Daily Alert Archives

"Arab Spring" Reduces Palestinian Issue

(Foreign Policy) Aaron David Miller - The onset of the Arab spring suggests that priorities have shifted away from external reference points - Israel and the U.S. - to the more authentic forces of internal processes of political change. Playing out in Arab capitals and countrysides is a process of ownership, the regaining of control over the Arab story (and future) by Arabs themselves. Zionists are unlikely to figure as prominently in the Arab story. The Arab spring has captured the attention and imagination of the peoples of the region, creating a new set of priorities and agenda that has set the Palestinian issue in a new light, reducing it to a much tinier scale. The days when manipulative leaders can use Palestine as a rallying cry to mask their own abusive behavior may be numbered. For those countries that have peace treaties with Israel (Egypt, Jordan), Arab publics will finally have to own those relationships and decide for themselves whether or not they make sense. Does the Arab spring reflect the end or the erosion of the resonance of the Palestinian issue in Arab politics? Hardly. Secularists and Islamists - not to mention extremists of all stripes - will keep Palestine alive as a rallying cry. But this time, across the Arab world, the focus is now on elections, constitutions, and the revolutions yet to come.
2011-03-25 00:00:00
Full Article