The head of a radical Palestinian group that rejects peace with Israel shook hands with President Ezer Weizman of Israel yesterday and called him a man of peace, an Israeli official said.
Mr Nayef Hawatmeh, the general-secretary of the Damascus-based Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), approached President Weizman at the royal palace in Amman while waiting for King Hussein's funeral to begin, an aide said.
"He told him: `You are a man of peace who fought for many years to advance peace in the Middle East. We recognise this and, God willing, peace will come to our region', " Mr Arieh Shumer, director-general of Mr Weizman's office, told Israel Radio.
Mr Weizman said in response that he hoped Syria and Lebanon, which are still officially at war with Israel, would join the peace process, according to Mr Shumer.
Israel Radio said the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, reprimanded Mr Weizman for the exchange with Mr Hawatmeh. Mr Sharon refuses to shake the hand of Israel's peace partner, the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat.
Mr Hawatmeh, whose group carried out a series of deadly guerrilla attacks in the Jewish state, has been counted in Israel as one of its biggest enemies.
But Mr Shumer denied the handshake angered other Israeli leaders. "If a hand is extended in peace . . . it is better to talk peace than to shoot at each other," he said.
"There's no anger. I sat next to the Prime Minister and I also sat next to the Foreign Minister. It's all a lie."
In Israel, the Science Minister, Mr Silvan Shalom, a member of the Likud Party of the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, said President Weiz man had gone too far.
"I think there's a line here that shouldn't be crossed. Nayef Hawatmeh was involved in murderous attacks against Jews and Israelis," Mr Shalom told Israel's Army Radio.
Israel holds Mr Hawatmeh responsible for the death of 24 schoolchildren and a soldier during a shoot-out between soldiers and three DFLP guerrillas who had taken over a school in the northern town of Maalot in 1974.
Mr Hawatmeh (62) has since called for a two-state solution but objected to Mr Arafat's 1993 interim peace deal with Israel, saying it fell short of meeting the Palestinian people's aspirations.
Mr Hawatmeh, who is of Jordanian origin, set up the DFLP in 1969 as an opposition faction to Mr Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation.
Mr Weizman was one of the architects of Israel's ground-breaking 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state.