Arab spring sends chill through Israelis
ft.com
>>Israelis may talk of the Arab spring, yet most have come to regard the eruption of popular protests across the Middle East with a distinct sense of wintry gloom.
According to one opinion poll, 56 per cent of Israelis believe current events in the Arab world will be “bad for Israel” – almost double the proportion who say the country will benefit.
Concern has been the dominant note in recent statements by senior Israeli policymakers. Some of their worries, for example over the true identity and intentions of Arab opposition groups, are shared by other western countries. Yet nowhere is the balance between hope and fear tilted so firmly towards the negative than in Israel.
“The agenda in Israel is different from the agenda in Europe or the US,” says Shlomo Avineri, a professor of politics and a former director-general of Israel’s foreign ministry. “If you live in Europe, and Egypt turns into chaos – it’s too bad. Here it’s not just too bad, it’s life-changing. We had 30 years of peace with Egypt. Now we don’t know.”
Israel’s worries are further compounded by the recent spike in violence in and around the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Palestinian rocket fire and Israeli air strikes may have dropped off again, but Israelis fear they will be dragged back into a full-scale war.
Another war in Gaza would not only further inflame regional anger, but give Arab regimes a useful target to deflect domestic protests. That dynamic was in evidence on Sunday, when the Arab League called for a no-fly zone over Gaza – consciously echoing its earlier call to protect civilians in Libya.
But it is not just concern about the future that sets Israel apart, but also perceptions of the present. Israeli officials and analysts acknowledge that current political turmoil marks an effort to shake off repressive autocratic regimes. However, many argue that the unrest must be seen above all in the context of a broader struggle between “moderate” pro-western rulers and the “radical” forces of political Islam.
The point was made recently by Yosef Kuperwasser, director-general of Israel’s ministry of strategic affairs. “We cannot ignore the efforts by certain elements to turn [the Arab protests] into a revolution that turns into radicalisation?.?.?.?What is happening now is weakening the moderate forces in the Middle East.”
Israeli officials fear that any democratic opening, especially in Egypt, will be exploited by anti-Israel groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. And they fret that Iran – still seen by Israelis as the biggest threat to the Jewish state – will use the turmoil to expand its footprint across the region. With international attention now focused on other parts of the Middle East, one worry is that Tehran will press ahead unchallenged with its nuclear programme.
These concerns, says Camil Fuchs, an Israeli opinion poll analyst and professor at Tel Aviv University, are shared by the broader public: “In the public, the fear is that things will not go in the right direction, that at the end of the day [Arab countries] will not become democracies but that the best-organised groups will take power. And there is a feeling that Iran is winning points all over the place.”
Just how far Israel’s desire for regional stability goes can be seen in its response to the upheaval in Syria. Unlike Egypt, Syria never signed a peace treaty with Israel. The regime in Damascus supports two of the country’s most committed enemies, the Islamist Hamas group and Hizbollah, the Lebanese Shia movement.
Yet in spite of the long-running enmity between the two countries, Israel has followed the protests against the regime of Bashar al-Assad with mixed feelings.
The Syrian president is regarded by Israeli officials as more interested in preserving his rule than challenging Israel. As Israeli security officials like to point out, not a single shot has been fired across the Syrian-Israeli border since 1973.
“Before Assad came to power, we had a very volatile situation with coups and counter-coups,” says Prof Avineri. “Since the Assads have been in power, we have had a regime that was obviously not very friendly towards Israel, but that was very careful and very stable.”
Adding to concern in Israel is the realisation that there is little, if anything, that the government can do to influence the current events. Officials are all too aware that Israel remains an obvious political target in the region, which means any public declaration in favour of any group or regime would almost certainly backfire.<< |
