PrintOctober 30, 2012
The Arab Spring and Israel
The song of the Arab Spring has ended, but the malady lingers on. Even the most well-intentioned optimist has to acknowledge that the events in the Middle East over the last two years have not succeeded in introducing anything resembling democratic societies or political structures to replace the existing authoritarian regimes. Those events have not so much reinforced traditional politics in the Arab countries as served to underline the failure of regimes based on secular politics to emerge. The path to modernity has not been followed; indeed, the reverse has happened, with a greater prominence of religious doctrine and the fragmentation of some of the Arab states.
The Arab world has gone through a number of possible alternatives in its politics, including Arab socialism, pan-Arabism, and Arab and then Palestinian nationalism. But the political possibilities have narrowed with the unexpected changes brought about by the Arab Spring. As a result...(Read Full Article)
