Mideast - AFP
Egyptian president says US subject of "unprecedented" hate
Date: Tue Apr 20, 2:19 PM ET
PARIS (AFP) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (news - web sites) said in an interview that the United States had become the target of unprecedented hatred after its invasion of Iraq (news - web sites) and that its interests were not safe anywhere on the planet.
"There exists today a hatred of Americans never equalled in the region," he told the newspaper Le Monde in a reference to the Middle East.
"In the beginning some people thought the Americans were helping them. There was no hatred towards Americans. After what happened in Iraq, there is an unprecedented hatred and the Americans know it," said Mubarak, regarded as one of the Middle Eastern leaders relatively sympathetic to the United States.
He said the first cause of terrorism was injustice. "Look at what is happening in Palestine and in Iraq. Where there is pressure and injustice there are terrorism and attacks," he said.
"It is despair that pushes some people to commit attacks against some American interest or other.
"Despair and a feeling of injustice are not going to confine themselves to our region," Mubarak said. "American and Israeli interests are not safe, not only in our region but in other parts of the world, in Europe, in America, anywhere in the world."
Mubarak also accused the United States of having helped create fundamentalist Islamist movements to fight the influence of the former Soviet Union.
"It is dangerous to exploit religion. They used Islam against communism. And today they say Islam is a danger. You should not meddle with the faith and beliefs of people."
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