Arab leaders can weather Gaza storm with ease

CAIRO (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 defense of its position on the Gaza conflict and its appeals to nationalist sentiments.

The Egyptian government refuses to recognize 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 organizers 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 organization (of protests), and also the group that can mobilize 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)