WASHINGTON - The United States blamed Yasser Arafat for a "missed opportunity" for Palestinian statehood on Monday and President George W. Bush called Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to express his disappointment in the Palestinian leader.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters the question of whether the United States still believed in the possibility of a Palestinian state was "very complicated," but Arafat had missed an opportunity by pursuing violence and weapons.

"The president ... is committed, at the end of a vision, at the end of the process, to the creation of a Palestinian state. ... And that's just another example of the missed opportunity that Yasser Arafat had and let go," Fleischer said.

"So much could have been done, and yet the opportunity was missed because the Palestinian Authority engaged, in violation of the Oslo accords, on the path of violence and the pursuit of acquiring weapons, as opposed to a path of peace and working with Israel to achieve peace," he said.

Bush on Monday telephoned Mubarak -- one of Arafat's closest allies -- to express his disappointment in Arafat and stress a need for him to crack down on terror.

The call reflects an increasingly tough line taken by the United States following the interception by Israel of an arms shipment Washington is convinced was destined for the Palestinians, in violation of the 1993 Oslo peace accords.

"I made this very clear to my friend Hosni Mubarak, that ridding the Middle East of terror is going to make it more likely that there'd be peace and stability in the region," Bush said in an appearance with Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai.

Mubarak is a key player in the Middle East peace process, which has been shattered by Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Bush said Arafat must renounce terror and arrest those responsible for Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets.

He reiterated his dismay in the arms shipment. Arafat denied involvement in the shipment, which Israel intercepted Jan. 3 aboard the ship Karine A, but Washington is skeptical.

"When the ship showed up with weapons obviously aimed at terrorizing that part of the world, I expressed my severe disappointment, because I was led to believe that he (Arafat) was willing to join us in the fight in terror. I took him for his word," Bush said.

Earlier on Monday, Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian cabinet minister, said the Bush team's criticism of Arafat would make the situation worse and called on Washington to resume mediation.

On Friday, Islam's main world body, the Islamic Conference Organization's Jerusalem Committee, urged the international community to help end Israel's "arbitrary and violent acts" against the Palestinians, including a blockade on Arafat.

Israel has kept Arafat blocked in the West Bank city of Ramallah for two months to pressure him to end the 17-month uprising.

"Israel's aggressive acts do not allow any more the silence of the international community," Morocco's King Mohammed said at the meeting in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh. "What's happening in the Middle East has direct repercussions on peace and stability in the whole world." Nampa-Reuters