CAIRO, May 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher warned Israel Tuesday against any bid to undermine Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, dismissing U.S. criticism of him as another "slip of the tongue."

The European Union Middle East envoy reaffirmed the EU's commitment to working with Arafat, as Israel pushed a peace plan aimed at sidelining the Palestinian leader.

"Any bid to undermine Mr. Arafat's position by those who claim to represent a democratic state (...) proves the latter do not believe in peoples' right to choose their leaders, nor in the principles of international law," Maher said, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"President Arafat is the president democratically elected by the Palestinian people," Maher said.

During his meeting scheduled Tuesday with U.S. President George W. Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was to present a draft of an Israeli peace plan that excludes Arafat.

When asked to react to the latest U.S. comments about Arafat, the Egyptian top diplomat said: "It's better to consider them as a slip of the tongue, which have added to others."

In Southfield, Michigan, Bush said Monday he and Israel share a "high level of disappointment" in Arafat, but signaled he would keep working with the Palestinian leader.

"He has disappointed me. He must lead. He must show the world that he believes in peace," the U.S. leader said after having expressed disappointment about Arafat on previous occasions

However, the EU peace envoy, Miguel Moratinos, seemed Tuesday to share Maher’s opinion, contradicting the U.S. stance.

"My only answer (to Israel's plan) is that I am here now, working with President Arafat," Moratinos told reporters after his first meeting with Arafat since Israel lifted its siege around his West Bank headquarters last Thursday.

"I conveyed to President Arafat the European commitment to work with him under his leadership, to implement his strategy for peace," he said.

Moratinos was speaking against the backdrop of Sharon's meeting Tuesday with Bush at the White House.

Sharon is selling a peace plan that would restructure the Palestinian Authority, sideline Arafat and delay the creation of a Palestinian state for a lengthy period.

Sharon's weapon is a 100-page Israeli intelligence folder that Israel claims proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Arafat's government sponsored a wave of suicide attacks and shootings, using foreign aid money.

For their side, Palestinians rebuffed Sharon’s charges branding them ‘fabrication and bridled lies’.

Moratinos said the Israeli dossier was being studied in Brussels.

He said EU funds transferred to the Palestinian Authority carried "very clear" conditions and "at this stage we are not at all concerned."

The talks with Arafat centered on engaging the EU "to support the reconstruction of the Palestinian territories, infrastructure, institutions, security apparatus, and really get a firm impulse for the process of reform needed and also to promote democracy, accountability, transparency."

Moratinos confirmed he would attend an envoy-level meeting of the so-called international quartet - the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - which Arafat requested be held in Ramallah on Thursday.