The frontrunner in Egypt's upcoming presidential election, Amr Mussa, distanced himself from his country's past policies towards Israel and told AFP in an interview his government would be frank with the US.
The outgoing Arab League secretary general said that Egypt's regional standing had diminished under ousted leader Hosni Mubarak, who was seen as a key ally of the United States and Israel.
Mussa said he would maintain a strong but more independent relationship with Washington, which underwrites most of Egypt's foreign aid.
"The policies that we saw were not supported by the people, nor understood by many," said the veteran diplomat who himself served as Mubarak's foreign minister for a decade.
Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace deal with Israel, in 1979. Maintaining the peace, after three costly wars, was one of the few things many Egyptians credited Mubarak with.
But Israel remains deeply unpopular in the Arab world's most populous state because of its policies towards Palestinians.
Mussa is currently considered the likely winner in the presidential election scheduled for November, the country's first since a revolt overthrew Mubarak in February.
"The Palestinian cause has a basis and principles agreed on by the Arabs, and we will work according to them" he said, referring to a 2002 proposal by the 22-member Arab League to recognise Israel in return for its withdrawal from occupied Arab lands. "Any policy that goes against the public mood and the opinions it adopts is wrong, especially on sensitive matters such as Palestine," he said, clarifying that the 1979 treaty would not be touched.
"You can't have the people opposing the siege of Gaza, and a policy for the Gaza siege," he said, referring to a blockade by Israel and Egypt in place since the Islamist Hamas movement seized the enclave in 2007.
The foreign minister of Egypt's caretaker cabinet has said that Egypt would open its border crossing with the Palestinian territory.
Mussa, 74, is as popular in Egypt as he is disliked in Israel for his often scathing remarks against its practices in occupied Palestinian territories.