Arab angers at their rulers grow

Lebanese sisters Maria and Maya Zabad lie on a hospital bed in the southern port city of Sidon after being injured with other family members in an Israeli airstrike on the coastal village of Ghaziyeh, 3km south of Sidon yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

Nearly four weeks of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel have aggravated a summer of discontent over the bloodshed in Iraq, stalled democratic reforms and price increases. Angry at their governments, demonstrators are praising a new hero: Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.

"The whole region has been engulfed in anger since the war on Iraq more than three years ago," said Diaa Rashwan, an Egyptian analyst with the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. "The frustration is just huge."

The rising resentment is weighing heavily on Arab leaders as their foreign ministers gather in Beirut on Monday for an emergency meeting. Moderates like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia may want a halt to the fighting, but they can't be seen as backing a US-promoted cease-fire plan that Hezbollah has depicted as a surrender.

Even more worrisome for Arab leaders is the possibility violence may turn on them. On Saturday, al-Qaeda announced that an Egyptian militant group had joined the terror network. While the group denied it, many fear that public anger could nonetheless boost militants around the region.

Demonstrators have denounced leaders of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia for blaming Hezbollah sometimes implicitly, sometimes overtly for starting the fighting by snatching two Israeli soldiers in a July 12 cross-border raid.