• Lebanon: the risks of a wider Syrian conflict  - Nizar Abdel-Kader
Assad could ask Hizballah to attack Israel, adopting what might be called a 'Samson option'.

• The Arab world's intifada  - Phyllis Bennis
When experts ruminate about "when will there be a Palestinian spring?", it's generally because they have no historical context.

• Israel: positive and negative ramifications  - Itamar Rabinovich
For Israel's critics, this is yet another manifestation of the country's location "on the wrong side of history".

• 'Spring-less' Palestine?  - Ibrahim Shikaki
A different pattern is evident now, a pattern of solidarity.

Lebanon: the risks of a wider Syrian conflict
 Nizar Abdel-Kader

The dilemma Syria faces at present is to choose between the Arab League initiative to create favorable conditions for dialogue with the regime's opponents on the one hand, and, on the other, internationalization of the crisis--with the risk of the sort of military intervention that ended the Gaddafi regime in Libya. President Bashar Assad anticipated such a critical choice by warning recently in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph that western attack on his country would cause an "earthquake" that would "burn" the entire region and create another Afghanistan or tens of Afghanistans. Assad also dismissed the Syrian opposition as unrepresentative elements who did not deserve his attention.

The Arab League has been discussing a report presented by an Arab ministerial team headed by Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassem Al-Thani concerning the two meetings the team held with Syrian officials in Damascus and Doha. The Qatari minister warned that the entire region would be at risk of a massive storm if the Syrian regime allowed the violence to continue. He did not discard the possibility of an international military intervention. He also advised Syrian officials to take concrete steps and stop delaying and deceiving.

Many observers here in Beirut, after assessing the mission of the Arab ministerial team, believe it will be impossible for Assad to sincerely accept any Arab League "roadmap" that calls for withdrawal of his forces from Syrian cities, an end to violence, release of prisoners, and engaging leaders of the opposition in constructive dialogue that would eventually lead to real reforms. Assad knows quite well that the protestors will occupy all the streets and all the public offices the moment his troops are withdrawn from the streets. And he is well aware that any reform of the constitution would result in his downfall as president within a year or so.

In reality, Assad still has a number of strong cards he can play. His regime has been quite cohesive, and his security and military apparatuses remain solid and capable. He feels that the resources the regime can deploy mean it has the control and freedom of action to grind down the protestors. Yet there is growing concern that the violence of the regime and the increasing counter-violence of the opposition and military deserters could lead to a civil or sectarian war, at least in some parts of the country. Such dramatic developments would in turn intensify the debate regarding foreign military intervention in Syria with the approval of the United Nations Security Council.

Any military intervention must reflect serious consideration of the key issues involved, not limited only to risks to the Syrian population but also concerning a Syrian decision to widen the war to neighboring countries--most probably Lebanon and Israel. This would be inherently very risky for both Syria and Lebanon. The Syrian regime, if it feels imperiled, could lash out both internally and externally and cause the situation to become a wider war. Under such circumstances, the potential risks would not be limited to heavy casualties from foreign intervention, but could also comprise escalation into civil war or conflict with neighboring states. A civil war in Syria would place the Lebanese social and political balance in real jeopardy.

The worst case scenario for Lebanon is centered on the possibility of Assad fulfilling his threat (made in the presence of a Turkish official) to launch hundreds of missiles towards the Golan Heights and Tel Aviv if Damascus is attacked. In this event, Assad would ask Hizballah to attack Israel, adopting what might be called a "Samson option".

The Lebanese are deeply divided over what is happening in Syria. While the March 14 forces support the Syrian uprising, the March 8 forces led by Hizballah maintain strong support for the Assad regime. There is a general fear that sooner or later the on-going conflict in Syria will have strong repercussions on the security and stability of Lebanon. The important question for most Lebanese remains focused on whether Hizballah would comply with Syria's request to attack Israel, knowing that this would lead to a wider war resulting in the destruction of Lebanon's main infrastructures as well as most of the urban centers in South Lebanon.

Thus, any increase of violence in Syria, domestically or by foreign interference, would have strong repercussions on Lebanon. Meanwhile, deep divisions among Lebanese about Syrian developments also remain a source of danger. The debate between the opposing Lebanese camps about repeated Syrian violations of Lebanon's sovereignty by crossing its national boundaries, along with recent kidnappings of several Syrian dissidents from Lebanon, is causing an increase of tension between the two camps.

Lebanese leaders should do their utmost to persuade the opposing factions to come forward, resume the national dialogue that was interrupted more than a year ago, and try to work out a plan to minimize the effects of a wider conflict in Syria.-Published 3/11/2011 © bitterlemons-international.org

Nizar Abdel-Kader is a political analyst/columnist at Ad-Diyar newspaper in Beirut. He has authored four books on Lebanon and regional political and strategic issues.

The "Arab spring" may have started in early 2011 when a young Tunisian fruit seller, in a desperate response to disempowerment and despair, immolated himself in the streets of a small town. But its origins link directly to the first Palestinian intifada, the non-violent, society-wide mobilization that transformed Palestine's national struggle beginning in the late 1980s. Palestinian activists chose "uprising" as the logical English equivalent, but Arabic speakers were clear that intifada didn't really mean that. It meant something closer to "shake up" or "shaking out"--exactly what Occupy Wall Street has done to the US body politic, and what the Arab spring has set loose in a region long trapped in the morass of US-backed military dictatorships, absolute monarchies, and repressive nationalists.

So when US analysts or European journalists or World Bank bureaucrats ruminate about "when will there be a Palestinian spring?", it's generally because they have no historical context, no idea that Palestine's first intifada spring in many ways set the stage for this Arab spring more than two decades later. For Palestine and Palestinians, the shaking up of the region has provided one of the most comprehensive--and positive--changes in a generation: the end (or at least the beginning of the end) of the era of US-dependent Arab regimes whose commitments to Palestinian liberation were limited to a few dollars and the rhetoric useful for distracting their own populations from state repression, lack of rights and inadequacies of their own lives.

Civil society has risen to become the most important component of the Palestinian national movement--and not only because of the 20 years of failure of the US-controlled "peace process". It's also because the most creative and strategic ideas for achieving Palestinian human rights have come from civil society, not from the leadership recognized (or not) by the world's governments. Beginning with the 2005 call for a global mobilization for BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions), Palestine's civil society organizations have been at the centerpiece of the growing international movement to bring non-violent economic pressure to bear on Israel until it ends its violations of international law: ending the occupation of the 1967 territories, ending the legal discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel, and recognizing the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

Inside the occupied territories, Palestinian activists have built village-based non-violent movements protesting the Apartheid Wall, the checkpoints that separate people from their land and from each other, and the occupation itself. That non-violent mobilization, while underway for years without significant attention in the US, has been empowered, strengthened and become vastly more visible because of the Arab spring. People around the world have begun to see the non-violent popular character of the Palestinian movement through the prism of the much newer but far more visible versions taking to the street in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and elsewhere in the region.

And of course, the victories of the Arab spring have brought to life new possibilities for achieving Palestinian rights. In Egypt, for instance, the post-Mubarak government, despite its continuing control by the military, has to be far more concerned about public opinion than the old regime, content to rule by repression, ever did. There is now at least a divided set of interests in the Egyptian government--while the military is still committed to keeping on Washington's good side to assure continued access to the $1.3 billion in US military aid to Cairo, the civilian government is worried about the possibility of losing public support, and perhaps being overthrown. As a result, the dispute sometimes leads to improvements in the on-again/off-again opening of the Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza, leading to at least the chance for a little bit of fresh air for Gaza's besieged 1.6 million people.

In the United States, the rise of the Arab spring has profoundly transformed perceptions of Arabs and the Arab world, including Palestinians, by challenging the long-held monopoly of anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia, showing images of Palestinians and other Arabs who "look just like us". Despite its longer-term dangers (the notion that Arabs are suddenly okay because they are "like us" reflects a continuing level of racism and American exceptionalism), the image of Arabs who wear blue jeans, use cell phones and twitter and speak English has in fact made mobilizing in favor of Palestinian rights and ending US aid to Israel a lot easier.

For Israel (despite occasional rhetorical claims that Israel would be much better off with democracies throughout its neighborhood), that same regional shake-up has created a new set of serious challenges. With the shake-up of the Arab spring extending throughout the region, Tel Aviv can no longer rely on traditional US-orchestrated relationships defined by cold peace or controlled tension with Arab regimes that had no need to take into account the views, wishes or demands of their people. The definitive overthrow of dictators in Egypt and Tunisia and continuing threats to regimes from Yemen to Syria to Bahrain and beyond mean that kings and emirs and presidents can no longer simply ignore popular will and assume that repression will suffice. (Libya's NATO-dependent defeat of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi remains, for the moment, somewhat outside this process.) The old US-demanded strategy of forcing Arab governments to move towards normalization with Israel doesn't work any longer, as the once-compliant dictators now face loud and vociferous opposition--not the silent compliance of the past.

So Israel's diplomatic options have narrowed severely. The emergence of Turkey as the most popular government in Arab public opinion, a popularity grounded largely in Ankara's embrace of the Arab spring's uprisings and its responses to Israeli assaults, particularly the lethal attack on the Mavi Marmara, has further weakened Israel. For years the quiet partnership between Israel and Turkey, which saw major collaborations on water, military production, joint military exercises and Israeli tourists flooding Turkey gave Israel a close "Muslim partner", a link to NATO to supplement its US connection, and more. Now (with the exception of some continuing arms trade) that connection is gone, leaving Israel more isolated than ever.

That regional isolation was sharply visible in September, when angry crowds surrounded the Israeli embassy in Cairo. The rage was sparked by the Israeli military's killing of several Egyptian soldiers in Egyptian territory, during an effort to capture gunmen who had attacked Israelis near the Egyptian border. Under Mubarak, government security forces would have been immediately deployed against the protesters outside the embassy; this time around, the crowd grew and remained in place, forcing the Israelis to call on the US to persuade the government in Cairo to get the diplomats out.

We still don't know just how sweeping will be the long-term success of the Arab spring. But like the first Palestinian intifada, these revolutionary processes are already shaking up the Middle East and transforming the power and possibilities of both Israel and Palestine like nothing in a generation. Stay tuned.-Published 3/11/2011 © bitterlemons-international.org

Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington and the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. Her books include "Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer".

The impact of the "Arab spring" on Israel has so far been mixed. Like other actors observing this series of events and being affected by it, Israel understands that this is just the beginning of a lengthy process whose repercussions for its interests will keep changing over time.

Israel's encounter with the Arab spring has occurred in the context of several other developments: its own drift to the political right, the crisis in the peace process, policy differences between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government, and the exacerbation of the challenges facing Israel since the middle of the last decade. In what now looks like the golden era of the 1990s, Israel had an ongoing peace process with its Arab protagonists that was managed in intimate partnership with Washington, peace with two Arab neighbors, semi-normal relations with several other Arab states, a strong political and strategic alliance with Turkey and a great deal of international support. This veneer obscured but did not resolve either the lingering severe threats to Israel's national security or the frailty of the country's foreign policy achievements.

It is against the backdrop of the negative trends evident in the latter part of this century's first decade that Israel has been assessing the impact of the Arab spring's first year. On the negative side of the ledger, several consequences can be noted. The first is the threat to Israel's peace treaties and security cooperation with Egypt and Jordan. Since 1979 and 1994, respectively, these have been pillars of Israel's national security. In Jordan's case not much has happened, but the threat to the regime is there and King Abdullah strongly believes that the lingering Israeli-Palestinian impasse exacerbates the danger to his survival.

In Egypt's case, several changes have occurred. President Hosni Mubarak's relationship with Israel had its own problems, but at the end of the day he could be seen as a reliable partner both bilaterally and in regional terms. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that now holds ultimate power in the country is committed to maintaining the peace with Israel and to security cooperation in Sinai and with regard to shared threats from Gaza. But as the sacking of the Israeli embassy and other events demonstrated, it is loath to confront radical elements (particularly over Israel).

In the coming weeks and months as presidential and parliamentary elections take place, Israel may face an Egypt where power is shared between the military, a president, a parliament, a cabinet and the specter of the "street". Most of these elements are likely to be critical or possibly hostile toward Israel. While the peace treaty itself may very well survive, the relationship could deteriorate to a new low.

The trends affecting these two specific relationships are illustrative of a larger shift. Israel's successes in building new relationships with Arab partners since the early 1990s were accomplished with autocratic or authoritarian regimes. Islamists, intellectuals and the street were largely critical of these relationships and remained committed to the Palestinian cause, often in its radical version, and hostile to Israel. Even where power has not changed hands in the Middle East, these groups have been empowered and Israel's relationship with the Arab world has been adversely affected. Peace deals are going to be scrutinized and criticized and, in the event of future conflicts, public opinion and governments can be expected to respond more harshly.

Some of these trends have affected the Palestinians themselves. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza, each for its own good (and different) reasons, have invested efforts in preventing popular outbreaks. But the decision made by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) to take the Palestinian issue to the United Nations and seek state recognition there was clearly affected by the need he felt to demonstrate that the Palestinians, too, were participants in the Arab spring.

The current Israeli government (and many Israelis) takes a dimmer view of the Arab spring than do governments and public opinion in much of the world. The latter have tended from the outset to adopt an enthusiastic, sometimes romantic view of fresh developments in Arab politics. Israelis, right-wingers more than others, tend to be dubious, cast doubt on the prospects for "real" democracy to take hold and are mindful of the immediate threats to Israel's interests and of the danger of Islamist and other radical takeover. This was very evident last May during Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington, when he and President Barack Obama spoke about the repercussions of the Arab spring. For Israel's critics, this is yet another manifestation of the country's location "on the wrong side of history".

But not all is negative from Israel's perspective.

For one, the popular rebellion in Syria has weakened the Iranian camp in the Middle East. It is quite clear that both Hamas and Hizballah have been adversely affected by this turn of events.

Then too, Turkey's policy in the region has been affected by the events of the Arab spring, particularly in Syria. The government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has discovered that its original policy of "zero conflicts" is not tenable and has become divorced from the realities of the Middle East. Turkey's latent conflict with Iran has now come into the open, with Syria as the main arena and Iraq in all likelihood turning into another one.

This is not going to reverse Turkey's policy toward Israel. But it does open the way for new cooperation in areas and arenas of mutual interest. The same is true of other actors in the Middle East. Clearly, the coming years are going to be affected by uncertainty and a changing landscape.

Here, Israel and Israeli diplomacy could take advantage of new opportunities. But for this to happen, Israel must restart the peace process with the Palestinians. This may not be easy, but it is feasible if the current government is willing to introduce changes in both the substance and the style of its policies.-Published 3/11/2011 © bitterlemons-international.org

Itamar Rabinovich, Israel's former ambassador in Washington and chief negotiator with Syria, is the author of the forthcoming "The Lingering Conflict: Israel, the Arabs and the Middle East 1948-2011".

In recent years, and for various ecological reasons, Palestinians have been witnessing a "two-seasoned" year. Each year more noticeably than the one before, two seasons prevail: a colder-than-average winter and hotter-than-average summer. This means that two lovely seasons have begun to disappear. This brings us to the questions posed in this article, i.e. is there really "no Palestinian spring", and if so, will we need to import our spring from neighboring Arab countries?

Looking back on political events in 2011, there is no doubt that the series of Arab revolutions stands out. These revolutions are correlated with Palestine not only because they have frequently asserted as a model the first Palestinian intifada at the end of 1987. But also, these revolutions have influenced the Palestinian approach toward change. Firstly, they have restored faith in the possibility of critical change, and secondly (and more importantly), they created a belief that youth in society are able to play a key role in such change.

The question that relates to this discussion, and one of the most popular inquiries facing the "Arab spring", is how have these series of revolutions affected the conflict with Israel, and how have they affected Palestinians?

There are quite a few voices who believe priorities will shift in Arab countries from catering to Israel and the US to the more authentic forces of internal political change. Proponents of this view assert that the Palestinian issue has been used to divert reforms and keep dictators in power, even by these leaders themselves.

This is similar to the manner in which many countries emphasize security in order to avoid internal reform. Most recently, the peoples of the US and Israel have also realized that and begun imitating people of the Arab world in protesting against economic injustice and the general manipulation of discourse.

A different pattern is evident now, a pattern of solidarity. The Egyptian revolution is a good example of increasing acts of solidarity. This is not merely anecdotal, i.e., not only the occasional Palestinian flag-waving or pro-Palestinian chants. It was not merely seen in the Egyptian protesters who stormed the Israeli embassy and raised the Palestinian flag. The political sphere has been shaken, and even before elections, Egypt's military has discussed renegotiating several economic and non-economic aspects of the Israeli-Egyptian agreement. The centrality of the Palestinian cause is largely born from self-interest, as powers acknowledge that no other conflict has a similar ability to mobilize Arabs and Muslims around the world.

Another issue surfaces regarding the application of the Arab spring in Palestine. Here, the Palestinian "leadership" has been trying, with the unintentional help of international media, to show that applying for member state status at the United Nations is the Palestinian version of the Arab spring (or fall, for that matter).

The Palestine Liberation Organization initially justified this by saying that membership in the UN is the ultimate manifestation of Palestinian self-determination, and that popular protests would erupt in response. In reality, that was not the case. Concerns over representation and the right of return grew about the move's repercussions and, while thousands of Palestinians gathered inside their "Area A" (Palestinian-controlled) cities and squares, clapping in support of the Palestinian president, later on they went back home.

The UN bid was merely attractive to the media, and gave a bit of support and popularity back to Mahmoud Abbas (popularity that he appears to have lost after Hamas agreed to release captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in return for the freedom of 1,027 Palestinian political prisoners). Other developments throughout the year gave us a stronger sense of deja vu, among them "Return to Palestine" marches on May 15 and June 5, marches that truly reminded us of the grassroots flavor of Palestinian resistance of the first intifada .

The protests on May 15 resembled the Arab spring in shape (more than 40,000 gathered in the southern Lebanese village of Maroun al-Ras alone) and brutality (13 protestors were killed in Lebanon and in the occupied Golan Heights and another 23 Palestinians and Syrians were killed in the June events). But more importantly, they included an intrinsic change in demands. This was a breakthrough for many Palestinians who had been demanding a settlement freeze, the transfer of tax monies, and similar partial demands. These events shifted attention to core demands such as the right of return of all Palestinians around the world.

Is Israel in the equation? Yes, Israel is the equation. It is bluntly obvious that one of the most important aspects of focus on the Arab spring is its impact on Israel. As Quartet envoy Tony Blair stated: "It is a great thing that people are wanting democracy, but in the short term there is reduced stability in the region so that can pose problems for Israel and the peace process."

Lilia Labidi, Tunisian minister of women's affairs since the revolution, also witnessed this at the UN. She told a reporter that the questions she was asked the most had little bearing on women's issues, but rather focused on Tunisian attitudes towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

History is crucial for reading the future. The Palestinian street has proved to be much more powerful than Palestinian diplomacy (the street was a driving factor in the reconciliation talks between Fateh and Hamas). The ultimate benefit of the Arab spring is making the impossible possible, something self-proclaimed pragmatists and "experts" in the Palestinian conflict still cannot fathom.

Still, much more is needed, and there aren't any shortcuts. The Palestinian youth movement; the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement; civil society; popular committees and--most important--Palestinians all around the world will be needed for the ultimate Arab spring, one that cannot become a reality without a democratically-elected representative for Palestinians across the globe.

Ultimately, it is the Palestinian street that will move, revolt and resist (whether it is against Israeli oppression, Palestinian repression, or both), not the politicians, not the diplomats, and certainly not people writing articles about revolutions.-Published 3/11/2011 © bitterlemons-international.org

Ibrahim Shikaki is a researcher at the International Humanitarian Law Program at Diakonia and teaches economics at the Al-Quds Bard Honors College in Abu Dis.