U.S. Harms Hostage Effort, Muslim Leader Says

A reputed mentor of pro-Iranian kidnapers who freed American Robert Polhill urged all groups holding Western hostages in Lebanon to hold onto them, and he accused the United States on Wednesday of sabotaging efforts to win their release.

Shiite Muslim leader Hussein Moussawi said a non-binding U.S. House of Representatives resolution, passed Tuesday, that endorses a united Jerusalem as Israel’s capital complicates efforts to free another hostage. The Senate passed a similar measure in March.

“The Muslims in Lebanon offered a rose, only to get a stone thrown at them,” Moussawi told a group of journalists from Western news organizations.

The release Sunday of Polhill, a Beirut University College teacher, raised hopes that another Western hostage could be freed.

Seven Americans remain in captivity. Two of them, Alann Steen and Jesse Turner, teachers who were kidnaped with Polhill in January, 1987, are believed held by a group called Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine.

Moussawi, believed to be a mentor to the Islamic group, is reported to have played a key role in Polhill’s release. He heads the Islamic Amal wing of the Baalbek-based Hezbollah (Party of God), believed to be an umbrella for groups holding hostages.

The bearded, soft-spoken former teacher alluded to his repeated urgings to the kidnapers to show goodwill by releasing a hostage.

“So they did and released Polhill,” Moussawi said. “But upon that release, we heard the news of the House of Representatives resolution on Jerusalem. If every release is matched by such a monumentally ill-intentioned American response, why then should any hostage be freed?”

On Wednesday, Egypt and Jordan also condemned the House resolution, passed 378-34.

A statement by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry in Cairo voiced “extreme concern” over the resolution, which differs with the Bush Administration’s official position that Jerusalem’s status must be determined through negotiations.

“Egypt affirms that adopting such resolutions . . . does not help in solving the present problems in the region but further complicates them,” the Foreign Ministry said.

In a statement released in Amman, Jordan’s foreign minister, Marwan Kassem, said the vote “gives Israel the excuse and the legitimacy to continue its aggression against Arabs.” He said it will harm the U.S. reputation “as a peacemaker” in the region.

Zohdi Kodra, the Cairo representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said Congress does “not have the right to determine the status of Jerusalem.” In comments reported by the Middle East News Agency, Kodra said Jerusalem will always be the capital of a Palestinian state.

Also on Wednesday, a delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross arrived in Beirut from Switzerland amid reports of an imminent release of two Swiss workers of the Red Cross kidnaped last October in Lebanon. Muslim sources had said Tuesday that the two, Emmanuel Christen and Elio Erriquez, could be freed by Friday.