But it also reflected renewed sensitivity to feelings on the "Arab street", where the revolt against Colonel Qaddafi has inspired powerful sympathies, intensified by the enthusiastic reporting of Al Jazeera, the region's most popular satellite news channel.The channel, owned by the immensely rich Qatari royal family, has itself been targeted by Colonel Qaddafi.
Because we are allies in this weird private test, thrown together by circumstance as if we have been marooned on the same desert island, there is a powerful mutual sympathy that I suspect will revive any time I see her.
Empathy, Brown explains, is also a more powerful choice than sympathy.
Protest meetings were held and powerful people in sympathy to the cause were asked to bring pressure to bear.
He was more attentive to the trappings of power than to its substance; and he lost the sympathy of powerful elements by his aloofness at court and by the favours he conferred upon his mignons, a small group of handsome young men with whom he indulged in questionable excesses.
The movement has strong affiliations or sympathy in powerful parts of Turkey's news media, including the country's largest daily newspaper, Zaman, and, Turkish analysts say, among at least several dozen members of its 550-seat Parliament, with support extending to the highest levels of government.
During his time as a leftist, there were moments when this sympathy for the powerful in history showed.
The Work and Pensions Secretary signalled his sympathy for the "powerful argument" that leaving the EU was the only way for Britain to regain control over its benefit payment rules.
He brought to the task a powerful mixture of intelligence and sympathy, and, as he seemed to feel for the right words, gave full rein to one of his most reliable actor's tricks — a brilliantly articulate person's impersonation of a sincerity-induced inarticulacy.
The simultaneity of this and other Muslim rituals is Islam's way of fostering fellowship, mass sympathy, and a powerful sense of solidarity that works even without interaction; just passing an obviously Muslim person on the street, you know you're in it together.
