These days it seems that every time I sit down to put pen to paper the world has undergone another revolution in a country no one could have predicted. We started off over a month ago with Tunisia, then we had the shock of the fall of the Mubarak regime in Egypt, and now it seems for all the world as if Libya is undergoing the most traumatic and most violent change of all.

Let’s not beat about the bush here. Khadaffi is nuts! He’s a psychotic fruitcake who had managed to somehow worm his weasly way back into the arms of the international community who couldn’t resist the lure of the oil and gas riches that his vast kingdom presented to them. Britain fell for it. The US fell for it. And Europe fell for it too. The probability is that like so many nutters he has a certain charisma and personal charm.

My dear departed grandma reminded me more than once that “you are judged by the company you keep”. Maybe if the world powers had remembered that old saying and looked at Khadaffi’s closest pals, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad of Iran and Kim Jung Il of North Korea, they might have thought twice about cosying up to the man that has now turned the Libyan military on his very own people causing masses of needless bloodshed.

The man is crazy, and very dangerous. Now he is threatening to blow up the oil pipelines and to die 'fighting for Libya'. I think I’ve figured out where he got the idea to go out in a ‘blaze of glory’ from. I have this image in my head of Khadaffi tucked away in an underground bunker, munching furiously at a large packet of Pringles, and slugging back a full bottle of sloe gin, whilst watching the old 1949 James Cagney movie ‘White Heat’ – a cinema classic.

The magnificent Cagney plays violent criminal Cody Jarrett who thinks nothing of murdering anyone that crosses his path, but is thoroughly devoted to his mother. (I’m not sure quite what sort of a woman Mrs Khadaffi was, but I bet she thought her boy was an absolute darling!)

The climax of the film sees Cagney, (overcome with grief at the death of his mother and seeing his criminal empire crumble), pursued by the cops and chased onto the top of a huge gas terminal from where he attempts to shoot as may authority figures as he can. After he himself gets shot twice, he turns his gun on the gas terminal in an attempt to take as many people with him as possible. With the fire blazing around him he realizes his number’s up and screams in a murderous, laughing tone "Made It Ma. Top of The World!" Then the whole lot blows up in a massive explosion and the film ends.

I very much hope I’m wrong, but I think Khadaffi is probably a closet James Cagney fan and, unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality, is going to do something catastrophic before he finally meets his end. What a fruitcake.

And now, (and in no way by means of trying to offend those listeners that keep kosher), to the ham, everyone’s favourite deluded pantomime villain, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. The Iranian president seems to revel in his ‘over-the-top’ portrayal of the archetypal bad guy. Indeed, like so many dictators before him he seems to have become a charicature of himself, doing and saying things ever more crazy every time he opens his mouth. He is so far detached from reality that after brutally suppressing the protesters on the streets of both Tehran and Shiraz during the last week, (and reportedly killing a not insignificant number), he has the bare-faced cheek to go on Iranian television condemning the violence in other Arab states like Egypt, Bahrain, and even his old pal Khadaffi’s mob in Libya.

Returning to my grandma’s good advice, Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey, who rolled out the red carpet for Ahmedinejad last week and greeted him like a long lost brother, should be very careful who he is cosying up to. Turkey’s lurch towards radical Islam could backfire internally, with a significant percentage of both the military and the secular majority surely becoming embarrassed by the position their leader is taking. They might let him go so far, but then they will have to act, and having seen the precedent set in Arab states, the only Muslim democracy in the region could also be treading on very thin ice.

So we’ve discussed the fruitcake, thought a little bit about the ham, and now for the sour grapes. I would like it explained to me, (because I’m not very bright and have been struggling to come up with the answer after giving it much thought), just why Israel has been mentioned more and more in recent news reports relating to the regime changes in the Arab world?

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, these changes have nothing to do with Israel or the Palestinian situation, it’s just sour grapes on the part of those who always believe that Israel is responsible for all the world’s ills. What we have seen over the last month are the actions of downtrodden, disenfranchised peoples who have reached the end of the line and refuse to meekly go along any more with the military dictatorships, cronyism and rampant corruption of the last 30 or 40 years. Millions of people in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and elsewhere in the region have been starving whilst their leaders lined their bank vaults with gold bullion, built up vast real estate wealth around the globe, and stuffed bank accounts full of money in Switzerland and a dazzling array of off-shore havens.

The tragic spark of the desperate young Tunisian man setting himself on fire after being refused a job for the umpteenth time because he couldn’t afford to pay a bribe to one of the city officials, has engulfed the whole of the region. But Israel has played no part in any of the regime change or revolution. Indeed, for Israel, distasteful as many of the regimes were, they at least knew where the enemy was and who was in charge. Now, Israel has to be on her guard more than ever before in what is a fluid and highly volatile situation that could take us all, who knows where.

Of course a peace deal with the Palestinians on the West Bank would help, but it is a very separate matter to the new-found will of Arab peoples across the Middle East and North Africa to rise up and fight for the right to be free.
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With all the upheaval in the region at the moment it’s sometimes difficult to know just which way to look to be ready for the next potential threat to come our way. The old ‘eyes in the back of your head’ adage was never truer. Let’s just have a quick recap of what’s going on here, because it’s very easy to lose track of just where the latest uprising is taking place.

Well, as we now know, the regime of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt caved in last week and all eyes are on the most populous Arab state in the region to see just what will happen next. A new constitution is due to be unveiled next week guaranteeing more rights, but will it be enough to satisfy those who successfully brought down a seemingly impenetrable ruler, to stay calm and wait for the promised elections? And what about the Muslim Brotherhood? They’re playing a canny game at the moment, saying they won’t even field a presidential candidate and they just want to be part of the democratic process. I find it hard to believe, judging on their overall profile. I took a few moments to visit the Palestinian Media Watch website section on the Muslim Brotherhood where the following excerpt just about summed up the aims of the organization that is attempting to portray itself as a democratic, reasonable Muslim movement.

“It should be known that Jihad and preparation towards Jihad are not only for the purpose of fending-off assaults and attacks of Allah’s enemies from Muslims, but are also for the purpose of realizing the great task of establishing an Islamic state and strengthening the religion and spreading it around the world…”

These words were written by Mustafa Mashhur, the late Supreme Guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in his seminal work ‘ Jihad is the way’ – great bedtime reading with a cup of cocoa and a hot-water bottle.

I believe, (and I am certainly not only in this thought), that the Brotherhood is just sitting back and letting the well intentioned Egyptian secular, educated classes do all the donkey work in removing the regime and establishing elections, before moving in with the support of other like-minded groups to do what Ayatollah Khomenei did in Iran in 1979. That, of course, would be an incredibly worrying development for Israel and the whole region.

Tunisia has already removed its leader, the Yemen is in a state of chaos, Bahrain is experiencing demonstrators rioting and demanding improved human rights, and even Libya is experiencing a degree of uprising. Colonel Khadaffi has been in charge there for an amazing 42 years – those poor Libyans – and won’t release his iron grip on power without a very big fight. (By the way, is he still a colonel, or did he promote himself a while back? If I was going to be a psychotic dictator, I’d at least grant myself the rank of general. He’s missed a trick there).

I always remember the days when dear old Ronald Regan was US president and was often a little confused about the world beyond his White House doorstep. There was a great line on one of the Saturday Night Live shows where they staged a dummy White House press conference and the reporter asked the Reagan character, ‘Mr President, what’s your opinion about Khadaffi?’ Ronnie juggled his head from side to side for a moment, before replying, ‘I just love that little duck’.

Quite what will happen next in Libya remains to be seen, but it adds to the uncertainly that has swept across the region.

Rather closer to home, Sheikh Nasrallah the leader of the terrorist group Hezbollah that now controls the Lebanese government following the ousting of PM Hariri, has been ranting about taking over the north of Israel. He says that if there is the slightest provocation he will send Hezbollah forces through the Galilee region. (I’m not sure what his definition of ‘provocation’ is. If it’s Jews breathing, then we could be in for one a hell of a fight!)

With the UN having stood idly by for the last four years and allowed Hezbollah to rebuild and strengthen all their military bases along the northern border, his is not a boast to be scoffed at. He is a very dangerous man with many fanatical supporters, but with his paymasters Syria and Iran also facing street protests and potential challenges to their regimes, you wonder whether now is the right time for Nasrallah to start banging the drum.

Potentially the most dangerous development of all though is set to take place this coming weekend, if media reports are to be believed. Taking advantage of the upheaval and chaos going on in Egypt, it is reported that at least two Iranian warships have set out to make their way through the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean, allegedly heading for Syria. (Yes, Syria has a Meditteranean coast – I had to check the map too!)

No Iranian ships have been through the canal since 1979 when Anwar Sadat, (ideologically opposed to the new Islamist state), closed the waterways to Iranian traffic. Mubarak continued the same policy for the security of the region as a whole from 1981 until last week, but now, with Egypt’s military having enough problems just trying to keep the streets quiet, it appears Ahmedinejad has seen his chance to break the embargo and sail his warships through into the Med, potentially moving close to Israeli territorial waters as they go to Syria.

What though if they decide they want to stop for a bit of sight-seeing in Gaza? Drop off a few thousand missiles or several 100 tonnes of high explosives? Israel, of course would never allow them near Gaza as the whole port is under military embargo, but could Ahmedinejad be fashioning a naval stand-off to try and deflect attention away from the rise in support once more for the Green Democratic Movement on the streets of Tehran? 

He should ask Maggie Thatcher just what good a naval expedition and a bit of a war can do for morale back home when your economy is at rock bottom and there is rising discontent, even if it means getting into a needless fight and losing countless lives. It goes without saying however that Ahmedinejad would find the Israeli military a rather different prospect to the army of reluctant Argentinian conscripts that faced the professional British forces in the needless Falklands War in 1982.

So, all in all, things are just a little tense here, to say the least. Israelis though seem to take it all in their stride. They’ve been here before and had to deal with whatever is thrown at them. It doesn’t mean they have accepted the status quo and don’t want there to be a genuine peace with their neighbours. It’s just that they know it will almost certainly be a long time coming. No sooner do you get used to peace with one country close by, than another pops up and starts causing trouble.

If only these new democratic movements in the Arab world could actually work and really achieve something. It would be wonderful, but is highly unlikely.

A final thought. Why is it that the Iranian president so reminds me of Mel Brooks’ Hitler caricature in the film ‘To Be Or Not To Be’? Shalom from Israel, and I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Mr Brooks and his well observed song from the move’ I Want A Little Peace’....

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In August of last year I presented a blog entitled ‘Time For a Three State Solution’ in which I suggested that there was absolutely no time to be lost in Israel making a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party who govern in the West Bank from the city of Ramallah. 

I suggested that the terrorist regime of Hamas in Gaza was for the most part far enough removed from the rest of the Palestinian world that to completely marginalize the Gaza-based Islamic group and proceed with a peace deal with Fatah in the West Bank would prove that Israel is serious about peace when they have a serious partner to make peace with. Nothing that has happened in the interim has changed my mind. Indeed, with reports suggesting that many of the Al Qaeda terrorists that escaped from prisons during the chaos that ensued in Egypt recently following the collapse of the Mubarak regime have been welcomed as heroes in Gaza, it only strengthens the argument that here is a truly terror-based entity that Israel has no chance of reaching a peace deal with in the foreseeable future.

The real truth (as I see it), is that the only people that can now remove Hamas from power are the actual good people of Gaza who should take courage and rise up against the regime in the same way other Arab peoples have so successfully in Tunisia and Egypt in the last few weeks. It would be the hardest revolution of all. It may cost lives, but is the only chance for Gazans to save themselves at this point in time.

In recent years the relationship between Israel and the Palestinian Authority however has moved forward some considerable way. One of the benefits of the leaking of the ‘Palestine Papers’ recently was that it showed just how close (out of the public gaze) Israel and the PA had come to reaching a genuine peace deal, only to be scuppered in the end by internal pressures on the Palestinian side. The revelation that the PA is serious about peace and was prepared to meet half-way has fuelled resentment in some Arab quarters, but proves to the rest of the world that a deal is possible.

Behind the scenes everyday Israelis and Palestinians are interacting on a more and more regular basis. Aside of significant economic co-operation going on between Israeli and Palestinian companies in the West Bank, the Peres Centre for Peace, set up some years ago by Israel’s current President Shimon Peres, has done tremendous work in bringing the two sides together through imaginative youth projects, and is just one of many organizations that promote Jewish/Arab and Israeli/Palestinian co-existence. These are the kind of stories that rarely make the news as they don’t sell as many papers as bad news from the region, but more and more good things are happening.

Recently the Jerusalem Post ran a special feature on a new youth sporting project, Cricket4Peace. Israel is one of the few countries where the imprint of British rule has failed to leave behind a tradition of cricket. But now, through the combined efforts of the Peres Foundation, the Israel Cricket Association, and the Palestinian Al Quds Association for Democracy and Dialogue, a new youth cricket scheme that is made up of Jewish children from the development towns of Dimona and Yeroham in the northern Negev desert, and Palestinian children from Yatta and Samua near Hebron, are learning to play cricket - together.

The inspiration for the idea came from the effect that cricket had in normalizing to a greater degree, the tensions between India and Pakistan. Many of the kids in the project have already learned the rudiments of the game through an organisation dedicated to equal opportunities for children from both sides, called Cross Border Cricket. Matches are regularly played between the two sides now that all the children have learned catching, batting and bowling skills together, and of course, the sometime baffling (to the uninformed observer) rules of the game. I’m looking forward to hearing the kids’ get their combined teeth around silly mid-on’s, a full toss, and googlies!

Last year the ICC Development Award was given to the Cross Border Cricket Association for their efforts in promoting tolerance and understanding between Israeli and Palestinian children, and with the game having been slightly adapted to be played over a shorter period of time (so kids don’t get bored), schools and youth organizations across the southern half of Israel and in the Palestinian Authority are beginning to get a grip on this most British of pastimes.

I truly believe that sport can play a massive role in promoting understanding and tolerance on both sides. During my time with the Israeli Jockey Club our most exciting raceday was when we managed to arrange for the Palestinian Racing Authority to join us at our track at Pardess Hanna. They came from Jericho, Hebron and East Jerusalem to join us in a sporting atmosphere that gave hope to the many of us who yearn for peace between the two sides. The trophies were kindly presented by my guest, Mr Ramiro Cibrian, the EU Ambassador to Israel, (a keen racing fan), who was delighted at the tolerance and friendly sporting rivalries displayed and cited the atmosphere experienced and the co-operation shown as an example for others to follow.

Despite the best efforts of the Israeli Jockey Club, horse racing has failed to develop here for a multitude of complicated political reasons, but horses remain a key common passion of Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs throughout the region. I was excited to read of a unique event set to take place on March 26th on Mount Gilboa in rural Israel where Israelis, Jordanians and Palestinians will gather together to ride across the stunning countryside of the Jezreel Valley (much of which is below sea level) and ride high on Mount Gilboa nearby, side-by-side in solidarity for peace between the peoples of the region.

I challenge the BBC, CNN, and the many other international news networks who so consistently fail to reflect the optimism that exists in many quarters in this part of the world, to cover this event and prove that they are capable of broadcasting positive news from Israel and the Palestinian Authority, even if it might go against the preconceived ideas and misconceptions to which so many of their viewers and listeners have become accustomed.

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All around us the Middle East is going through changes that were quite unimaginable even two weeks ago. Who could have forecast that the dictatorship in Tunisia would be removed, that effectively Hizbollah would take over the government of Lebanon, that King Abdullah of Jordan would fire his entire government by way of attempting to head off civil unrest, and that Hosni Mubarak’s 30 year rule in Egypt would be hanging by a thread as hundreds of thousands of demonstrators march onto the streets of Cairo and other major Egyptian cities to demand a change to his repressive regime?

The speed with which events have overtaken us is simply breathtaking, and nobody really knows quite where it will all lead. Will the region suddenly embrace democracy, or will attempts at establishing democratic values sadly lead to power vacuums that result in Islamic militants filling the void in the way that Hizbollah has in Lebanon, one of the very few countries around here that attempted to live along generally democratic lines, but now finds itself in the appalling position of being nothing more than a doormat for Syrian and Iranian ambitions in the region.

One point that must be stated in relation to all these changes is that they are not connected to Israel or the Middle East peace process. These are instances of downtrodden people finally taking courage and attempting to follow the lead given them by former Soviet and eastern bloc countries like East Germany, Rumania, Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic States, where people-power proved too strong a force for even the most iron-fisted of despotic regimes.

And what is it that the fast-growing populations in these Arab lands actually want? Well, whether they would like to hear it or not, they actually want to be like Israel. They want to be free, democratic nations.

Regular followers of this blog will know that not everything that happens in the Jewish homeland is to my taste and there are a number of things that I vehemently oppose, yet that is the beauty of Israel. You can oppose. You can speak out. You can demonstrate. You can be right-wing, left-wing, pro-settlements, anti-settlements, you have freedom of speech, and probably more than any other place on the planet that freedom is tested to the very limits here in Israel.

You have rights too. Jews, Arabs and Christian are treated equally under Israeli law, a legal system and judiciary which (as I pointed out only recent with the conviction of former president Moshe Katsav) is truly independent, something that cannot be imagined in the Arab world. In Israel, women’s rights, children’s rights, and gay rights are considerably more progressive than many western democracies.

These freedoms are Israel’s greatest gifts to her people, but there are those that argue that in giving everybody such a strong voice you end up with too many cooks spoiling the broth (so to speak), and fudged parliamentary processes that only ever take one step forward and two steps back. That however is the price that we have to pay for being a genuine democracy, albeit one whose rules and guidelines could do with adjusting (such as the present PR voting system), to enable Israel to progress further.

The question is, are the people of the Arab world ready, or more pointedly capable of truly embracing such seismic changes to their lives? Could Arab democracy really function effectively, or would it simply be an invitation for extremists to rush into the void and take the region down with them?

If you were to walk out onto the streets of Cairo today and suggest to those Egyptians risking their lives to demonstrate against Mubarak, that what they are really marching for and laying down their lives to achieve is to be like Israel, I suspect you would receive rather short shrift.

16 years ago I was travelling in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation in the world, and met a group of university students in the capital city of Jakarta, who on discovering I was English were very keen to talk to me and practice their language skills. They were secular Muslim men in their mid-20’s, very well educated, impeccably mannered and thoroughly charming. They asked lots of questions about Britain and Europe, and I then asked who in the world they most admired? Bearing in mind this was 1995, the answer that stunned me was – Saddam Hussein!

Why Saddam Hussein? Well, as they told it, it was because he was the only man that had the guts to stand up to Israel and America, and Muslims across the globe should salute him. When I pointed out that Hussein had removed virtually all democratic processes, allegedly murdered tens of thousands of his own people and brought the Middle East to the brink of even nuclear war, they said it didn’t matter. It was better to have him than have the Zionist devils in Israel. It was a shame his scuds hadn’t removed Israel from the region.

That was 16 years ago, before Al Qaeda, before radical Islam, 9/11 and more, and these were decent, upstanding Indonesian young men who despite a very good education had doubtless been indoctrinated since birth to believe that Israel is the root of all evil in the world. There will be many like them in Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen and other Arab states, so how much should Israel rely on peaceful transitions to democracy and respect for their Jewish neighbour?

I suspect that whilst the growing number of countries in the region demanding political change unwittingly want to be just like us, sadly they are not ready to embrace the responsibilities that democracy brings with it.

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