Could the Middle East crisis expand further than the localised area it is hitting at the moment? This was a thought that crossed my mind when I read an article today about a situation in Cairo. Riot police standing guard outside a mosque?

The preacher at the Al Azhar Mosque was railing against Jews during the Friday prayers. He was calling the Jews monkeys and pigs amongst other nasties.  Outside were rows of riot police backed by water cannons and dozens of plainclothes officers. It seems they were expecting the worst.

Do we understand Arab sentiment at all and is it reported on? Our European media tends to report on Middle East events from a Western perspective. Which one would imagine to be reasonable. On the other hand, having family living in Dubai I now have contact to news in the Middle East which reflects local opinion and the mood a little more accurately.

The New Year 2009 celebrations in Jordan, Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE were either cancelled or curtailed by Arab leaders. This was done by ruling parties in the Middle East to show solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaze strip. For countries that love their high profile concerts and huge fireworks shows this was quite a strong move.

It caused some quite ill-manered grumbles by expats living in Dubai who couldn’t quite see the point of the exercise what after all did the conflict between Israel and some people living in the Gaza strip have to do with them and the fun they had planned to see the New Year in.

In Jordan roughly half of the 5.8 million people are of Palestinian descent from families displaced in two wars with Israel. Add to this a shared religion and the two factors could ignite a stronger participation by the region in the dispute.

Citizens of the Arab world are starting to question their leadership’s stance and support of the West. More popular support is being shown for Hamas and Arab leaders will find themselves forced to reconsider their position.

This is especially true in Egypt where the population is extremely unhappy with its government for blocking borders to Gaza and refusing the passage of goods and people through the border.  This could account for Egypt’s great willingness to host negotiations in the hope of diverting attention from its support of Western political powers.

It could be very possible that the West is underestimating the groundswell of support for Palestine and ignore a possible tinderbox of further violence and conflict. The longer this conflict is continuing and the harsher Israel’s attacks become and there are certainly signs of escalating aggression, the greater the danger of the region getting involved.

Some minor attacks are already happening with Lebanese militants sending a few rockets across the northern borders of Israel. Nothing much has been made of this small attack by the Western media. In fact it was not easy to find a report on the attack.

It seems that the official line by Arab leaders will continue to appear to support the views of the West. Possibly not wishing to knock their customers for their oil? But will the people continue to support them? At some stage the popular vote could push the leadership to making concessions and taking a harder line against Israel. So far the rallies and demonstrations have been reasonably peaceful. For how long though.