Mideast conflict fuels global anger

And the country's top Muslim cleric, Ahmed al-Tayyeb, said in remarks published Monday that "suicide attacks carried out in the Israeli settlements... are one of the highest forms of martyrdom."

"The Egyptian people are angry at the government, and they are letting it know that they expect more" in the way of help for the Palestinians, says Youmna Samaha, a leading political commentator on Egyptian radio. "But what can Mubarak do?"

Arab analysts doubt that either Egypt or Jordan - the two Arab countries that maintain diplomatic relations with Israel - would break off those relations under any but the most extreme circumstances, such as Yasser Arafat's death.

"Keeping relations, even at a minimal level, is more helpful than breaking them," says Dr. Masen Gharaib, head of the government-backed Institute of Diplomacy in Amman, Jordan. "At least that gives Jordan, at certain difficult moments, the possibility to talk to some Israelis."

Jordan and Egypt have both withdrawn their ambassadors from Tel Aviv since the second intifadah broke out in September 2000.

But TV images of Palestinian men being rounded up by Israeli soldiers, and of Palestinian corpses piling up in hospital morgues, are being broadcast all around the Arab world, and feeding a mood of popular anger that has not been seen for several years.

While some leaders, such as Mr. Mubarak, are seeking to channel that anger away from themselves and toward Israel and the United States, others are encouraging and riding it. Libya's Col. Muammar Qaddafi, for example, has himself led popular protests in Tripol, calling on other Arab countries to raise a common army to support the Palestinians.

There is no such enthusiasm for a wider war, however, in Lebanon, which borders Israel to the north, and which runs the greatest risk from a general conflagration.

The radical Islamic Hizbullah has launched two rocket attacks on Israel from positions in southern Lebanon in recent days, and suspected Palestinian guerrillas have launched three more. That prompted Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to write to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan asking him to help stop such attacks, which he warned "could have alarming consequences on the stability of the region."

Many Lebanese fear that a "second front" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about to be opened with potentially dire consequences for a country already wracked with economic turmoil. The Lebanese defense minister Khalil Hrawi pledged this week, however, that "there will be no such thing as a second front. The government is taking the necessary measures to keep things under tight control."

The plight of the Palestinians in the West Bank has drawn widespread sympathy from Lebanese – demonstrations in Beirut have attracted Christians and Muslims alike – but few people are willing to accept that Lebanon alone should confront Israel on the battlefield.

Chibli Mallat, a professor of international law at Beirut's St. Joseph University, says that Lebanon, unlike other Arab frontline states ringing Israel, is on a "razor's edge."

"Unlike Jordan, Egypt and even Syria to an extent, Lebanon's room for diplomatic maneuver with Israel is nil," he says. "The only step for Lebanon from here is a military escalation which would have dire consequences. We are in the worst possible position," he worries.

Lebanon's economy is in tatters, crippled by a public debt of $28 billion. If the Lebanese government permitted a second front to be "opened" by Hizbullah and Palestinian fighters, the result would be war, and "I don't think there is any real enthusiasm for a war with Israel," Professor Mallat adds.

But the decision does not rest with the Lebanese government. Neighboring Syria dominates politics in Lebanon, and Damascus will have the final say on the level of military activity along the border with Israel, analysts say.

"There is no Lebanese position, there is only a Syrian position" on developments along the border, says Farid Khazen, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut. "It's a calculated game that has not run out of control yet. But it's very risky because no one knows what Sharon will do."

• Nicholas Blanford in Beirut and Philip Smucker in Cairo contributed to this report.

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