The “Arab Spring” began with a popular uprising in Tunisia a year ago, then spread to Egypt, where Hosni Mubarak, quickly abandoned by America, fell after a few weeks of demonstrations in Cairo. From Egypt it moved to oil-rich Libya, where—with the aid of NATO, and with Barack Obama “leading from behind”—Ghaddafi was finally overthrown and murdered.
In Yemen it strengthened pre-existing uprisings, ending only last month with the final (perhaps) withdrawal of Saleh, the longtime strongman. The outcome in Syria, where the rebellion just celebrated its first anniversary, is still in question. There—as the “international community” maintains a hands-off policy—initially peaceful demonstrations, facing ruthless military repression, have become increasingly militarized, verging on civil war.
Despite initial American and Western media and diplomatic support for the Arab rebellions, including much “hype” about the imminent birth of liberal democracy in the Arab world and gushing about brave young “social media” liberals making a Facebook and Twitter revolution, the “Arab Spring” has in fact everywhere failed, bringing radical Islamists to power and proving, in the process, to be a destabilizing agent.
In Egypt, the brief euphoria of Tahrir Square has been replaced by the overwhelming electoral victory of Islamist parties (the once-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, 45%, ultra-Islamist Salafists [Al Nour], 25%), with the “Facebook” young liberals polling under 2%). Functionally, SCAF, the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, the army, remains in power (as it has been since the Colonels’ Revolt against the monarchy 60 years ago culminated in Gamal Abdel Nasser’s dictatorship).
Wherever the “Arab Spring” rebellions have not succeeded, relative stability has been maintained: Monarchical Saudi Arabia itself, the conservative Sunni monarchy in Bahrain (which—with Saudi military support—disregarded American pressure to negotiate with Shiite rebels). And the popular King of Morocco outflanked radicals by issuing modest reforms.
Lebanon is a special case: there the Syria-backed Shiite Hezbollah terrorists, predominant in Parliament, now face the potential loss of Iranian-supplied and Damascus-transmitted money and arms, and the revival of the Western-backed Sunni/Druse movement. In Gaza, the Iranian-backed Hamas is similarly weakened as Syria totters.
The consequences of these shifts for Israel are both negative, and positive.
First, the negative: Generally, where the rebellions have succeeded (on the basis of “one election, once”), the new Islamist regimes are far more likely to espouse mass anti-Israel sentiment. And these regimes (the Sunni opposition in Syria, Yemen) can be more easily penetrated by al-Qaeda, still a force despite Bin Laden’s killing.
Egypt, the leading, and largest, Arab state, with its modernized, American-supplied and -trained army and air-force, is most worrisome. In Syria, if Sunni Islamists—who may be close to Al-Qaeda—come to power, they will have access to Damascus’ huge chemical- and germ-warfare weapons and advanced missile stockpile.
(N.B.: While no popular Islamist rebellion has yet broken out either in the Palestinian Authority-administered territories or in Gaza, an Egyptian reneging on the 1979 land-for-peace treaty will further weaken the currently stalled peace-process. It will demonstrate the foolishness of exchanging real assets—strategically important parts of Judea, Samaria, and perhaps even Jerusalem—for pieces of paper with unstable, radical Arab regimes.)
But there are, nevertheless, important positive aspects as well: The failed ‘Arab Spring’ rebellions, producing prolonged socio-economic and political instability can mean both political-military weakening and a turning-inward, away from a focus on Israel.
Here, the key reality is Islamicization, the coming-to-power of backward religious parties; functionally, this means an end to whatever modernization or hope of political and economic progress and liberalization (extension of human rights) there may have been.
The artificial, Western-imposed Arab state-structures may well now descend into atavistic, tribal, inward-looking, and pre-modern socio-political somnolence. On balance, such disaggregation and division would seem more probable than any sustained resumption of the war against the Jewish state.
Hence, despite ongoing ideological anti-Israelism, the failed ‘Arab Spring’ probably
means a marked lessening of the actual threat to Israel.
But of course, before we heave a sigh of (relative) relief, we must never forget the one truly clear and overarching existential threat facing Israel today: genocidal Iran’s imminent nuclear empowerment.
(Prof. Frederick Krantz is Director of the Canadian Institute
for Jewish Research, and editor of its Daily Briefing,
ISRAFAX, and CIJR Blog publications.)
