From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Tue Jan 06 2009 - 15:44:58 EST
ANALYSIS-Arab leaders can weather Gaza storm with ease
Tue Jan 6, 2009 2:09pm GMT
By Jonathan Wright
CAIRO, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Arab governments have weathered 10 days of public
outrage at their passive response to the Israeli assault on Gaza and can
easily survive as long as the Israeli operation takes, political analysts
said.
Although hatred of Israel and sympathy for the Gaza Palestinians are
widespread, only a minority of Islamists and other political activists are
willing to come out on the streets and risk abuse at the hands of state
security agents.
The governments, none of them democratically elected in free elections, have
plenty of experience handling public anger at their inability to stop Israel
or the United States using overwhelming military force against Arabs.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the Israeli attempt to defeat
Hezbollah in south Lebanon in 2006 are the two most recent examples of
operations which brought Arabs out on the streets demanding that their
governments take a stand.
In both cases Arab public opinion carried little weight with U.S., Israeli
or Arab policymakers, despite dire warnings that Arab governments friendly
with Washington might be in danger.
In the current conflict Arab leaders can sleep even sounder because they
have had some success with their campaigns to discredit the Palestinian
Islamist movement Hamas, which is bearing the brunt of the Israeli assault.
"More than half of the public accept the Egyptian idea that Hamas was
irresponsible and was irrational... They are not going to fight, or take a
stance against Egypt or Saudi Arabia," said Sateh Noureddin, columnist at
the Lebanese newspaper as-Safir.
COUNTERATTACK
"The Arab public is outraged (at) the killings of children and women, old
men, but other than that ... they are not interested in the future of
Hamas," he told Reuters.
Walid Kazziha, professor of political science at the American University in
Cairo, said the Egyptian government had made some progress in its aggressive
defence of its position on the Gaza conflict and its appeals to nationalist
sentiments.
The Egyptian government refuses to recognise the legitimacy of Hamas in Gaza
and has cooperated in the Israeli blockade of the impoverished coastal
strip, adding to the hardships there.
It has interpreted criticisms of its policy as attacks on the Egyptian
nation, reviving the old argument that in four wars with Israel Egypt made
great sacrifices for the Palestinians.
When an Egyptian officer was shot dead on the Gaza border last week, the
Egyptian government blamed Hamas and the state media gave him and his family
extensive coverage.
"They have been successful in turning public opinion against Hamas by
invoking Egyptian nationalism," Kazziha said.
Issandr el-Amrani, Egypt and North Africa analyst at the International
Crisis Group, said Egyptian public opinion on the Gaza conflict was much
more divided than in 2006 when Israel was fighting Hezbollah, which won
broad public support.
"For a start there has been a media campaign against Hamas for what it did
in 2007 (when it drove rival Fatah forces out of Gaza). The second thing is
that to a lot of Egyptians the idea of Hamas being a fundamental threat
makes sense," he added.
POLICE DETER PROTESTS
Hamas has close ties with the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood movement,
the largest opposition force in the country. The government on the other
hand shares the worldview of the rival Fatah movement, which controls the
West Bank.
Although the Arab world has seen some big protests against the Israeli
attacks on Gaza, Arab police forces have learnt how to handle
demonstrations, whether by containing them physically or by rounding up the
organisers in advance.
In Cairo, a city of more than 15 million people, the largest gathering
against Israel's Gaza operation has not drawn more than a few thousands,
less than protests in some Western capitals.
"The security services are trying to prevent any major organisation (of
protests), and also the group that can mobilise the most people, the Muslim
Brotherhood, is willing to avoid all-out confrontation," Amrani said.
In Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy with no legal opposition or elected
parliament, protests are banned and the authorities have tried to restrain
popular reactions to Gaza.
Shi'ites in eastern Saudi Arabia said they held a protest last week that
police broke up with rubber bullets and batons, while the government denied
it took place.
A civil rights activist was detained last week for trying to hold a protest
in Riyadh, associates say.
Saudi-owned Al Arabiya Television, which is widely watched throughout the
Arab world, has come under attack on the grounds that it is biased against
Hamas.
"Al Arabiya is Al Ibriya (the Hebrew Channel). It is an Israeli channel
now," said preacher Mohsen al-Awajy, echoing a taunt by Hezbollah chief
Hassan Nasrallah. (Additional reporting by Tom Perry to Beirut, Peter Graff
in Baghdad, Lamine Ghanmi in Rabat; Editing by Samia Nakhoul)
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