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Tracking the Arab Spring
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 This month marks three full years since the start of the Arab Spring, the wave of political uprisings which began sweeping across the Middle East in January 2011. The turmoil set off by a humble fruit vendor in a small town market in Tunisia has seen entrenched dictators toppled and nations ravaged by violence and civil war. With 36 months now behind us, it’s a good time to see if we can clearly gauge yet the impact and direction of these historic upheavals. Now the Arab Spring first gave rise to hopes that democratic freedoms would finally take hold in the Arab world. But such optimistic outlooks quickly ran aground on the harsh realities of this notoriously volatile region. The truth is, every time an Arab country has allowed free elections the people have always voted in radical Islamic elements that are actually bent on suppressing freedom and democratic rights. So are there any clear themes and conclusions that can be drawn three years into the Arab Spring? What has prevented the spread of true democratic values and freedoms in the Middle East? Could it be that Islam and democracy are not really compatible with each other? And where will the on-going turmoil take the region in the coming months and years? Tracking the Arab Spring. That’s our focus this week here on Front Page Jerusalem! We’ll examine where the region stands three years after the outbreak of the massive political protests that have rocked the Arab world. Our guest analyst will be Prof. Raphael Israeli, an expert on Islam and Middle East history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has a new book out on the Arab Spring and will give us his scholarly assessment on its impact and direction. |
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Airing the weekend of January 11, 2014 Available on WWW.FRONTPAGEJERUSALEM.COM on Monday, January 13, 2014 |
