Israel dismissed as "nonsense" a statement made by incoming Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos regarding the link between al-Qaida's defeat and the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In an interview with the Financial Times published Tuesday, Moratinos said he believes that "al-Qaida will not be defeated until there is a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Such a statement is "sheer nonsense," responded a source in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office. He accused Moratinos, a former European Union special envoy to the Middle East, of "using the same propaganda that al-Qaida is using."

"This is a world campaign against the West that is taking place everywhere that terrorists can strike. It has nothing to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict, that has been proven over and over again," said the source.

"The Palestinian Liberation Organization and other terror organizations are trying to disassociate themselves from al-Qaida because they know it's a liability," he continued.

He said statements like Moratinos's "are an example of a strain of thought that is very dangerous to the very survival of Western democracy in Europe."...