Nour, a 19-year-old university student, came with two friends to one of Cairo's biggest squares on Thursday night carrying Lebanese and Hizbullah flags. "This is the first time I ever take part in a protest," she said.

It was organised by Artists and Writers for Change, a liberal movement which campaigns for reform in Egypt. Its members, who include Youssef Chahine Egypt's foremost film director, are precisely the type of "mainstream" people that Tony Blair was pinning his hopes on earlier this week as a bulwark against extremism. As a result of the bombing of Lebanon they are now venting their wrath against Israel and the US and waving Hizbullah flags.

The anger in Egypt ranges across the spectrum from the Muslim Brotherhood - which has offered to "send immediately 10,000 mujahideen to fight the Zionists alongside Hizbullah" - to business associations. Chambers of commerce and trade unions have organised gala dinners to raise money for war victims and the two mobile operators, MobiNil and Vodafone, have set up a premium-rate hotline whose profits are sent to Lebanon.

Dial the number and you hear Fairouz, the Lebanese diva, singing Bahibak Ya Libnan (I love you, Lebanon), followed by instructions for making further donations. In less than a week there have been more than 33,000 calls.

Whatever qualms Arabs once had about Hizbullah they have since been dissipated by Israel's attacks, the hundreds of deaths, the sight of up to a quarter of the Lebanese population fleeing their homes, and especially the bombing of UN observers and the massacre at Qana.

The Shia organisation and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, have become symbols of resistance even in such unlikely places as the Gulf countries where Sunnis and Shias have been spotted waving the yellow-and-green flag. Christians are joining in as well. In Damascus yesterday, a Catholic church held a special mass. "Pray for the resistance, pray for Hassan Nasrallah. He is defending justice," Father Elias Zahlawi urged his congregation.

Unlike al-Qaida, admiration for Hizbullah stretches beyond disaffected militants to take in teachers, writers, broadcasters, and doctors many of whom, under other circumstances, would be pressing for democracy and reform.

"When I was young I used to watch people burn US flags in rallies across the world," said Saif al-Adham, a Saudi football trainer. "Now I know exactly why there is such an anti-American feeling.

"It is no wonder that most Muslims consider Israel and the US to be synonymous words for terror ... This type of behaviour encourages radicalism among Muslims the world over."

Khaled Almaeena, editor-in-chief of Arab News, a liberal daily based in Jeddah, has been expressing his anger in a series of columns since hostilities broke out. "There is a surging tide of bitterness and alienation," he said. "It is not simply because of Lebanon, but Lebanon may be the straw that breaks the camel's back."

In Baghdad yesterday hundreds of thousands of Shia youths waved Hizbullah flags, proclaiming their willingness to die for Lebanon.

Predictable as that may be, the raising of Hizbullah's flag by demonstrators in Saudi Arabia last Tuesday could prove more portentous. About 2,000 people from the kingdom's marginalised Shia minority defied a ban on public protests in the city of Qatif, according to witnesses. A Shia website carried photographs and quoted the slogan: "Not Sunnis, not Shias - it's one Islamic unity. O beloved Hizbullah, destroy Tel Aviv!"

Mohammed Abdel Qader Jasem, a Kuwaiti lawyer and writer, argued that Israel's action in Lebanon may pave the way for a "yellow tide" (referring to Hizbullah's flag) to sweep the Gulf.

In Bahrain, where marches have attracted up to 5,000 demonstrators, the Sunni monarchy finds itself in the tricky position of having to show solidarity with its Shia majority's indignation without compromising its status as an American ally and base for the US navy's Fifth Fleet.

A furore broke out earlier this week when the British chargé d'affaires in Bahrain sent a statement to the local press which included the sentence: "We all wish to see an end to the horrific photos of destruction on your front pages".

This was interpreted as a call for self-censorship and brought a headlined retort from al-Waqt newspaper: "To the British embassy: stop the aggression and we'll stop publishing the pictures."

King Abdullah of Jordan was one of several Arab leaders who initially blamed Hizbullah for triggering the conflict, though public opinion has since forced them to change their tune.

Despite Jordan's peace treaty with Israel, the king was unusually forthright on Thursday warning Israel's action in Lebanon and Gaza had caused "despair in the whole region" and "weakened the voice of moderation".

Other Arab governments including Egypt and Saudi Arabia - have also toughened their stance but this cuts little ice with many of the demonstrators."Egypt! Jordan! Saudi Arabia! Nasrallah has bested you all," they chanted in the Cairo square on Thursday. Hizbullah's defiance was contrasted favourably with the somnolence of Arab regimes. "The Arab world has changed," Mr Almaeena said. "It has a new breed of young people ... They will not put up with the same old status quo. The political scene in the Arab world is changing too. In a few years there will be those who will resist even more. "