In the Eye of the Arab Spring Uprising Storm
Israel's IAI's Eitan UAV is the latest game changing technology Tel Avivian's hope will stabilize the relationship of Israel with it's new more democratic Arab neighbors / image courtesy of IAI web site. Editor: I have been off doing personal and work related projects the last few months. Yet, life here in Tel Aviv has been swirling like always. Hopefully I will invest time to keep up with life here.
The last few weeks seem to move faster than ever. Arabs states bordering Israel are looking for big changes. The availability of the Internet and mobile phones make it impossible to shut down reports from the Arab street. Arab countries are made up of a young population, many with experience and connection to report to the world. Even under Arab dictatorial rule, the population enjoys freedom to use the Internet and mobile networks. Even in poor countries, good mobile phones with cameras and video cameras are common enough to make it easy to video clips for hungry TV networks. Tel Avivians tend to have a wait and see attitude when it comes to changes in the Arab world. We have seen wars between countries, economic development and talks of more freedom to the common citizen. If giving people cell phones and video cameras is more freedom, than Israelis are not impressed. If it gets down to real political and economic freedom, than we have something to be impressed. Maybe even something to be interested about. If real economic and political freedom comes to Egypt and Tunisia, cooperation, trade and even political bridges can give us something to talk about.
Tel Avivians are not clear on what will happen with huge changes in the Arab world. States which have never seen any democratic institutions are shedding off their dictatorial rulers like mushrooms after the rain. Opinions here range from suspicion of extreme Islamic rule in Egypt and Libya to optimism in over a hundred million Arabs around Israel adopting western style democracy. Most Israelis are not connected enough with the state of Arab popular opinion to base a well founded opinion in the matter. I wrote about the apathy of Israelis in the article on Tel Avivians sitting at the beach while the negotiations with the Palestinians are stalled. It seemed that Time magazine was completely amazed how little Israelis care about peace negotiations. Changes in Israel are so fast, they may not register with either traditional media (Time Magazine) or with American reporters stationed here. There are too many differences between how Israeli media reports public opinion and their American counterparts. The big gap in how American and European see the average Israeli and how they actually think makes for interesting surprises. This last year, 2011, brought both social protest inside Israel and dramatic changes in relationships with neighboring countries. Turkey, a long time allay of Israel seems to be Israel's worst critic. The two governments have been sniping at each other all year. Israel's foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, has not spared his critical version of faults in Turkey's treatment of Israel in the past year. While France has become a close allay; as recently as a few years ago their government was calling for Israeli military officers to be prosecuted in international courts for war crimes. The incident with French TV reporting on the killing of a Palestinian child in a cross fire between IDF and Hamas forces, eventually proven false, still lingers as a bad aftertaste in Israeli minds. Russia and China were looking like up and coming friends until this year, only to side with Iran and Syria for their own reasons. Both internal and international relations change daily. A single event can make or break both official and street level impression go from hot to cold. International news outlets, from the traditional TV channels to You Tube and Facebook, can sway opinions in hours. It simply means that you need to keep up with changes here.
The only constant I can point a finger to is: "keep up with the changes." If and when the Arab world adopts true democratic political and economic policies, Israelis will take notice. Until than, this small and fragile democracy is going to stick with what we understand and value. Just like other democracies, there are factions and frictions daily. Yet we live with it and most people realize that life is a struggle, both for the equal treatment of citizens and for freedom of the smaller minorities. The same goes for economic freedoms. While the majority of wealth is held by a few families, Israelis enjoy complete freedom at their work and business. This is not a perfect world, yet we still like to see relations with people with a some sort of freedom and similar values. Enjoy the changes here in Israel, come back for more...
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