(CNSNews.com) – Israel’s ongoing offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip is exposing deep divisions in the Arab world and between Arab governments and Iran, Hamas’ chief sponsor.

In the firing line is Egypt, a country that borders Gaza; is a key ally of Hamas’ rival, Palestinian Authority (P.A.) chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction; and has long played an important – if not exactly neutral – mediation role between Israel and the Palestinians.

President Hosni Mubarak’s government has been strongly condemned this week for refusing to open border crossings with Gaza – apart from allowing a small number of wounded Palestinians to leave and limited aid to enter.

Egypt has largely kept the border sealed since Hamas seized control of Gaza in mid-2007 after routing forces loyal to Fatah and Abbas, whose authority is now limited to the West Bank.

To many Arabs, Egypt’s insistence on maintaining the closure during the Israeli military operation is akin to collaborating with Israel. Strengthening that perception was the fact that Mubarak met with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Cairo shortly before Israel began launching air strikes against Hamas targets last Saturday.

Israel had been seeking Egyptian support in getting Hamas to agree to renew a ceasefire which expired a week earlier, but Livni’s visit to Cairo sparked speculation that Mubarak had known about the looming offensive and might even have giving the go-ahead.

(Israel launched the operation amid an escalation of rocket fire from Gaza, after Hamas refused to extend a six-month truce beyond Dec. 19.)

The accusations against Egypt have come primarily from Sunni Hamas’ Shi’ite allies – Iran and the Iranian-backed Lebanese group, Hezbollah.

Also critical have been Arab regimes particularly hostile to Israel, including Syria and Libya, and several countries have seen Arabs protesting against Egypt’s stance.

Yemeni demonstrators broke into an Egyptian consulate in Aden and burned Egyptian flags as well as Israeli ones. In Tehran, protesting students chanted “Death to Hosni Mubarak,” the Fars news agency reported.

Mubarak was especially stung when Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah early this week accused Egypt of “taking part in the crime” against Palestinians and suggested that Egyptians take to the streets “massively” to force open the border with Gaza.

Although there have been some protests in Egypt to demand that the border be opened and that diplomatic ties with Israel be severed, there were few signs that Nasrallah’s advice had been taken up.

In reaction to Nasrallah’s call, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit accused the Hezbollah leader of insulting the Egyptian people, and warned that Iran was manipulating Arabs in ways that favored Iranian interests.

Mubarak in a televised speech said he would not open the border crossing until Abbas’ P.A. once again controls the Palestinian side of the border. He condemned what he called Israel’s “savage aggression” but also pointed out that Egypt had long warned Hamas not to abandon the ceasefire.

More Egyptian criticism came on Thursday, when Muhammad Basyouni, the head of the parliamentary foreign relations committee, told state television that the Hamas leaders were all in hiding while the Palestinians of Gaza were being killed.

“Arab states are understandably wary of Hamas, first because its extreme jihadist ideology targets them as well as Israel. And second because Hamas’ only major state supporter is Iran,” the Washington-based Middle East Times noted in an editorial Wednesday.

The paper warned, however, that if Hamas was able to withstand the Israeli action for any length of time “a powerful groundswell of support for them is likely to develop across the region that Arab leaders will not be able to ignore.”

‘Shameful conspirator’

Mubarak is wary of Hamas not just because of the threat it poses to Abbas and Fatah but also because of his own political and security situation.

Throughout his 27-year presidency, he has viewed Islamists as a threat to his authority, especially concerned about the growing popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood, the group that gave rise to Hamas in Gaza in the late 1980s. The Muslim Brotherhood is formally banned, but members standing as independents now form the largest opposition bloc in parliament.

Muslim Brotherhood deputy chairman Mohamed Habib on Tuesday launched a strong attack on what he called “the shameful and conspirator stand of the Arab regimes to the Zionist massacre.”

In an interview with the Iranian al-Alam satellite television channel, he called for bigger demonstrations to force the authorities to open the Egypt-Gaza border.

Habib accused Israel of trying to force the Arab nation to kneel, to “divide its territory, loot its wealth and erase its cultural identity.” The Palestinians’ resistance against the “Zionists” was the front line of the Arab defense against this plot, he said.

He also scorned plans by Arab leaders to hold emergency summits to discuss the crisis, saying such moves would achieve nothing but were designed for “delay and procrastinating.”

One such meeting brought together Arab League foreign ministers Wednesday in Cairo, which ended with a decision to urge the U.N. Security Council to “issue a resolution that binds Israel to immediately stop the aggression.”

At the talks, the customary condemnation of Israel was accompanied by some indirect criticism of Hamas. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, who chaired the meeting, chided the Palestinians for not uniting.

“This terrible massacre would not have happened if the Palestinian people were united behind one leadership,” he said. “Your Arab brothers cannot extend to you the hand of real help if you do not extend the hand of affection to each other.”

Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa voiced concern about the internal divisions.

“Everyone is watching as the intensity of Arab-Arab disputes increase unacceptably,” he said. “We must unite our ranks and everyone must stop pouring oil on the fire.”

Some of that “oil” has been emanating from outside the Arab world, but by fellow Muslims. Iran has pushed itself into the forefront of Islamic reaction to the Israeli offensive, demanding international diplomatic and legal action against Israel while scoring Egypt and others.

“Isn’t it the duty of the Arab League to defend the Arab countries?” Iranian President Mahmoud Admadinejad asked while addressing thousands of people in southeastern Iran.

“Aren’t the people of Palestine Arab? Why then has the Arab League is silent in the face of massacre of the oppressed and innocent people?”

Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, on Wednesday alluded to the rift between Iran and some Arab states, and said the Arabs should be wary of Israeli “traps.”

“Our Arab friends should be aware that they are dealing with a regime that is plotting against them,” the Tehran Times quoted him as saying.

“The Gaza issue is not an Iranian-Arab issue. It is an Islamic-humanitarian issue, and the silence of countries in the face of the crimes in Gaza is a disgrace for them.”