Arab unease about Hamas victory in Gaza

The US and Israel may be congratulating themselves on what they have achieved with the endorsement of Pres Abbas in the West Bank, the lock-down in Gaza with Hamas in control, and some talk of revived peace-talks, but that is not a view shared by many Arab countries. They see the Hamas victory in Gaza - for that is what is - causing wider ripples in the region, as IHT reports:

"The fight over control of the Gaza Strip has frightened Arab leaders because it was characterized by the same dynamics that have been roiling the region. It pitted a Western-backed leadership in power for years against a newly empowered, radical Islamist group aligned with Syria and Iran.

The Western-backed group lost and the Iranian-Syrian group won, again.

That outcome demonstrated the rising threat to the status quo posed by political Islam in places like Cairo, Amman and Riyadh. And it gave Iran yet another foothold on Arab borders.

"We have a big problem here that is much deeper," said Abdel Moneim Said, director of the state-financed Ahram Center for Strategic and Political Studies in Cairo. "It is related to the bankruptcy of the shape of the modern Arab political entity and its inability really to convince the people with where they are going. Then you have the success of the other side, like Hamas, in making a clearer, simpler message."

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