Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said on Friday that Arab countries will not play a role in any campaign of retaliation for last week's attacks on the United States if Israel takes part in such an effort.
"It is possible that Arab states join a regional or an international effort joined by Israel, because Israel is slaughtering (Palestinian) people," he told al-Jazeera satellite television in interview broadcast early on Friday.
Several Arab states have expressed backing for the United States in its call for an international coalition to fight "terrorism" after the deadly September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
Moussa noted Arab states had imposed a similar a condition in 1990 when the United States was building up a coalition to eject Iraqi troops from Kuwait, Reuters quoted him as saying.
"This is the second time in a dangerous international crisis in which the condition of action, coordination and cooperation is to exclude Israel," he said. Moussa said he did not expect any American retaliation against an Arab state.
Moussa’s remarks were not the first as he said on Tuesday that
"a number of Arab states will refuse to participate, because Israel is a state that practices occupation." US Secretary of State Colin Powell called Tuesday for Arabs to join a global campaign against terrorism in the aftermath of the kamikaze plane attacks on New York and Washington, stressing it would not be a war on Islam.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Sunday that his country was favorable to such a coalition but was "not prepared to pay the price" if it involves concessions to the Palestinians.
"We are certainly in favour of such a coalition, we want a battle against terrorism, but we are not prepared to pay the price, and I have made that clear to those (in the United States) who I have been talking to," Sharon said.
He said Israel had supplied help to Washington with intelligence information after Tuesday's attacks in the United States, in "the context of strategic cooperation between the two countries.
But Powell later ruled out any Israeli participation in a suggested world coalition to fight terrorism – Albawaba.com
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