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What Israel could learn from the Arab Spring

Israel could transform the Arab Spring's uncertainty into opportunity.

Zooming out from the protest
Photo by: REUTERS/Amr Dalsh
The Arab Spring—or Winter—is, as Winston Churchill might have put it, “one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.” Its uncertain path is at the same time both comforting and worrying. But precisely because the Arab Spring has defied imagination, commentators ought not use the seasonal reference. Whereas seasons are stable, the driving forces of the Arab Spring – namely, people - are mercurial. Rather than accept the development as predetermined, Israel—itself a testament to imagination over fact—may yet transform the Arab Spring’s uncertainty into opportunity.

Undeniably, reasons to worry are abound. To the north, Assad reduces his own people to shreds with chilling determination, while the predominantly Sunni opposition has already received the blessings of al-Qaeda. Neither prospect bodes well.

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