‘YESTERDAY, TUNISIA. Today, Egypt. Tomorrow, Yemen,” the demonstrators in Sanaa chanted. Across the Middle East, the ripples of the Tunisian and Egyptian popular revolts are being felt by autocratic regimes, secular, religious and monarchies alike. In Syria, Sudan and Jordan, as well as Yemen there have been mass protests, and leaders in Algeria, Jordan, Libya, Kuwait, Morocco, Syria and Yemen have sought to stave off real or perceived contagion by announcing concessions on jobs, housing and prices.
Some see the prospect of a surge of democratisations akin to those which swept Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa in the 1980s and 1990s – two of Israel's main papers, Yediot Aharonotand Maarivhave even run the same front-page headlines: "A New Middle East".
Such talk may prove premature, not least in the region's monarchies, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and Jordan, clearly less vulnerable to popular pressure. But the prospect of regime change in Egypt, particularly, is provoking real alarm from Jerusalem to Washington, a key ally which puts $1 billion a year into Cairo's coffers . "For the US, Egypt is the keystone of its Middle East policy," a senior Israeli official told the New York Times."For Israel, it's the whole arch."
Egypt was in 1978 the first Arab country to sign a peace deal with Israel and is an important bulwark of moderate Arab opinion, largely at Hosni Mubarak’s instigation. But the “Arab street” is significantly more sympathetic to Palestinian concerns, and the fear in Jerusalem and Washington is that a democratic alternative to Mubarak may prove a more difficult partner for peace, whether a new government is driven by a reborn, secular Arab nationalism or by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. Success by the latter, it is feared, could also strengthen the party’s allies in vulnerable Jordan and Islamist forces in Gaza and the West Bank.
Ironically it is in part the pan-Arabist nationalism fostered by Gamal Abdel Nasser’s revolt in Egypt in 1952, and still very much part of the region’s political culture, which has helped to spread the Tunisian contagion and define its largely secular form at present. Nasser, who overthrew Egypt’s monarchy, inspired a generation of revolutionary leaders from Muammar Gadafy in Libya to Saddam Hussein in Iraq, along with a string of violently destabilising coups and two Arab-Israeli wars. Today’s revolution, though dramatically different, has the potential to be just as transformational, not just internally but redefining the region’s relationships.