Arab world not happy with Hamas

Ahmed Abdel Rahman, official spokesman of the Fatah movement, slammed the Damascus leader of Hamas Khaled Meshaal for his bravado in claiming that Hamas is winning the Gaza war. Rahman said that to listen to Meshaal, "one would think that Hamas tanks are surrounding Tel Aviv." He said that Meshaal is speaking as if he has no idea what is going on in Gaza, and by his rejection of any negotiations he is selfishly sacrificing Palestinian Arab interests for narrow Hamas political interest.

Egyptian Minister of Manpower Aisha Abdel-Hadi, who is also in charge of stopping illegal immigration, has accused Hamas of "terrorism and corruption" and said the leaders of the movement are espousing "an extremist and terrorist ideology." She also tried to forestall the possibility of Egypt allowing Gazans to enter and become citizens, pointing out that Arafat himself was against Palestinian Arabs having citizenship in any other countries.

Qatar's leadership dismissed Arab pressure to close the Israeli trade office in Doha, saying that “they only want Qatar to make a sacrifice (while) they continue to deal with the Jewish state,” referring to Egypt, Jordan and Mauritania, which have diplomatic relations with Israel.

The Palestine Press' El Maamoun harshly criticizes Hamas, asking what they have done since taking over Gaza that has helped Gazan lives.He writes that Gaza had a chance to be a significant port territory like Singapore or Bahrain, but Hamas instead to emulate the model of Tora Bora, the caved areas where Al Qaeda hid. He said that Hamas has failed to go beyond its "adolescent" revolutionary thinking into making responsible decisions for Gazans.

This is not to say that the Arab world is not very concerned about Gazans, nor that they have any love of Israel. But the governments are not nearly the fans of Hamas that one might think.