The Rise of the “Arab Spring Generation” Is Changing the Middle East—Perhaps for the Better

The 20th century saw an Arab world caught up in a variety of ideological currents—Arab nationalism, Communism, Baathism, and Shiite and Sunni Islamism—but the younger generation, according to Nir Boms and Hussein Aboubakr seems less vulnerable to their appeal. Not long ago, the movements loosely termed the “resistance” and associated with Iran, Hizballah, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Islamic State—which sought the overthrow of regimes in Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf—had a great deal of mainstream popularity. But this isn’t true for those born after the cold war and shaped by the 2011 uprisings and their aftermath:

The 21st century found the Middle East younger and more educated than ever, with over 65 percent under the age of thirty and ready for change. . . . Resistance groups and the drive to suppress them led to the killing of over half a million people in Syria and hundreds of thousands in Libya, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen. In the new approach, resistance is no longer viewed as the key for political redemption; rather, it is perceived as an obstacle preventing a better future. . . . For the first time in half a century, a new alignment among the rulers, the ruled, and leaders in the Arab world is challenging the inertia of the mid-20th century Arab political arrangement.

The “Arab Spring Generation” of restive, young, and educated Arab youth has clearly asserted new priorities. Access to formal education has had significant implications for Arab expectations of their living conditions.

[A] 2019 survey found out that 79 percent of young Arabs believe that the Arab world needs to reform its religious institutions; meanwhile 66 percent believe that religion plays too great a role in the Middle East. When asked, in 2015 and 2016, what the biggest obstacle facing the Middle East was, Arab youth prioritized Islamic State and the threat of terrorism, followed by unemployment, civil unrest, and the rising cost of living. Subsequent surveys further stressed the economic factors.

It is important to understand that Israel is at the center of the above discussion. It is seen as a player in the camp of regional stability, a gateway for economic diversification and development, a key in containing Iran, and, most importantly, in attempts to alienate Islamist ideologies from the mainstream. Moreover, since Islamists have cherished the anti-normalization agenda as their cause, it will be more natural for the pragmatists to adopt the exact opposite [position].

Read more at Religions

More about: Arab Spring, Israel-Arab relations, Middle East

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society