Hamas has failed to rally the Middle East to its cause

“O,OUR PEOPLE in all Arab and Islamic countries,” intoned Muhammad Deif, the leader of Hamas’s military wing, in a recorded statement released to coincide with the group’s attack on southern Israel. “…The day has come when anyone who has a gun should take it out. Now is the time. If you do not have a gun, take up your cleaver, hatchet, axe, Molotov cocktail, truck, bulldozer or car.”

A few have heeded his call. In Egypt’s second city, Alexandria, a policeman shot dead two Israeli tourists and their guide. Across Israel’s jittery border with Lebanon, there has been sporadic fighting. Supporters of Hamas have taken to the streets, from Bahrain to Morocco. In Damascus, the capital of Syria, the Palestinian flag lit up the opera house. In Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps, visitors report a carnival atmosphere. In Qatar, home to Al Jazeera, a satellite television network popular across the Arab world which has been covering the atrocities with scarcely disguised admiration, exiled leaders of Hamas prostrated themselves on an office floor to give thanks.