According to the New York Times, there has been a strong surge in popular support among Arabs for Hezbollah since the onset of fighting, RAW STORY has learned.
At the start of the Lebanese crisis, neighboring governments, including Saudi Arabia, criticized Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war. The United States and Israel took this criticism as implied authorization for Israel escalating its attack.
Now, however, Hezbollah has held out against the Israeli military for 15 days, and public opinion throughout the Arab world has surged behind the organization, transforming its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah into a folk hero.
The Arab public has been electrified by the conflict and by television images of wounded children and distraught women. Newspaper columns, cartoons, blogs, and public poetry readings have showed praise on Hezbollah and on Nasrallah, who is seen as the exact opposite of Arab heads of state, while attacking American plans for a "new Middle East."
As a result, Arab governments have been forced to alter their official positions. Both the king of Jordan and the Saudi royal family are scrambling to distance themselves from Washington. The president of Egypt has proclaimed his attempts to arrange a ceasefire. Even al-Qaida, whose extremist Sunni leaders are normally hostile to Shi'ites like Hezbollah, has hastened to express its support for the Palestinians.
The Saudis have even warned that their 2002 offer of full recognition for Israel if it returns to its 1967 borders could be withdrawn, stating that "no one knows the repercussions...inclusing wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire."
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