[Marxism] Gaza attack splits Arab rulers and the ruled

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/03/AR2009010302017.html
Attacks Further Split Arab Rulers, People
Leaders Assailed Over Censure of Hamas

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 4, 2009; A15

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.

Al-Akhbar used the term "the mummy" to describe Mubarak in another column.

"Does the mummy have a heart and veins where blood circulates? Otherwise 
how can we explain the insistence of this pharaoh to keep Rafah closed 
in front of a brotherly nation facing the ugliest massacres?" wrote Elie 
Shalhoub in a column Thursday.

Even in Iraq, beset by its own conflicts, the Palestinian issue echoed 
in sermons Friday.

"It is a shameful stance that Arab countries have," Nadhim Khalil 
declared in a sermon in Thuluyah, a conservative Sunni town north of 
Baghdad.

The disconnect between policy and sentiment has become a feature of Arab 
politics, especially in recent years, as U.S. influence has dominated a 
region long contested during the Cold War. But some analysts say the 
divide today has threatened the very legitimacy of governments that, in 
public at least, offered support for Palestinian rights as a staple of 
policy. Egypt once deemed itself at the forefront of that conflict.

"That's the real story," said Karim Makdisi, a professor of political 
studies and public administration at the American University of Beirut.

"This gap, which has always been there, is greater than ever. I think 
we're in the middle of something new," he said. "This polarization -- 
where you have regimes perceived as getting closer to American and 
Israeli interests at the expense of very clear Arab and Muslim rallying 
points. They're acting oddly against their own interests. They're 
misreading the pulse of the people, the extent of the anger among most 
Arabs."

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