Hezbollah chief stirs Arabs to turn on rulers

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Reluctant to react militarily to Israel's Gaza onslaught, the leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah is fomenting popular anger against Egypt and other Arab states he accuses of complicity in a U.S.-backed drive to crush Hamas.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, whose Shi'ite guerrillas gained huge prestige by fending off Israel's military might in the 2006 Lebanon war, is unlikely to open a "second front" by unleashing his rocket arsenal to relieve the Palestinians in Gaza.

Instead, he has echoed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in reviving the rhetoric of the 1980s, when Iran sought to export its Islamic revolution, and chastising Washington's Arab allies for passivity, or worse, in the Gaza crisis.

Nasrallah's call on Sunday for the Egyptian people and armed forces to compel their leaders to open the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt amounted to an appeal for popular unrest and mutiny -- and has drawn a fierce response from Cairo.

"You are a man who used to enjoy respect, but you have insulted the Egyptian people," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Monday, addressing the Hezbollah leader.

Egypt has rejected pressure to open its border to break the Israeli economic siege of Gaza, fearing that it might get saddled with responsibility for 1.5 million Palestinians.

Nasrallah, who has not forgotten how Egypt criticized him for recklessness at the outset of the 2006 war, has signaled he will give Israel no pretext for another assault on Lebanon. But he has also vowed stern retaliation if the Israelis do attack.

"Hezbollah is caught in a dilemma," said Timur Goksel, an academic and former adviser to U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon.

"With all their rhetoric about Palestine, there is not much they can do about Gaza, short of getting Lebanon involved in another disaster. So they are leading the popular reaction."

It was a testimony to the impotence of Arab governments that people looked to Hezbollah to retaliate for Gaza, where Israeli bombs have killed about 350 people since Saturday, Goksel said.

Israel's pounding of Hamas, a militant Islamist movement allied to Syria and Iran, has further polarized the Arab world.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan oppose Hamas for its rejection of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its links with Shi'ite Iran, whose influence they view as a threat to the regional balance of power.

"There are Iranian motives driving Arab parties to play in the interests of Iran," Aboul Gheit pointedly declared.

"COLLABORATOR" STATES

Alastair Crooke, co-director of Conflicts Forum, which advocates dialogue with Islamist movements, said Nasrallah had broken new ground in speeches to his supporters this week.

"He has entered the regional political turmoil by identifying states he sees as collaborating with Israel and by endorsing (Hamas leader Khaled) Meshaal's call for an intifada."

Crooke said this did not put Lebanon or Hezbollah into the front line, but could lead to a wider conflict "not necessarily in military terms, but perhaps in terms of direct social and political action in the region against Israeli interests."

The Gaza violence has prompted big demonstrations in Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen and elsewhere in the Arab world. Yemeni protesters stormed the Egyptian consulate in Aden on Tuesday.

Iranian and Hezbollah leaders, who previously restrained their criticism of their Arab opponents to avoid fuelling Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian passions, have taken the gloves off, said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Lebanese analyst close to Hezbollah.

"Hezbollah is no longer cautious about antagonizing Arab regimes, especially Sunni ones like Egypt, and the same applies to Iran," she said, arguing that they viewed the Gaza conflict as part of an attempt to extinguish all resistance to Israeli and U.S. power. "They see this as an existential conflict."

Hezbollah is looking for a way to help Hamas survive in Gaza, if only by mobilizing Arab support, but can ill afford to embroil Lebanon in another conflict with Israel -- especially with Lebanese parliamentary elections due in 2009.

"For all their triumphalism and heroism and power, Hezbollah and Nasrallah are not able to help Gaza (militarily). Nasrallah doesn't even talk about helping Gaza, which is quite alarming for the radicals in the region," said Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Institute's Middle East Center in Beirut.

"If the maximum demand is for Egypt to open Rafah, it means that, like all the Arab states, he is going to do nothing."

(Editing by Tim Pearce)