red lines that cannot be crossed.
His speech marked a sharp turnaround from statements by previous governments, which generally have agreed to most concessions under pressure by the American government. The PA has been used to Israel’s concessions and therefore could not accept the change in tone by Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israeli National Security Adviser Uzi Arad told Voice of Israel government radio.
“They noticed that previous Israeli governments didn't make any demands or conditions and they had hoped to slowly get more and more concessions from Israel,” said Arad. “However, they found out that this government will stand its ground and defend Israeli vital interests."
One of the few, if not the only, Arab voice expressing optimism was the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, the largest Arab-American advocacy group in the U.S. "If [Netanyahu] follows up on something positive, that would be significant," said ADC president Mary Rose Oakar. "But actions speak louder than words.”