By John Myhill
The Arab Spring has created a new political situation in the Middle East. I am not referring to any hope that real democracy, much less any interest in peace with Israel, will take hold, but rather to a reconfiguring of relations between the religious groups and the Arab street.
Some of this is certainly bad for Israel: The Sunni masses don’t seem willing to continue accepting dictators like Hosni Mubarak, who make peace treaties with Israel that at least stave off war, even if they don’t lead to real peace. But there is also something very positive about this: The Sunni masses are also no longer willing to accept non-Sunni regimes simply because they act hostile to Israel.
This is the conclusion that must be drawn from Syria: In radical contrast to the earlier situation, the Alawite regime has not been able to distract the Sunni masses by pointing to the “Zionist enemy.”
The ongoing revolt in Syria may have begun under the banner of “democracy,” and it may still be misunderstood and misrepresented as such in the international media, but this is not why it is continuing. It is continuing because the Sunnis hate the Alawite “infidels” who have taken over the country, while the Alawites are terrified at the prospect of a Sunni takeover that, they know, would almost certainly be followed by a program of genocide against them. The Sunnis make up 70 percent of Syria’s population, the Alawites only 12%, and the parallels to the Rwanda genocide of 1994 are all too clear. Read more »
