AFP/Cairo

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said yesterday that comments on Israel attributed to him before he was elected, slammed as deeply offensive by the US, were taken out of context.
“The president stressed they were taken from comments on the Israeli aggression against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and stressed the need to put the remarks in the right context,” said a statement from the presidency issued after Mursi met US Senator John McCain.
According to a TV clip released by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Mursi refers in a 2010 interview to “occupiers of Palestine” as “blood suckers and war mongers, and descendants of pigs and apes”.
“We must resist them with all forms of resistance. A military resistance in Palestine against these Zionist criminals assaulting the land of Palestine and Palestinians,” he says in the remarks to Quds Channel three years ago.
In yesterday’s statement, Mursi “stressed his commitment to the principles he has always insisted on, including full respect for religions, freedom of faith and religious practices, especially the heavenly religions”.
Mursi also “stressed the need to differentiate between Judaism and its adherents from (those who practise) violent actions against Palestinians”.
He also “stressed the importance of building a strategic relationship between Egypt and the US based on mutual respect and shared interests”.
On Tuesday, Washington condemned Mursi’s remarks and urged him to clarify his views.
“The language that we’ve seen is deeply offensive,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, adding “we think that these comments should be repudiated, and they should be repudiated firmly.”
Mursi, who was a leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, came to power in June as the nation’s first democratically elected president, following the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.
Nuland said Washington had already raised its concerns about the television clip with Cairo, and stressed again that Congress, which has blocked part of $1bn in extra US aid, was watching the new Egyptian leadership carefully.
“We completely reject these statements, as we do any language that espouses religious hatred,” she told journalists.