Different reactions to Sharon's illness

Reactions continued to Sharon's illness. While the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas considered that the Middle East will be better in the absence of Sharon, the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas telephoned senior officials in the Israeli government and expressed to them best wishes for Sharon's recovery.

In Washington the US President George W. Bush said he is praying for the safety of Sharon. The US Secretary Of State, Condaleezza Rice, described Sharon as a great figure in the Middle East policy.

In Iran, the Iranian almost official students news agency quoted the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinajad as saying that he hopes that the "news on that the criminal of Sabra and Chatila will join his two Israeli predecessors (two former dead Israeli prime ministers) is correct. These statements pushed the American administration to criticize Ahmadinajad's statements.

The spokesman for the US State Department, Sean McCormack, described Ahmadinajad statements as "disgusting from a mouth of a man who wraps himself in the vest of a peaceful religion which is Islam." I think any person looking at the series of statements coming from the Iranian President would be absolutely shocked at them -- talking about wiping the state of Israel off the map." Israel had frequently unprovoked had made bellicose and belligerent threats of attacking Iran.