Great Expectations

As revolts break out in different parts of the Arab world against despotic and corrupt rulers, it is immediately being assumed that not only the intentions of the protesters are democratic but also that the outcome will necessarily be democracy.
Amidst surprising calls for military intervention from some who only a few years ago were vociferously opposed to intervention against another despot, Israel is castigated for being prudent in the face of all this turmoil. Since it signed the peace agreement with Egypt in 1979, Israel's defence budget has shrunk from 24% of its GDP to 9% and it is not unreasonable for it to exercise caution and to be concerned for its security in highly volatile circumstances. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comments in his first interview for two years to the British media, the storm in the Middle East and North Africa 'is not about us' but 'that's not to say we won't be put back in the centre of the picture'. Charles Moore adds: 'Bellicosity against Israel could easily become, once again, the sole uniting force in a fractured Arab world

What is so frequently and wilfully ignored is that the only country in the Middle East and North Africa that has really striven to live by democratic ideals and to live in peace is the very same State of Israel that is the subject of a globally-orchestrated campaign of delegitimation; a campaign, furthermore, to which many of those who have such high hopes for the revolts in the Arab world are firmly committed.
A welcome voice of dissent is that of George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington's Ethics and Public Policy Center and a founder-member of the Friends of Israel Initiative. Weigel wrote some years ago that Christianity and its Jewish parent have the conviction 'the world is intelligible and that people of reason and goodwill can build decent societies, based on reasonable standards of behavior'. For this reason, in an article especially commissioned for the FOII he explains very convincingly why Catholics around the world should be inspired to stand up for Israel as a bulwark of pluralist democracy, freedom and justice.
While it is arguable that too much is being expected from the Arab world, Israel is routinely credited with too little.