RIYADH: As fighting between Hezbollah guerrillas and Israel enters 18th day, the people an media in the Arab world are full of praise for the gurilla force for standing up to the Israeli military might for such a long period. Despite concerns and suspicions of Arab governments about growing influence of Iran in the region, Hezbollah’s popularity with the masses is now at its peak.

Having faced the Isareli military might for more than two straight weeks now, with little or no support from conservative Arab regimes, Hezbollah has proved that standing up to Israel military might and its most advanced war machine is very much possible.

The resistance put up by its fighters at Bint-i-Jubail, with very little means at their diposal, has bolstered the image and stature of the guerrilla force on streets of the Arab world. People are simply praying for their success.

In mosques across Saudi Arabia, faithful have prayed for the success of resistance fighters in Lebanon and Palestine.

Newspaper columns, cartoons, blogs and public poetry readings have been full of laudatory for Hezbollah throughout the region while attacking the United States and its Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for trumpeting American plans for a “new Middle East” that they say has led only to violence and repression.

Writing under the headline, Arab-Muslim blood is cheap, Saudi writer and commentator Lubna Hussain worote in the Saudi daily Arab News on Friday, ‘The duplicity and flagrant disregard for destruction of an entire country by Israeli government, the American president, his neo-con cronies and “Yo Blair” have demonstrated beyond doubt that the return of two Israeli soldiers (even though thousands of their Arab counterparts rot in Israeli prisons) equate to deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians.

While rest of the world desperately waited for the announcement of a ceasefire that only America had the clout to negotiate, Auntie Condi arrived to play the fiddle to Israel’s tune as Lebanon burned in the background.’

American policies are increasingly coming under question throughout the region. Lubna ends up her column saying, ‘the next time the Americans ask why the world hates them, just tell them to switch on the television. The answer to their question lies below the rubble and ever expanding graveyards of Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and now Lebanon.

Thousands of demonstrators chanted anti-Israel and pro-Hezbollah slogans outside a Cairo mosque on Friday. An editorial in the Egyptian opposition weekly Al Dustur by Ibrahim Issa, who faces a lengthy jail sentence for his previous criticism of President Mubarak, compared current Arab leaders to medieval princes who let the Crusaders chip away at Muslim lands until they controlled them all.

After attending a rally organized by Egyptian intellectuals in Cairo for Lebanon, Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm wrote a column describing how he had watched a companion buy 20 posters of Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader.

“People are praying for him as they walk in the street, because we were made to feel oppressed, weak and handicapped,” Mr Negm said in an interview.

In comparison, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s brief visit to the region sparked widespread criticism of her cold demeanour and her choice of words, particularly a statement that the bloodshed represented the birth pangs of a “new Middle East.”

That catchphrase was much used by Shimon Peres, the veteran Israeli leader who was a principal negotiator of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which ultimately failed to lead to the Palestinian state they envisaged.

A cartoon by Emad Hajjaj in Jordan labeled “The New Middle East” showed an Israeli tank sitting on a broken apartment house in the shape of the Arab world.

Fawaz al-Trabalsi, a columnist in Lebanon’s daily As Safir, suggested that the real new thing in the Middle East was the ability of one group to challenge the might of Israel militarily. Mouin Rabbani, a senior Middle East analyst in Amman, said Hezbollah’s ability to withstand the Israeli assault and to continue to lob missiles well into Israel exposed the weaknesses of Arab governments with far greater resources than Hezbollah.

“If they (the Hezbollah fighters) are getting more on the battlefield than Arab leaders at the negotiating table, with much more means at their disposal, then what the hell these leaders are doing? Mr Rabbani asked.

“In comparison with the small embattled guerrilla movement, the Arab leaders seem to be standing idly by twiddling their thumbs.”