CAIRO: President Hosni Mubarak left for talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday after repeating his call for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and taking a jab at U.S. foreign policy. What is happening in the region is destructive chaos, not creative chaos, he told reporters at Cairo airport on departure for talks with King Abdullah. Creative chaos is the term Arab commentators use for the theory, espoused by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, that the status quo in the Middle East is unstable and must go. Rice, who is visiting the Middle East, last week called the violence in Lebanon the birth pangs of a new Middle East. The Egyptian state news agency MENA said Mubarak again called for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, where Israeli ground troops are fighting Hezbollah militants in the south. Saudi Arabia s King Abdullah earlier said Israel s military offensives on Lebanon and the Palestinians could ignite a war in the region.
Saudi Arabia warns everybody that if the peace option fails because of Israeli arrogance, there will be no other option but war, state-owned Al-Ikhbariya television quoted the king as saying in an official statement. No one can predict what will happen if things get out of control, he said. The Arabs have declared peace as a strategic choice … and put forward a clear and fair proposal of land for peace and have ignored (Arab) extremist calls opposing the peace proposal… but patience cannot last forever. The king was referring to an Arab peace initiative, proposed by Saudi Arabia and adopted in a 2002 Arab summit, which offers Israel a comprehensive peace in return for Arab land it seized in a 1967 Middle East war. With U.S. support Israel has set political conditions for an end to the fighting, which has killed more than 400 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and over 40 Israelis in the past two weeks. The Lebanese people are the ones who are paying the price. A way out for both sides must be sought, Mubarak added. The Egyptian president dismissed speculation that Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia had formed an axis over Lebanon. The three governments are friendly with the United States and have raised questions about the wisdom of the July 12 raid in which Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers to exchange for some of the thousands of Arab detainees in Israel. Israel responded with air raids on Lebanon, and Hezbollah then fired rockets into north Israeli towns. I m not a supporter of axes or alliances, Mubarak said. Agencies
