Arab Rift Widens as Protests Grow : Mideast: Algeria’s ruling party calls for uprising against United States. But key allies assure support.

The split in the Muslim world over the war in the Persian Gulf deepened Saturday as tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of their capitals and Algeria’s ruling party called upon Arabs to arise and fight the United States.

However, key Arab countries allied with the United States in the 3-day-old conflict offered assurances, either by way of diplomatic channels or through editorials featured prominently in their state-controlled media, that they will not withdraw from the U.S.-led coalition if Israel retaliates for the past two days of Iraqi missile strikes against Tel Aviv.

Egypt relayed those assurances both publicly and privately through diplomatic channels even as it continued to urge restraint on Israel.

“Retaliation for what has happened would, in any other part of the world, be a natural and normal response,” a senior official said. “But in this part of the world, Israel against an Arab country is a volatile mixture. We don’t want Israel to upset the balance. . . . The situation is critical enough as it is.”

Perhaps more significantly, Syria’s ruling Baath Arab Socialist Party condemned the Iraqi attacks in an editorial in its official newspaper Al Baath.

Calling the attacks a “flagrant attempt to cover the evil” of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, Al Baath said Syria would not be dragged into a war against Israel by the manipulations of another country. Another official Syrian organ, Al Thawra, echoed that comment, saying that the “Arabs cannot be torn apart so that Saddam (Hussein) can stay in Kuwait.”

Tantamount to official government statements, the Syrian editorials were evidently meant to allay concerns, expressed not only by the United States but also by other Arab coalition partners such as Egypt, that Syria would feel the most pressure to switch sides if Israel became involved in the conflict.

While that possibility remained a major concern, there were also signs that Jordan was backing away from its previous threats to treat any Israeli use of Jordanian airspace to retaliate against Iraq as an invasion and act of war.

Awwad Khaldi, Jordan’s ambassador to France, said in a television interview that Israeli flights would be considered an intrusion of Jordanian airspace--but not an act of war. “We are not a party to this conflict,” Khaldi said.

In Cairo, senior Egyptian officials and Western diplomats said they believed that, although Jordan would have to make a show of defending its airspace from Israeli overflights, its ruler, King Hussein, has been told to expect little or no help in the event his forces clash with those of Israel.

“My guess is if the Israelis fly by, Jordan will scramble its jets, but purposely scramble them a few minutes too late,” one senior Western envoy said.

Nevertheless, Iraq’s attempts to polarize Arab public opinion and use it to divide and destabilize Arab members of the coalition arrayed against it remained of deep concern to Egyptian and other Arab officials.

“The missiles falling on Tel Aviv are not aimed at Israel. They are aimed at the weak spot of the coalition,” a senior Egyptian official said. “Saddam knows he cannot win a conventional war against the Americans and their allies, so he is trying to transform it into a symbolic war. He wants to show he can absorb the American attacks and still stand up to Israel. He may lose Kuwait that way, but he will win the Arab masses.”

Street protests continued in Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Pakistan, Mauritania and Algeria, where an estimated 500,000 demonstrators took to the streets Saturday in support of Iraq.

Algeria’s ruling party also called on all Arabs to join the war on Iraq’s side and to sever diplomatic relations with the Arab members of the anti-Iraq coalition.

A more ominous appeal, broadcast over Baghdad Radio, came from Abul Abbas, the leader of the radical Palestine Liberation Front, who called on Arabs “and all you patriotic and revolutionary forces in the world (to) take up arms and strike and destroy the interests of the United States and its allies.”

Throughout the Middle East, extraordinary security measures went into effect as U.S. allies hunkered down and stepped up their precautions in anticipation of terrorist attacks.

Fearing that pro-Iraqi terrorists might try to attack its national symbol, Egypt closed the Pyramids for the first time since World War II, restricting access to tours around the monuments from a safe distance. Guests staying in the upper floors of Cairo’s high-rise hotels also were moved to lower floors as a precaution in the event of bomb attacks.

“If the hotel is bombed, the fire department may not be able to rescue guests from the upper floors,” one hotel manager said.

In Beirut, the entire American Embassy staff, including Ambassador Ryan Crocker, was evacuated by helicopter to Cyprus as a precaution against a terrorist attack, and in Bahrain, officials closed the 16-mile-long causeway that links the tiny Persian Gulf emirate to Saudi Arabia--a precaution they said was taken at the request of Saudi authorities.

Ross reported from Cairo and Freed reported from Nicosia, Cyprus.