Roots of Palestinian anger at US

By James Rodgers BBC correspondent in Gaza

A crowd gathers round the wreckage of a United States diplomatic car ripped apart by a bomb placed on the main road from Israel into the Gaza Strip.

An American investigator inspects a wrecked embassy car in Gaza Strip

As American investigators drive up to the scene hours after the blast, the people surge forward and swarm around them.

The chanting becomes louder.

Then the stones begin to rain down - bouncing off the cars and forcing the Americans to flee.

The crowd disperses only when the Palestinian security forces open fire above their heads. The investigators speed off in their bullet-proof vehicles.

The stone-throwers are a crowd of disaffected, aggressive, local youths.

Jobless and bored, they feel ignored by their politicians, and forgotten by the wider world.

Roots of anti-Americanism

Their actions reflect an extreme - and opportunistic - form of an anti-Americanism which has deep roots in Gaza and the West Bank.

Most Palestinians will tell you that they have nothing against individual Americans - visitors to Gaza are afforded the territory's traditional hospitality.

I see Americans dealing with people with haughtiness and arrogance Ahmed Abdullah, Teacher

Rachel Corrie, an American activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer during a protest against house demolitions, is revered as a heroine.

What Palestinians loathe is US foreign policy.

"I see Americans dealing with people with haughtiness and arrogance," Ahmed Abdullah, a head teacher in Gaza's largest refugee camp, told me recently.

"Because they are strong, they feel they can do what they want."

"In the Middle East, they have the worst policy because they make the cornerstone for their policy Israel, and they forget about the other countries, the Arab countries, the Muslim countries," he explained.

Palestinians are angry with American foreign policy

The policies which provoke the greatest anger are the United States' perceived pro-Israeli bias in its dealing with the Middle East conflict, and the invasion of Iraq.

In the lead-up to the war, countless pictures of Saddam Hussein appeared in shop fronts and in the rear windscreens of cars across the Gaza Strip.

Dr Ziad Abu Amr is an academic and former minister.

He has also written a book on Islamic fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza.

Dr Abu Amr describes the attack on the US convoy as "a serious and grave turn of events".

But he doesn't believe that the bombing - which no group has so far said it carried out - reflects the wider opinion of the Palestinian people.

People may have complaints against US. policy but they don't want to open a new front with the US Dr Ziad Abu Amr, Academic

He argues that while Palestinians strongly disapprove of US actions in the Middle East, no one wants to pick a fight with America.

"The Palestinian people know that the US is biased," he says.

"However, at another level, they appreciate that the United States is there as a sponsor of peace. People may have complaints against US policy but they don't want to open a new front with the US."

Palestinian militant groups' rapid denials of involvement in the attack tend to support that view.

An armed US investigator (middle) is helped to his vehicle by Palestinian policemen

Dr Abu Amr insists that Palestinians - people and politicians alike - understand that any end to the conflict will have to involve the Americans.

"Despite complaints against American bias, we should try to rectify the American role, not discard it," he believes.

The Palestinian Authority know that - and they're under pressure.

The United States has long demanded that they crack down on militants - as stipulated in the stalled plan for peace in the region, the "Road Map".

With the first deaths of American officials in the three year "intifada" - or uprising - that pressure has greatly increased.

The Palestinian Authority have so far fought shy of a head-on confrontation with the armed groups.

They fear it could provoke a civil war.

Now the Authority will have to try to satisfy the United States, while not being seen as agents of a country whose policies are deeply unpopular among ordinary Palestinians.