Intifada fears

In Jerusalem, the fall of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak was met with regret. The Israeli state fears that the revolutionary movement in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world could spread to Palestinians in the occupied territories.

And its true - Palestinians in refugee camps in the Middle East have become louder and more strident in demanding their rights to a homeland and political self-determination. On June 5, a high point was reached: Groups of people from Syria marched on the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. They waved Palestinian flags, shouted slogans, and - time and time again - they tried to climb over barricades.

From behind their border fortifications, Israeli security forces shot tear gas, then rubber bullets, at the demonstrators. Finally they broke out more serious ammunition - real bullets. The Syrian media reported that more than 20 Syrian Palestinians were killed that day.

Sending a signal

Defending Israel's position, regime spokesman Mark Regev spoke indignantly on Arab television station Al Jazeera.

"It's clear this was a provocation. I don't know how you can call it anything else, quite frankly," Regev said. "You're saying we shouldn't be here - you can have your political opinion. But you don't have the right, by violence, to try to come in and attack our border guards and break into our territory. Would any country stand for that?"

But the Palestinian demonstrators in the Golan say their protest action was sending a signal, and that they are no longer ready to accept political stagnation. They are demanding their rights, as guaranteed by the United Nations, to return to the homeland that their parents and grandparents were displaced from in 1948.

The latest Palestinian protests are being fed by the larger resistance movement in the Arab world. In Tunisia and Egypt, but also in Yemen, Syria, Bahrain and Libya, people are demanding to be part of the political system; calling for social equality, freedom and honor. The Palestinians have latched energetically on to these demands.

Opportunity - or threat?

For the first time on Nakba Day, the anniversary of the founding of Israel, which markes the beginning of the Palestinian "catastrophe," Palestinians marched from refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria, toward Israel. "The Arab Revolution is beating on Israel's door," Tel Aviv based newspaper Haaretz wrote on that day.

For Israelis, however, the Arab Revolutions represent a threat. They fear a rise of extremism, and they fear the political group the Muslim Brotherhood. That is why Jerusalem backed Hosni Mubarack right up to the end - in Israel, the onetime Egyptian president was considered to be the person who kept watch over the peace accord between both countries, and a guarantor of stability in the south.

In the north, Israel felt it could count on Syrian leader Bashar al Assad. As the successor of his father, Hafez al Assad, he maintained the status quo and made sure that the armistice border on the Golan Heights stayed quiet.

Now for the first time in years, demonstrators have broken this peace - with the authorization of the government in Damascus, notes Eli Podeh, a historian and Middle East expert at the University of Tel Aviv.

'Syria is creating a diversion'

"The Syrian regime has a clear intersest in throwing flames onto the fire," Podeh said. "Doubtless, the revolutions in the Arab World have led to mass demonstrations. But in this specific case it is more about the Syrian regime trying to divert attention from what is happening elsewhere in Syria."

The mass demonstrations that led to the fall of dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt, and which are shaking Syria's regime badly, have yet to reach Ramallah and Gaza. Up to now, there have been only small demonstrations, mostly of young people, in the Palestinian cities. And the Palestinian National Authority and the Hamas government quickly put an end to them.

But while it is still quiet on the Palestinian streets, historian Poden said that could change.

"We have to realize that the opposition there won't be against the regime of Mahmoud Abbas or Hamas, but against the occupation," he told Israeli television. "And when that happens, the Palestinians will take to the streets en masse. Mass demonstrations are the result of frustration and disappointment. In the Arab world this frustration and disappointment is aimed at the regime. But for the Palestinians, it is aimed against the occupiers. It will bring them to the streets."

What can Israel do about it? The historian recommends the country begin a political process designed to meet the Palestinians somewhere in the middle, and avoid the outbreak of a third Intifada.

Author: Bettina Marx (jen)
Editor: Rob Mudge