Hamas Conquest of Gaza Disturbs Arab World With Echoes of Recent Splits and Alliances

New York Times: By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

CAIRO — The conquest of the Gaza Strip by Hamas has frightened Arab leaders because it was characterized by the same dynamics that have been agitating the region.

“We have a big problem here that is much deeper,” said Abdel Moneim Said, director of the state-financed Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. “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.”

As the shock has set in, the Western-friendly governments of the region have tried to spin victory from defeat. They have fallen in squarely behind Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and his emergency government in the West Bank, offering money and support. Some have even spoken of emotional relief over the division among Palestinians, because it has ended the gridlock created after Hamas won control of the parliament and government in free elections early last year. “At the official level, I would say it is seen as a relief,” said Randa Habib, a political analyst and journalist in Amman. “Things were totally at a standstill. I won’t say they wished this happened. But it is not very far from that.”