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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/opinion/17iht-edsharansky17.html
A Moment of Moral Clarity on the Arab Spring
(New York Times) Natan Sharansky - Something very important and very dramatic is happening in the Arab-Muslim Middle East. The peoples of the region are deciding to stop living in fear, and are risking life and limb to rid themselves of one seemingly immovable autocracy after another. In so doing, they are simultaneously repudiating the unspoken agreements that the West has reached over the years with their dictators, agreements that bartered the people's freedom for a facade of stability. Engaging with a dictatorial regime and engaging with its people are two different things, and the same goes for disengagement. The U.S. engaged with and subsidized the dictatorship in Cairo, and America is cordially hated by Egyptians; the U.S. and the mullahs in Tehran could not be more disengaged, and America is loved by the Iranians. It is past time to start delegitimizing the evil regimes. It is not a matter of sending troops. It is a matter of saying, not softly but loudly and in the clearest possible terms, that those who violate the human rights of their people cannot be our partners in building a world safe for human rights. To those millions crossing, or waiting to cross, the line into freedom, we can send a simple but thrilling message of support and solidarity: We are with you. No dictator is a legitimate representative of his people. The writer, a former Soviet political prisoner, is chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel.