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Israel and Its Despotic Arab Regimes Shake
as Revolution Sweeps Through the Middle East
By Salim Nazzal
Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, January 31, 2011
Either we live in dignity or die in dignity A young Arab
blogger Palestinian scholar Azmi Bshara recently wrote that the
whole Arab region is heading quickly towards “Tunisization;” a new term
used by Arabs these days to refer to the people's revolution in Tunis.
From Mauretania in the west to Yemen in the east, demonstrations and
sit INS are being seen throughout the Middle East. The kings, princes,
presidents, the one-man ruler, the one-party, the one- family, the
one-tribe ruling system, and naturally the Zionist state are trembling
with fear. The familiar slogan from the Tunisian revolution of
bread, freedom and democracy are now heard almost everywhere in the Arab
world. That region is suffering from major social, political and economic
turmoil due to corruption, lack of freedom and absence of hope among the
youth. This is confirmed by the United Nations report about the human
development in the Arab region .The report outlines offers a critique and
highlights the source for the problems in the area including: corruption,
low investment in human resources, absence of freedom and transparency,
increasing poverty, and decreasing of middle class and increasing of
dissertation and pollution, which threatening agriculture and water
sources. Israel has been worried that the revolution might spread
to other parts which will consolidate the democratic forces which are
naturally anti Zionism. This concern was expressed by Sylvan Shalom.
Shalom has become even more concerned since the current Egyptian uprising
because of its potential power to change the pro Us regime. Egypt is the
first country to sign a peace treaty with the Zionist state which it did
in 1979. This has, according to Arab observers has weakened the Arab
struggle against Zionism. Both Israel and Arab leaders have
reasons to be worried about: despotic Arab regimes have turned their
countries into private business for themselves and their families, and
“Israel” has been occupying Palestine, murdering and humiliating three
generations of Arabs since its forceful plantation by the imperial power
in Palestine in the black year of 1948.The Us worried too about the
situation in Egypt. Obama said that he advised Mubarak to listen to the
demands of the people. Even before the Tunisian president fled under
pressure of the revolution, some Arab countries began to take preventive
measures to obstruct the spirit of revolution from spreading their
nations. In Jordan, the government tried to bribe the masses by increasing
the salaries of the public employees and by allowing the opposition
parties to speak up on state TV. The police even distributed
water and juice to the demonstrators. In Kuwait, the prince decided to
grant each citizen approximately $ 5,000 as a gift. In Syria, Algeria and
Yemen, steps were taken to subsidize the cost of food staples.
Furthermore, reflecting the increasing concern of the Arab ruling elite,
the king of Bahrain called for an emergency meeting for Arab leaders to
address grievances of their citizenry. Of course nobody was sure if any
serious results would ever come out of such calls because aspirin cannot
cure the old deep wounds, to borrow the words of Jordanian writer Ureib al
Rintawi. The Tunisian revolution has provided Arabs with an
example that change is possible, and ordinary people are capable of doing
much in this regard. An elderly Tunisian man addressed a younger
Tunisian saying: we have gotten old; it is your time to take
responsibility. The events of the revolution proved that Tunisian
young men did not fail him. In fact, the Tunisian revolution, as most
sources agree was not led by the traditional opposition parties but rather
by the young people who were using the net to communicate and to organize
their work. And today as we are following the uprising in Egypt,
it is obvious the large role modern communication technology is playing in
the uprising. This is why the state cut off the net for several hours, to
obstruct the uprising. While writing this article I looked at one
of these sites called (Kuluna Khalid Said) and found out that there are
about half million young men communicating on this site. Khalid Said was a
young man murdered by the Egyptian police few months ago in Alexandria.
The Egyptian opposition declared Friday as the day of anger and
the Egyptian government said that it is ready to face the situation which
spread to most Egyptian cities in the last day. Egypt after the 25 of
January is not the same after, declared Egyptian opposition politicians.
In the mean time the young Egyptian and Arabs are continuing to
express their thoughts on the face book and the twitter preparing
themselves to the 28 of January which many observers believe it might be
the decisive day in the conflict between the demonstrators and the
government, “We are tired of being humiliated in our country” a
young Arab wrote in his blog. Another young man wrote “either we live in
dignity or we die in dignity.”Another blogger refereeing to the young Arab
died, drowned in the boats while they trying to come to Europe or
Australia by saying “we are dead any way, we have no other choice either
to die in the oceans or to die at home in the struggle for change.”
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