Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Egypt, the first Arab state to make peace with Israel, is accused by protesters on the streets of the Middle East of collusion with Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

Demonstrators in Yemen stormed the Egyptian consulate today, and protesters in Beirut hurled stones at the Egyptian embassy yesterday. The charges against Egypt were stirred up by Hamas in the face of Egypt’s reluctance to open its border with Gaza, analysts said.

President Hosni Mubarak said today that Egypt won’t reopen its Rafah crossing into Gaza until the rule of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is restored there. Hamas took control of Gaza in a battle with Abbas’s Fatah faction in 2007.

Egypt “failed to ward off the perception that it is conspiring with Israel in declaring a war on the Palestinians,” said Diaa Rashwan, an analyst with the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. “Israel set up a trap for Egypt and Egypt walked pretty well into it.”

Israel started air strikes on the Gaza Strip on Dec. 27, a day after Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met with Mubarak in Cairo. Photos of Livni, smiling and holding hands with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit hours before the offensive started, were widely published in Arab media and portrayed as evidence of Egyptian complicity.

“The reality is Hamas doesn’t want to take responsibility for the disaster so it chose to attack Egypt as the best defense,” Saudi columnist Abdelrahm al Rashed wrote in the London-based Asharq Alawsat newspaper. “Hamas blames the Egyptians for everything.”

Hamas spokesman Fawzy Barhoum said on Qatar-based Al- Jazeera television that Egyptian officials told the militant Islamic group that Israel wouldn’t strike any time soon, suggesting that Egypt misled them, a charge that Egypt denied.

Blessing for War

Livni used tough language against Hamas during her visit to Cairo, reinforcing a perception that Egypt, once the bastion of Arab nationalism, gave its blessing for the war on Gaza. While Arab protesters usually attack U.S. symbols during similar conflicts, this time they went for Egyptian ones.

Egypt was the first Arab country to establish diplomatic relations under the Camp David accords that followed late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s historic visit to Israel in 1977. Sadat was assassinated by Islamic extremists in 1981.

Several regional leaders took to the airwaves of Al-Jazeera to accuse Egypt of collusion in the Israeli operation that has so far killed at least 370 Palestinians and wounded more than 1,700. Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah singled Egypt out for criticism in a televised speech on Dec. 28.

Hezbollah Call

Nasrallah called on Egyptians to defy their government and go out in their millions to protest the Israeli strikes and force open the Rafah crossing into Gaza. Hannibal Qaddafi, one of the sons of the Libyan leader, used Al-Jazeera to censure his country’s neighbor for not allowing in aid to the Palestinians. Egypt later said its airports were open for aid to Palestinians.

Al-Jazeera ran round-the-clock interviews with analysts and activists who lashed out at Egypt as well as Israel. Today, demonstrators in Yemen broke into the Egyptian consulate in Sanaa and vandalized furniture. Other rallies, in Amman, Beirut, Damascus and Tripoli, headed toward Egyptian embassies.

Even countries that often stay clear of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, such as Algeria, called on Egypt to open its border. Domestically, the Egyptian government faced similar pressure.

Students burned Israeli flags at Cairo University, while members of professional unions, including doctors, lawyers and journalists, demanded the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and an end to Egypt natural gas sales to Israel. The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group, decried “official silence.”

To counter these attacks, the Egyptian government started a media campaign on state-run television with images of Egyptian aid reaching Gaza and reminders of previous backing for the Palestinians.

To contact the reporter on this story: Emad Mekay in Cairo emekay@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: December 30, 2008 10:38 EST