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The Unlikely Winner of the Arab Revolutions Is Israel
(Daily Star-Lebanon) Dominique Moisi - For the time being, Israel seems to be the only clear winner of the "Arab Spring" revolutions. The Muslim Middle East is too preoccupied with internecine struggle to worry about the Palestinians or the existence of Israel. War with Jews or Christians has necessarily taken a back seat. In some cases, there is explicit cooperation with Israel. Because it is fighting for its own survival, the Jordanian regime needs Israel's security collaboration. Israeli and Jordanian forces are working together to secure their respective borders against infiltration by jihadists from Iraq or Syria, while Egypt and Israel now share the same objective in Sinai. Thus, the Arab revolutions have contributed to Israel's integration in the region as a strategic partner for some countries. At this point, more Arab lives have been lost in Syria's civil war than in all of the Arab-Israeli wars combined. The writer, a professor at the Institut d'etudes politiques de Paris, is a senior adviser at the French Institute for International Affairs (IFRI).