Attacks Further Split Arab Rulers, People

Leaders Assailed Over Censure of Hamas

BAGHDAD, Jan. 3 -- "War on Gaza" was the description the satellite channel al-Jazeera gave for the Israeli ground invasion that began Saturday, a culmination of eight days of bombing that have killed hundreds of Palestinians in the crowded seaside strip. But across the Arab world, the struggle was as noteworthy for what was becoming a war at home.

From Egypt to Saudi Arabia, longtime leaders of the Arab world, the attacks illustrated a yawning divide between the policies of rulers and the sentiments of those they rule. Although the Palestinian cause is cherished on the street, the region's leaders are viewed as paying only lip service to it.

The gulf between the two is not uncommon in a region that remains, with few exceptions, authoritarian.

But exacerbating the tension is an issue that, although half a century old, remains at the heart of Arab politics: Palestine and its symbolism here.

The intersection of the issue's resonance with official Egyptian and Saudi criticism of Hamas has created a conflict in policy and sentiment as pronounced as perhaps at any time in modern Arab history.

Protests have erupted across the Arab world, with especially large gatherings Friday. More were convened Saturday in Europe. The Middle East was dominated by laments at the seeming impotence of Arab governments. Al-Jazeera reported that Moroccan demonstrators Saturday condemned "the cowardice" of Arab rulers. At a protest in Beirut, the ire was directed at Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

"O great people of Egypt," they chanted, "replace Mubarak with a donkey."

"The Arab-Israeli conflict has witnessed instances during which Arab regimes have collaborated with the Israeli state," Khaled Saghiyeh wrote last week in a column in al-Akhbar, a Lebanese opposition newspaper. "But the interests of the Israeli and Arab regimes are perhaps meeting today like they never have before."

The governments have their own reasons for criticizing Hamas, which the region's populations effectively see as support for Israel's attacks. Egypt and Saudi Arabia perceive Hamas as an ally of Iran, whose influence they fear in the region. Both were similarly reserved during Israel's war in 2006 against Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim movement supported by Iran.

Egypt, in particular, fears Hamas's influence on its border along the Sinai Peninsula. Mubarak's predecessor, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated by Islamist extremists in 1981, and through Mubarak's tenure, his government has deemed Islamic activism, in its various incarnations, as the government's greatest threat. That has included insurgents who waged a low-grade war in southern Egypt in the 1990s and the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition group, which renounced violence a generation ago.

Egyptian officials have remained steadfast in their criticism of Hamas. Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, blamed the group in the past week for offering Israel "the opportunity on a golden platter" by firing rockets that broke a tenuous cease-fire.

But Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's meeting with Mubarak and Aboul Gheit two days before the attacks began may offer some of the most indelible images from the conflict. Egypt also has been criticized for not opening its border crossing with Gaza.