Many people feared Arafat’s death would set the Palestinian people dangerously adrift. He was not simply their national leader, but the symbol of Palestinian nationalism — the embodiment of his people’s aspirations for statehood and the man who brought them recognition from Israel and the world. More than this, Palestinians are a nation besieged by occupation and fractured by internal divisions: between West Bankers and Gazans, Muslims and Christians, insiders and outsiders, refugees and non-refugees, and scores of political factions. Without their keel, their stabilizing force, surely this nation would capsize.

Except it hasn’t. Palestinians are looking toward the future with apprehension and even fear, but they are not in shock and they are not adrift. They found themselves without a captain and wasted no time in plotting a course for themselves. How effectively they navigate this course remains to be seen, and the actions of Israel and the United States will have a decisive effect on the outcome. But in the meantime, one thing is certain: Arafat may be immured beneath the Muqata, but his people are struggling to move on.

“In the past there was a national consensus about Arafat and his role as a national leader,” Jabril Rajoub told me a few weeks ago. Former chief of security in the West Bank, Rajoub now serves as national security advisor to Mahmoud Abbas (better known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mazen), Arafat’s successor. “There was always conflict between the old and young generations when Arafat was alive,” Rajoub continued, “but Arafat controlled the rules of the game. With his death, the conflict is going on with new momentum.”

Rajoub was referring to the long-standing division within Palestinian politics between the old guard and the young guard. The former describes the founding members of Fatah and the PLO, men who lived in exile with Yasser Arafat in Lebanon, Jordan and Tunis. Many of them were elected to the Fatah General Assembly in 1989 and occupy positions in the Fatah Revolutionary Council as well as the Fatah Central Committee, the movement’s most powerful body. The young guard lived in the territories under Israeli occupation and won legitimacy among the people as fighters in the first intifada and as prisoners in Israeli jails. Though they shared ideological and operational links to the PLO (all based on armed resistance against Israel), the young guard were like orphans, forced to come of age without the guidance and protection of their parents.

The young guard, however, had a set of surrogate parents: the Israelis. Palestinians in territories may have learned occupation from Israel, but they were also exposed to Israel’s democratic system of government.

“We learned democracy from Israel,” one Palestinian woman told me. “If you discount Israel’s treatment of the Arab Israelis (who are subjected to a great deal of de facto, and a certain amount of de jure, discrimination), they still have regular elections, parties, a working parliament. Even when we were under occupation we saw this.”

That Palestinians in the territories understood and appreciated democratic ideals was evident in their universities and inside Israeli prisons, where elections were institutionalized and meticulously conducted. In contrast, the old guard developed their view of power and governance under the corrupt and dictatorial Arab regimes in which they were living.

This was not simply a question of rampant corruption but what many have called a crisis of administration within Arafat’s Fatah party. Sami Sa’adi, president of the Cairo Amman Bank, explained it this way: “There is no clear mechanism inside Fatah to give the new generation a role in decision making. No clear channels between the top leaders and the ground. We need modern institutions: transparency, elections, rules to define membership in Fatah.”

Sa’adi, who is in his mid-forties, spent his teenage years fighting the occupation and his early adult years in an Israeli prison. After his release, the Israelis deported him for his activism in Fatah. Sa’adi received a business degree in Egypt and upon graduation, the Israelis permitted him to return to the West Bank. He worked for the Palestine Development Fund and the Palestine Banking Corp. before assuming his position at Cairo Amman. In his sober suit on the top floor of a bustling bank, Sa’adi looked like a man who understood the workings of a modern institution. “The requirements of making a secret organization,” he continued, “are not the same as making a public organization.”

The first ten years after Fatah’s establishment in 1958 was a precarious time for the movement. Arafat and his close associates, Saleh Khalaf and Abu Jihad, were being pursued by Israel and others for their terrorist activities in the Middle East and internationally. They were constantly only the move — during this period, Arafat is said never to have slept in the same bed twice — and their activities were highly centralized. The top leaders of the party today such as Abu Mazen, Abu Ala, Hani Hassan and others were not active in Fatah’s military branch (Khalaf and Jihad were eventually assassinated by the Israelis), but the party’s culture of elitism and secrecy has survived. At least until Arafat’s death.

“After his death everything is defined,” Sa’adi said. “We are approaching a new era of our modern history. Arafat was a patrimonial leader. Because of the significant efforts he made for the cause he had special respect. Now nobody has the same power. Now all of us are equal.”

Sa’adi is so certain the political culture in Palestine is changing that he has considered resigning as president of the Cairo Amman Bank and reentering politics. He’s not the only one. Sa’adi says he knows many Palestinian professionals who had distanced themselves from Fatah because of its corrupt and elitist culture but who are leaving their jobs to return to politics. “There will be a very big cost for myself and my family in our standard of living,” Sa’adi acknowledged, “but I think it’s time. There is now hope to make some change within Fatah.”

The newly elected Palestinian prime minister, Abu Mazen, had alerted me to the prospects of such change. I visited him in February, two days after his return from Sharm Al-Sheikh, where he and Ariel Sharon agreed on the principle of a cease-fire. We met inside the Muqata, across the concrete expanse from Arafat’s grave.

Abu Mazen has none of his predecessor’s revolutionary flair. He wore a suit, not a general’s uniform, and his gray hair was neatly combed — no kaffiyeh. Abu Mazen was a founding member of Fatah and secretary-general of the PLO Executive Committee, and he led the secret negotiations with Israel that took place between the 1991 Madrid conference and the 1993 Oslo Accords. I asked him about his new role as leader of the Palestinian nation.

Abu Mazen, who is 69, leaned forward in his chair and looked at me intently. “It is time to hand the younger generation the flag,” he said. “We are 60, 65 — 70 years old!” The way he said it, he sounded surprised that one as old as he was sitting in the presidential chair. “We started in politics at your age,” he winked at me. “It is now time to move on.”

Abu Mazen illustrated this conviction a few weeks later over the question of cabinet appointments. Initially, Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Ala (Ahmed Quereia) proposed a cabinet full of former Arafat loyalists, but the Palestinian Legislative Council voiced such intense opposition to Ala’s nominees that Abu Mazen stepped in to compile a new cabinet list. Of the 24 positions, 17 of his appointees are new to the cabinet, and nearly all of them are experts in their fields of responsibility. For example, Nasser Al-Kidwa, former PLO representative to the United Nations, replaced Nabil Sha’ath as foreign minister. Sabri Saidam, the new minister of technology, holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, and the agricultural minister, Walid Abbed Rabbo, received his Ph.D. in human resource management. Abu Mazen chose these ministers from a list of 100 professionals and did so in close consultation with Fatah legislators. By contrast, Arafat appointed his cabinet — loyalists with little technical expertise — behind closed doors.

Though this is a positive step, Abu Mazen faces serious challenges: foremost, the problem of corruption. Corruption runs through Fatah — and not only the members of the old guard.

“It’s about thinking, not age,” explained one Fatah activist who asked not to be identified. This activist has worked for a number of high-level security officials in the Palestinian Authority, men who are considered part of the young guard but who, as he says, “are the most corrupt people you will see. They can be from Tunis or Nablus,” this activist continued. “What matters is whether they put their personal agenda before the national agenda.”

Kaddura Faris, a young guard member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, agreed. Abu Mazen, he said, is technically old guard. “But he’s serious, very clear. He doesn’t use a lot of symbolism.” On the other hand, many members of the young guard who fought against the occupation and served time in jails see themselves as symbols of resistance, and it makes them feel invulnerable. “If a young man is arrested for stealing a car,” Faris explained, “the police will receive many calls to release him because he’s a fighter, part of Fatah, or because his brother is a martyr … We have to have an accountable culture. When the people in the government respect these laws, the people will understand.”

Khalil Shikaki, head of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (his office was once ransacked by Arafat goons for releasing some information that the rais did not like), took a more sobering view. “Abu Mazen is a member of the old guard, and even if he has good intentions, he’s been socialized in this political culture for the last 50 years.”

Shikaki’s center polls Palestinians on issues from politics to the economy to the peace process. He says there will be serious consequences for Abu Mazen and for Fatah, if the Palestinian Authority does not immediately begin to confront corruption, set standards of accountability, and institutionalize the judicial process. Fatah’s credibility among Palestinians has plummeted since the second intifada began in 2000. According to many Palestinians, there are three reasons for this: the Palestinian Authority failed to give them a state, stole from public funds, and propitiated Israel. In contrast, Hamas was renowned for its integrity as well as its active resistance against Israel.

Abu Mazen won the presidency with 63 percent of the vote and a 46 percent turnout. Hamas won 70 percent of the municipal seats in Gaza with an 88 percent turnout. Shikaki acknowledged that Hamas did not do as well in the West Bank municipal elections as in Gaza and that abstentions in the national elections (in which Hamas did not run) do not connote the public’s support of the Islamists. But he fears a snowballing effect. It is certain now that Hamas will run for the Palestinian Legislative Council. If Hamas is emboldened by the local elections — and there is one major round left before the PLC elections in July — then Shikaki estimates Hamas could take 40 to 50 percent of the PLC.

“Half of the chiefs of security are corrupt,” Shikaki said, “and the public believes that 99 percent are corrupt. From now until May [when the next and largest round of municipal elections takes place], Fatah’s main objective should be to address corruption.”

Shikaki outlined four steps for Abu Mazen. First, he must appoint a new attorney general who is given a full mandate to act on corruption. Second, he must appoint a new chief of police who can be arrested for noncompliance. Third, he must allocate a budget to the courts and rebuild the prisons, because Israel destroyed every single prison in Palestine during the second intifada. Finally, the new minister of the interior and the minister of finance must begin submitting files of men to be prosecuted for corruption. The problem with this last step, as many Palestinians told me, is that many of the men who should be prosecuted are those closest to Abu Mazen: those who helped secure his election, his trusted advisors, the officials he relies upon for national security.

Though Abu Mazen needs a loyal security force to disarm the militants and maintain a cease-fire, a physical approach to confronting Palestine’s militant factions (the Islamists, mainly Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant offshoot of Fatah) will fail without a political approach. The Palestinian Authority must establish itself as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. In the past, Hamas could easily present itself as an alternative to the P.A., because as Shikaki points out, the P.A. excluded Hamas from the political process by manipulating the electoral system.

“That’s what we did in 1996,” he said. “Hamas decided to pull out anyway, but even if they had run, they had no chance because we created a majority system that excluded everyone but Fatah.” Today, 77 percent of the Legislative Council members are Fatah.

Shikaki continued, “When you follow a policy of exclusion, people take the battle out of the political system and into the streets.” For this reason, he notes, Fatah was unwise to persuade Marwan Barghouti (the militant Fatah activist serving five life sentences in Israeli prison) to pull out of the presidential race. If Abu Mazen had run against Barghouti and won, it would have sent a clear message: Fatah chooses nonviolence. He did not run, so the issue of whether factions of Fatah still maintain violence as a viable tool remains unresolved.

Where Hamas is concerned, Abu Mazen will be unable to win back the hearts and minds of the people unless he moves the organization out of the streets and into the political arena. Hamas pulled out of the last Legislative Council elections in 1996 partly due to Fatah’s efforts to exclude its opponents but mostly because Hamas refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Oslo process, which gave Palestinians some control over areas of the West Bank but ultimately failed to create a Palestinian state, stop Israeli settlement building, or even improve Palestinians’ lives. It was Oslo’s failure and four years of intifada that pushed the public mind toward Hamas, but Shikaki’s public opinion polls show that 80 percent of Palestinians want a mutual cessation of violence. Seventy-one percent of the people who elected Hamas in the local elections are calling for an immediate return to negotiations. The public has grown tired, but so has Hamas. Israel assassinations and arrests have decimated their military leadership — Shikaki says it is defunct in the West Bank. Finally, I have heard whispers from Palestinians and others that Hamas is eager for diplomatic relations with Israel and the United States. Suicide terror will bring them no legitimacy with either party.

Hamas has not definitively sworn off violence. Ala’a Rimawi, a West Bank Hamas activist, was clear on this point. “Hamas will stop the violence only if the Israelis cease their assassinations, dismantle the settlements, and make steps to leave the occupied territories. If not, the situation will return.” But Rimawi was clear on another point as well: “It is the reality that Israelis have many parts of our land, so [Palestinians] cannot talk about the ’48 lands [captured by Israel after its war of independence]. We can only talk about ’67.” It’s no longer about what Hamas wants to do, Rimawi said, but what Hamas cando.

Neither of these opinions are new to Hamas’ mainstream. Although the Western media seems not to realize this, or if it does, it fails to report it, a large gap has always existed between the ideals of their charter (which calls for an Islamic state in all of historic Palestine) and their practical intentions. A year and a half ago I spoke with Ghazi Hamad, editor of the Hamas-affiliated newspaper al-Risalah. The paper is based in Gaza, Hamas’ stronghold and, according to Hamad, reflects mainstream Hamas opinion.

“For a long time we have accepted a state within the 1967 borders,” Hamad explained. “But in our literature and in our education we say ’48.” The reason for this discrepancy, Hamad said, was Hamas’ belief that Israel would never give Palestinians a state. Hamas would cease its call for the ’48 lands only when Israel fulfilled the Palestinian right to statehood.

The occupation presents an ideological threat to the Palestinians as well as a physical one. Most believe, with reason, that Sharon has long desired to undermine the Palestinian national movement, to snub out their national identity and, therefore, their will to fight for statehood. It is in response to this, as much as to the checkpoints and tanks, that every Palestinian home has a map of historic Palestine with Al Quds (Arabic for Jerusalem), Yaffa and Nablus. Tel Aviv doesn’t appear on a single one. Palestinians express their support for a state within 1967 borders even while sitting directly below such maps. Many also understand that after the creation of a Palestinian state, the majority of refugees expelled in 1948 and 1967 will be unable to return to their homes, now located within Israel; still, they entertain at least the hope of return. And as long as Israel categorically denies the principle of the refugees’ right to return, Palestinians will continue to express this hope in the form of a definitive bottom line.

Abu Mazen has expressed a willingness to compromise on the right of return in the past. In 1999, he offered the U.S. a proposal for a final deal that required Israel to accept the principle of recognition, without demanding that all of the Palestinians in the diaspora be allowed to return to their homes. It is far too early to ask whether Palestinians would follow Abu Mazen down the road to such a deal concerning the refugees — or any final-status solution. His concerns, such as the upcoming PLC elections, are more immediate.

Hamas’ desire to run in these elections next month is a sign of the organization’s growing pragmatism. According to Rimawi, many people within Hamas believe the Palestinian Authority is committed to accepting Hamas as a legitimate political partner. “The Palestinian Authority has a new vision of Hamas,” he told me. “Not a small group but a significant partner.”

I asked Rimawi what will happen to Hamas’ policy of armed resistance — something quite fundamental to the organization’s identity — once it enters the political realm.

“If you are in the government and you decide to have resistance, you will not manage to do it,” Rimawi said. “Maybe you can have resistance, but then you can’t have the government.”

This point contradicted Rimawi’s earlier statement that Hamas would reserve the right to violently oppose Israel. Could Palestine become like Northern Ireland, where Sinn Fein and the IRA operate simultaneously, or like Lebanon, where the militant Hezbollah is also represented in Parliament? Pollster Khalil Shikaki did not think so.

“I believe very strongly that when you incorporate Hamas into the political system, you moderate their views immediately,” Shikaki said. “You saw this with the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan and Egypt. Hezbollah has been able to have its cake and eat it too, but that’s only because of Syrian and Iranian support. That’s not the situation here, because the government wants to disarm Hamas.”

Still, it is uncertain whether Abu Mazen has either the political will or the strength to do this. Palestinians close to Abu Mazen have suggested to me that he is prepared to draw Hamas in through diplomatic means but not confront them militarily. There are three reasons. First, he lacks legitimacy on the street. This is due to corruption within Fatah as well as Abu Mazen’s political position. He does not have one clear constituency within Palestinian society, and he does not like to manipulate, so he will not play different factions against each other (as Arafat did) in order to maintain favor. Second, while he has a great deal of international legitimacy, he lacks international support. If the United States made a concerted effort to pressure Israel and back Abu Mazen, then Palestinians would back a military confrontation with Hamas. Finally, without U.S. support and an Israeli partner that believes in a equitable solution to the conflict (which even many Israeli observers agree Sharon does not), Abu Mazen’s security forces have no impetus to take up arms against their Palestinian brothers. Palestinians do not share the West’s distinctions between “good guys” and “bad guys.” Even if Fatah and most moderate Palestinians do not agree with Hamas’ tactics, they see Hamas as a legitimate organization fighting Israeli occupation, not as a cadre of terrorists.

A year ago I met with Mohammad Dahlan, Gaza’s former security chief, and discussed his relationship with Hamas. Dahlan grew up with Hamas’ leadership and attended university with them before the organization came into existence. Dahlan socializes with these men, drinks tea with them — and throughout the Oslo years, it was his responsibility to arrest them and confiscate their weapons.

While men like Dahlan are not prepared to confront Hamas with violence (at least not without external support), they can reason with them. Abu Mazen has essentially told the militants: try it my way. Let’s show the world that we are serious about instituting democracy, reforming the P.A., and curbing violence. Even if Israel undermines us in the short term, we’ll secure international and U.S. support to pressure Israel to withdraw in the long term.

For the moment, Hamas seems to have agreed. At a summit in Cairo in mid-March, Hamas agreed to continue its hudna, or cease-fire, until the end of the year. In the interim, Palestinian factions would establish a “new PLO” that would include Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The new PLO would then assume responsibility for setting the Palestinian national agenda, including the possibility of negotiations with Israel.

But it is unclear how far the militants are willing to follow Abu Mazen before they tire of his diplomatic strategy. The success of the hudna depends on Israel’s fulfilling its commitments: releasing prisoners, ending targeted assassinations and house demolitions, stopping closures, turning cities over to Palestinian control, and allowing no provocations or deviations from the road map. In that light, developments in Israel — and Washington’s response — this week were extremely ominous.

The Sharon administration’s plan to greatly expand Ma’ale Adumim, the West Bank’s largest settlement, is the kind of unilateral action that could easily sabotage Abu Mazen’s administration. The fact that the Bush administration, after initially criticizing the Israeli move, caved in and allowed Sharon to continue, was a severe blow to the Palestinian leader.

At the Cairo summit, settlement construction was classified as an “explosive issue” — one that could lead to a renewal of violence against Israel. And this particular settlement construction could not be any more provocative. The 3,500 new homes would not only create a barrier between the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but would complete a circle of Jewish neighborhoods around East Jerusalem, in which the majority of the population is Arab. This encirclement undermines the possibility of one day establishing East Jerusalem, home to the third-holiest site in Islam, as the capital of a Palestinian state — one of the crucial final-status issues, and probably nonnegotiable for the Palestinians and for the larger Arab world.

Though Israel maintains that physical changes to the landscape such as the security wall and even settlement construction (evidenced by the planned Gaza disengagement) are not necessarily permanent, Palestinians are extremely skeptical of such claims. And they know that these policies, aimed at creating “facts on the ground,” only foment anger — among the people as well as the extremists.

Yet Abu Mazen’s ability to draw Hamas into the political system is another way of changing facts on the ground. As Shikaki says, once you integrate Hamas into politics, you quickly moderate them. Of course, he assured me, Hamas will never become Zionists. And though they have accepted the idea of a state within the ’67 lines, they won’t officially legitimize that decision. “But eventually the distinction between de jure and de facto will blur,” he said.

Over the possibility of further Hamas violence, Jabril Rajoub was emphatic. “Fatah made a clear decision! Either we fight together or we negotiate together. On the ground we have one authority, one police, one institution. Hamas knows that in order to join the political process, they should accept the idea of a sole authority.”

Perhaps the greatest hope for the Palestinians to navigate their way toward democracy and statehood lies in Abu Mazen’s commitment to making clear decisions. You can’t paddle in two directions at once, which is what Arafat had tried to do: simultaneously condemn and acquiesce to terror; appoint the arbiters of reform but imbue them with little authority; promise elections but withhold them indefinitely. Now, it seems Palestinians have grown tired not only of violence but also of this type of indecision. Of course, they will remember Arafat as a symbol of their struggle, the man who won them international recognition, but they will also see him as the man who failed to win a state for his people. In the reverence that surrounds it, as in its loneliness, Arafat’s grave reflects both of these legacies.

“When Arafat died, every Palestinian felt something was lost,” one young woman at the gravesite told me. “But Palestine isn’t only him. It’s a nation, and this nation needs to live.”

Many governments struggling with dissent appear to be using a double-barreled strategy to fight back against the so-called Facebook revolutions: classic repression and by promoting their own views using the very same platforms.

“The thought police already have a presence online in these countries,” said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, the Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists. “And they have a very heavy presence on Twitter, Facebook and other social media networks. They go out there and intimidate people. And they accuse people of being heathens. And call for their heads.”

Jeffrey Ghannam, a media lawyer and analyst in Washington, thinks the propaganda strategy will win out over subjugation.

“It’s my sense that Arab governments will focus less on control, filtering and blocking — though those efforts will not completely disappear — and begin to assert their own views in the Arab cyberspace,” he said.

“Consider the cases of so-called Bahraini twitter trolls and the Syrian cyber attacks that go after critics of these respective Arab regimes. The official Arab government view is increasingly in the mix,” he said. “Another example is the way the SCAF (Egypt’s Supreme Council of Armed Forces) uses Facebook and Twitter. It may not be beautifully done, and it does draw tens of thousands of critical remarks online that are viewable, but the SCAF is contributing its views. These are all significant developments and point to increasing government engagement in the Arab cyberspace.”

Some of the official efforts smack of classic public relations techniques.

In Bahrain, the government launched an online campaign called “We Are All Hamad,” asking supporters to post pictures of Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Bahrain’s ruler, on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

In Tunisia, government officials, including President Moncef Marzouki (@Moncef_Marzouki) have joined Twitter. The royal family in Jordan, as well as the mayor of Amman, Jordan’s capital, also use Facebook and Twitter to speak directly to constituents.

These regimes, however, have a long history of using heavy-handed tactics and are apparently not about to give up on old habits. Many, in fact, have learned that social media can help identify potential targets of their crackdown.

This nascent trend, however, has not led authorities in these countries and elsewhere to give up old habits. Many have continued to opt for the more traditional and heavy-handed response.

Last month, for instance, Moroccan authorities arrested 18-year-old college student Walid Bahomane on charges of “defaming Morocco’s sacred values” by posting unflattering pictures and videos on Facebook that poked fun at King Mohammed VI. Authorities also convicted another student, Abdelsamad Haydour, 24, earlier in the month for criticizing the ruler in a video posted on YouTube.

These developments have taken place in a country largely praised for its response to citizen discontent over the past year. In November, Morocco held peaceful parliamentary elections as part of a governmental reform process initiated by the king that also included a new constitution.

In Saudi Arabia, 23-year-old journalist Hamza Kashgari faces charges of blasphemy, an offence that carries the death sentence, for tweeting an imaginary conversation he was having with the Prophet Muhammad. The uproar over Kashgari’s comments prompted the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Azeez ibn Abdullaah Aal ash-Shaikh, to issue a fatwa against Twitter, which he told “real Muslims” to avoid as a “platform for trading accusations and for promoting lies,” according to an article in The National.

And in Jordan, a masked assailant on Feb. 20 stabbed university student Enass Musallam after he published a blog post that criticized a member of the Jordanian royal family.

Authorities in the region are now also turning to old laws — such as emergency laws, anti-terrorism laws and press laws — to justify the arrest, fines and incarceration of individuals for online expression.

“When the internet and social media blogs were just starting to become popular, press laws were only applied to the mainstream media. But that’s no longer the case as these media platforms continue to converge,” said Courtney Radsch, program manager for the Global Freedom of Expression Campaign at Freedom House in New York.

Earlier this month, for instance, authorities in the United Arab Emirates arrested pro-democracy activist Saleh al-Dhufairi for tweets criticizing the UAE’s decision to deport Syrian expatriates who demonstrated outside their consulate in Dubai without a permit.

“Saleh al-Dhufairi has been arrested on accusation of spreading ideas by speech, writing and any other means that provoke strife, hurt national unity, and social peace,” a spokesman for Dubai police said in a statement.

Al-Dhufairi’s arrest is a scare tactic by a government that is itself scared of any significant dissent, CPJ’s Abdel Dayem.

“Events are occurring that are of monumental political weight and have very far reaching implications. So what happens in Tunisia matters in the Gulf and what happens in Syria matters in the Gulf,” Abdel Dayem said. “These are obviously separate political entities and separate states but there is a Pan-Arab media consumed across borders, so journalists, bloggers, regular citizens and everyone else is exploring these new found venues for expression.”

“They are testing government tolerance for criticism, not just in Libya, Egypt and Yemen where there was an actual change in the political arrangement, but also in countries where there hasn’t been change.”

And these governments in turn are testing their responses, said popular UAE commentator Sultan Al Qassemi, who has more than 100,000 followers on Twitter.

“What we are seeing today is part of the teething process of accepting social media as an avenue of communication and criticism of society and government in the Gulf,” Qassemi said. “As the adoption of social media tools grows in the Gulf there will naturally be a larger output of opinions, some less agreeable to the authorities than others.”

Citizen journalists, bloggers and average citizens who run afoul of the law for expressing their opinions online must also contend with inadequate legal representation.

“This is a new realm for many lawyers in these countries. It requires training and requires a level of experience with the technology and that’s lacking in many countries if not all,” Radsch said. “Certainly, in the U.S. where you’ve had a longer history with internet-based content you have some more sophistication there.

But in many of these countries, blogging really just got going in 2004 and 2005.”

“With the advent of TV, you saw fewer cases against broadcasters at the beginning because it was still new and they were figuring things out, but you’re going to continue to see this battle between governments and citizens play out,” she said.

This time, however, the very nature of the internet and social networking might be enough to break the cycle.

“One thing is different,” Radsch said. “There are a lot more stakeholders and users of social media. The mainstream media is owned by a few and provides jobs for a few more but the vested interest across the broad swath of the public using social media could mean far more stakeholders could fight for the right to keep this space open.”

In the past few weeks, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon have all held high level meetings in Jerusalem. Barak is scheduled to meet with Panetta and with Vice President Joe Biden. Peres will meet with President Barack Obama, as will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will fly to Washington for a much anticipated meeting on March 5.

The subject at hand is nuclear Iran — not the movie version, and not even the proxy war version, which has seen the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, the attempted assassinations of Israeli diplomats, and genial computer viruses attack Iranian nuclear installations, making centrifuges spiral out of control, as in Hollywood’s imagination.

On the eve of the Israelis’ Washington visits, there is a divergence of opinion between the United States and Israel regarding the utility of the recently hardened sanctions on Iran, and a growing apprehension on both sides about what the other may be prepared to accept from the Islamic Republic’s leadership.

Eytan Gilboa, an expert on U.S.-Israel bilateral relations who holds posts at Bar Ilan University and at the University of Southern California, said the situation is stark and in some ways unprecedented.

“The Obama administration has little trust in Netanyahu and vice versa. The new sanctions that have been imposed have produced economic hardship in Tehran, but this does not mean they are working. To work, they have to change the Iranian government’s policy toward nuclear development, and this has not yet happened.”

“The UN Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has just announced that Iran has substantially increased enrichment, which seems to contradict American statements that have appeared in all the media suggesting that Iran has not yet made the decision whether to develop nuclear weapons.”

Two points of dispute stand out in creating what Sen. John McCain, also on a visit to Israel last week, called the “daylight” between the two countries regarding Iran’s nuclear plan.

The first is the question of what constitutes unacceptable progress toward the manufacture of an armed nuclear device, or, in Barak’s words, Iran’s entry into a “zone of immunity.” The other is the extent of uranium enrichment at a nuclear site near the holy city of Qum, which was highlighted by the IAEA report.

The United States and Israel agree that the secret underground structure is better protected from a possible military strike than other known Iranian facilities. But from that point of agreement, different conclusions are drawn.

Israeli analysts believe Iran is moving fast toward a nuclear military option, and taking advantage of the pressure of sanctions and the time granted by European offers to negotiate in order to assemble all the parts necessary to build a bomb. The United States, which is in the midst of an election year, meanwhile, thinks sanctions may yet bring Iran — “if it is behaving as a rational actor,” in Gilboa’s words — to negotiate.

“The process is preparing everything for the building of bombs, with the aim of creating all the parts and then needing only a very short period of time to assemble a weapon. So it is just playing with words if we say that we don’t know whether they have made a decision. If you produce all the parts, it is obvious that means you intend to produce a bomb,” Gilboa said.

“I think that what Obama wants from Netanyahu next week is a commitment not to strike Iran at least until the American election, to give heavier sanctions a chance and not to surprise the United States.”

Gilboa does not believe Israel would attack Iranian nuclear installations without notifying the Americans beforehand.

Still, he points out, “The current situation is unprecedented. The U.S. has never before asked Israel to refrain from military action, and Israel has never before asked the U.S. for permission. This is all new ground.”

The 1981 Israel Air Force attack on Osirak, Saddam Hussein’s French-built nuclear reactor is now ancient history. In that campaign however, only eight jets were involved.

The New York Times estimated that at least 100 Israeli fighter planes would be needed today for a crippling attack on Iran. At the time of the Osirak strike, the United States angrily condemned Israel. But in 2005, former President Bill Clinton said, “Everybody talks about what the Israelis did at Osirak in 1981, which I think, in retrospect, was a really good thing.”

The current disagreement between Israel and the United States seem not to be on the substance of Iran’s nuclear program, or even on the possibility of a necessary, last-resort, military strike, but on the timetable and method of response to the threat.

Many Israeli analysts believe the Obama administration and Europe are not convinced that the full effect of sanctions has yet been felt. Israelis are concerned that by the time they are felt, possibly by next summer, when Europe’s oil embargo on Iran is scheduled to go into effect, it might be too late.

“What Obama would like is to put the crippling sanctions to the test. He thinks that the sanctions being used this time, alongside the oil embargo, will actually have an impact,” said Tel Aviv University professor Uzi Rabi, the director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies.

“He is in effect saying to Israel, don’t surprise us. We want to be updated from A to Z. The second thing, I think Israel is being asked is to play down the shadow war and really just let sanctions work. If the sanctions are going to be fully implemented it could inflict a lethal blow on the Iranian regime, and since what we are talking about is the survival of the regime itself, this could be very effective.”

As to Israel, Rabi says, “It would like to make sure everybody knows that from its point of view, a nuclear Iran is unbearable. This combination of ayatollahs and power is something that poses an existential threat to Israel, and it is something Israel is really afraid of. What Israel thinks is the right thing to do is to make sure the military option is not only on the table, but actually feasible.”

Not many in Israel think that Iran, even with a nuclear weapon in hand, would attack Tel Aviv.

“Based on rational thinking, which is not one of the strongest characteristics of the Middle East, if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it would be tantamount to suicide were they to use them. Iran would be wiped out by Israel’s second strike capability and by American nukes,” Gilboa said.

“I think they want them in order to acquire hegemony in the Middle East. By becoming a nuclear power they can threaten anybody. The power of threat is much more than the power of destruction.”

Gilboa predicts that next week Netanyahu will ask Obama how he plans to ensure Iran’s non-nuclear status in the event sanctions fail to cripple the nuclear program, and that Obama “will evade the answers.”

Rabi says “Israel is afraid to be left alone. I don’t think Iran would attack Israel. But their actions provide a source of inspiration for lunatic radical movements like Hamas and Hezbollah, and the fact that they are attacking Israelis in Baku, Delhi and Tbilisi, though ineffective for now, show that this is a state that could act in accordance with the modus operandi of a terrorist group. This has very negative implications for the stability of the Middle East.”

Not all Israeli experts see in the commotion of transatlantic visits and consultations evidence of tension between the United States and Israel. Shlomo Shpiro, vice chair of the Department of Politics at Bar Ilan University, believes those claims to be overstated.

“I think there anxiety among some in the U.S. administration who fear that a powerful Israeli military action against Iran could have an impact on the election in November. I don’t think there is tension. A whole range of senior American officials have been visiting Israel almost on a weekly basis.”

“I think the threat assessment is very similar in Washington and in Jerusalem,” he adds. “I think Obama is very concerned about the possibility of Iran getting nuclear weapons. Both are very worried, and both countries agree the process is moving quickly. The disagreement is only about how to prevent or delay it.”

Any Israeli military option, Shpiro says, would be a “last resort.”

“But if it comes to a last resort, I think Israel’s leadership will not hesitate. It all depends on the progress of Iran’s nuclear program and on information that the U.S. and Israel obtain about that program.”

For now, the war of nerves will play on, with Israel pressuring the U.S. and Europe to fully implement severe sanctions as soon as possible, and demanding assurances, perhaps impossible to give, about what the West will do if sanctions do not deter Iran.

The psychological warfare, many say, may lead Iran to believe it can “safely assume it can continue with its plan to build nuclear weapons without much interference,” Gilboa said. “There is a possibility the Iranians are laughing at everybody. For example, why announce sanctions and then say you’ll impose them only in six months?”

“The Iranians are the only ones producing consistent statements, and this is our problem. Too many of the statements coming from the West are confusing and could be interpreted in any number of ways.”

Hezbollah has enjoyed enormous popularity across the entire region, perceived by many as the champions of the Arab world, successfully standing up to the bully in the playground, Israel. There was a time when the portrait of Hassan Nasrallah hung on the walls of homes and cafes from Baghdad to Casablanca. Yet, following a relatively cool reception of Nasrallah’s speech on the 16^th of February , one got the distinct impression that the Lebanese resistance leader may not enjoy the same popularity he once did with the Arab masses.

A simple explanation might be Hezbollah’s unequivocal support for Bashar el-Assad’s regime in Syria.  In a speech broadcast by al-Manar on May 25^th 2011, Nasrallah declared his group’s strong support for the Assad regime. He hailed Syria for its support of the Resistance movement in Lebanon and Palestine. Many have been unable to comprehend why the former champions of the resistance would side with the regime against the people, especially considering Hezbollah’s unreserved support for the uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain. This has eroded the party’s popularity not only among Sunnis in Syria, who dominate the opposition, but also in the Arab world at large as regional tensions intensify between Shi’ite Iran and the predominantly Sunni Arab states.

Ironically, the very cause which won Hezbollah respect from thousands across the region, also, lost them the support of their own people. Throughout the 1990s, the Lebanese, regardless of sect, were united by Hezbollah’s resistance to the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon and again in 2006 when Israel threatened reinvasion. However, critics point to Hezbollah’s reluctance to disarm as the main source of national instability. Lebanese political leader Samir Geagea asserting that “The ones who are involving Lebanon [in crises] are those wielding power outside the Lebanese state” and demanding that Hezbollah put down its arms and integrate itself with the official Lebanese army and government.

In a similar vein, Hezbollah has alienated many followers by becoming embroiled in a petty tit-for-tat exchange with the March 14 coalition over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, investigating the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq el-Hariri.  Many, regardless of their politics, had respected Nasrallah for his commitment to his cause and ability to avoid entanglement in party politics.

Though not Hezbollah’s fault, as such, the persisting devastation of the socio-economic condition and infrastructure of southern Lebanon has also served as a harsh reminder, to the organisation’s critics, of the consequences of war with Israel

In the Asia Times, Sami Moubayed, points out Hassan Nasrallah’s total withdrawal from public life in Lebanon in recent years; choosing to address his supporters on live television rather than the massive public rallies for which he has been famed. His disappearance has been due to security fears. However, this has made it difficult for followers to connect with him. It is, also, now harder to draw in new supporters from across the Arab and Islamic worlds.

Despite their somewhat dented popularity, Hezbollah is still massively important on a strategic level, with regard to predicting the outcome of unrest in Syria.

In a speech broadcast by al-Manar on the 25^th August 2011, Nasrallah named Syria as a very important ally in the region “The Syrian support has been crucial. A great part of the Iranian support comes through Syria. If it had not been for the will of Syria, even the Iranian support would have been blocked”.  So, it is reasonable to assume that the fall of the Assad regime would serve a tremendous blow to Hezbollah, but also, act as catalyst to a power struggle within the country. A regime in Syria based on the Sunni Muslim majority would most likely be more friendly to Hezbollah’s local rivals in the March 14 coalition. Such a regime would also have good relations with regional powers that have severe disagreements with the Hezbollah movement over sectarian and political issues.

Prof. Joseph Bahout at Sciences Po in Paris notes that, in such a situation, Hezbollah would be faced with two alternatives, if faced with waning support from Syria “will Hizballah gradually become more flexible in terms of Lebanonization and civilianization? Or, on the contrary, will it increasingly pursue a radical position and bitterly defend its share of the Lebanese system while echoing Tehran’s dictum that Assad’s rule in Syria is a red line?” Judging by Hezbollah’s stern rhetoric over the past few months, the leadership has already decided on the latter and will continue to stand by the Assad regime.

Perhaps, most dangerously, Hezbollah also play an extremely important strategic role in what has been suggested as an imminent conflict between Israel and Iran. Would Israel be capable of conducting an aerial battle with Iran at the same time as defending itself against Hezbollah, closer to home?

Ha’aretz commentator Yoel Marcus thinks not, saying that a strike on Iran would be out of Israel’s league and points to cautions issued by former Mossad chief Meir Dagan against attacking Iran, amidst concerns that such a move would drag Israel into a regional war, which would involve Hezbollah, Hamas and possibly Syria.

Tensions have been escalating between Israel and Iran for some time, recently, heightened following attacks on Israeli embassies in India, Thailand and Georgia. An official for the Israeli counter terrorism bureau, quoted in Ha’aretz warned Israelis of further attacks and noted that Nasrallah’s threats of revenge for the 2008 assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughaniyeh were being taken into account.  Nasrallah categorically denied any involvement in the explosions in his speech on February 16^th.

But what would such a conflict mean for the Arab world at large? It seems unlikely that Egyptians, Jordanians or, the Palestinians, all not so embroiled in the sectarian debate, would support Israel in any conflict against Muslims whether they be in Lebanon or, in Iran. However, countries in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) might have more to gain from a weakened Iran.

The GCC have been concerned about Iran’s capabilities, behavior and intentions for a long time, but it takes on an additional importance in light of the Arab Spring. This has certainly been the case in Egypt and Bahrain, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, possibly in Yemen, and now in Syria.

GCC countries have repeatedly accused Tehran of attempting to destabilise their internal security, and attempting to instigate sectarian strife. Iran has rejected these accusations, and pointed to the GCC’s appalling treatment of Shi’ite citizens. Particularly, concerning the brutal suppression of the largely Shi’ite uprising in Bahrain against the Sunni al-Khalifa monarchy, a struggle which was obviously covered up by Gulf sponsored media such as al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya.

Tensions have also been rising over Iran’s ability to developing nuclear weapons, something that is already of great concern to the GCC. Without a nuclear advantage, the Gulf far outguns Iran in terms of military capability, although, Iran is not reluctant to use its geopolitical position and has threatened to close off the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil passes, if pressured.

When placed in the context of a larger regional conflict between Israel and Iran, Hezbollah plays an absolutely crucial part as an ally of Iran, especially in the absence of Syria. Yet, when the financial might of the GCC is also turned against Iran, Hezbollah, which is ultimately a financially dependent arm of Iran, becomes inconsequential.

It is possible that Hezbollah may look to find solutions to its waning popularity, and a possible run in with the GCC, by pre-emptively launching a strike against Israel. In his speech on Feburary 16^th, Nasrallah ambiguously claimed that “We have arms and they are increasing [in number]. We have well-known weapons and there are others which are hidden and unknown. We are hiding them because we need to protect our country and prepare surprises for the Israelis.” Whilst this may be an empty threat, a Hezbollah spokesman has said that the organisation would be willing to go to war with Israel, should Syria be attacked. It seems likely that the same logic would apply if an attack were to be staged against Iran.

Prof. Juan Cole has said that, in the case of a conflict with Iran, Hezbollah would almost certainly launch a rocket attack, which would threaten up to a quarter of the Israeli population. The casualties might be even worse if Hezbollah is able to target toxic gas storage in Haifa or nuclear reactors in Dimona and Nahal Sorek. Already Israel has been taking steps to shut down these facilities, in the event of an attack.

This seems to be a departure from Nasrallah’s statement in 2006, shortly after the 34 day war between Hezbollah and Israel, when he told Lebanon’s NTV that had he would not have ordered the capture of two Israeli soldiers, had he known that this would lead to such devastation. However, six years on, the situation between Iran and Israel has escalated, and for Hezbollah this has become a battle for existence. In an earlier speech, February 7^th, Nasrallah admitted that the organisation has been completely dependent on Iran for “moral, political and financial support” since 1982.

Hezbollah has found itself in the unenviable position of choosing between its Iranian financial backer and its Arab popular support base. Ironically, Hezbollah’s only hope may be an Israelis attack on Iran, thus gaining it some support, once more, as the champion of resistance against the Zionist aggressor. But should the pressure on Iran be laid on by the Gulf states, Hezbollah will be left with no alternative but to cut its ties with Iran or, face complete irrelevance within the Arab world.

On the surface, the criteria that Obama outlined in his Libya speech are present in Syria: impending and ongoing massacres; a multilateral coalition led by America’s traditional allies; and an opportunity to side with the people in a crucial state in the Arab spring. For this reason, many liberal writers have called on the U.S. to intervene. Paul Berman has signed onto a conservative-led letter to the president asking him to intervene in Syria. The New Republic has an entire symposium with intellectuals (mostly) asking Obama to side militarily with the Syrian resistance. “Lead again from behind!” Leon Wieseltier exhorts. Especially powerful is a heartfelt plea for American help from a Syrian activist in Washington:

Pressure is building in Congress. Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who both serve on the Armed Services Committee, have argued for arming the Syrian rebels. Obama’s former State Department policy planning head Anne-Marie Slaughter was among the first to call for intervention. In late January, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said it’s only “a question of time” before President Bashar al Assad falls. In December, the State Department pointman said Syria’s leader was a “dead man walking.” More recently, White House press secretary said on Tuesday that “additional measures” such as rebel-arming may need to be taken if the international community keeps dithering.

There are two significant reasons the administration has not pushed for military intervention, however. First, the international consensus that existed on Libya is not present in Syria. Russia and China vetoed a Western- and Arab-sponsored U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the Syrian government. Imagining that they would agree to a military intervention is simply fanciful.

What hasn’t been much discussed is why China and Russia vetoed the resolution. And here we circle back to Libya. The resolution authorizing military action in Libya was limited to protecting civilians in Benghazi and other areas. NATO and its allies quickly went beyond the scope of this mandate, using airpower to assist the rebels in defeating Col. Gadhafi and his forces. Such actions may have been morally justified, but they didn’t go unnoticed by the Chinese and Russians, who are extremely sensitive to infringements on state sovereignty (lest they be targeted one day). Tellingly, foes of the proposed Syria resolution explained their decision in terms of national sovereignty. Russia’s foreign minister said that “the Security Council by definition does not engage in domestic affairs of member states.” Russia’s U.N. envoy faulted the resolution for aiming at “regime change,” even though the wording of the text notably did not call for it and the Arab states explicitly rejected Western military intervention.

The second reason Libya isn’t acting as a template for Syria is one of logistics. As Middle East expert Marc Lynch has explained, “Military intervention in Syria has little prospect of success, a high risk of disastrous failure, and a near-certainty of escalation which should make the experience of Iraq weigh extremely heavily on anyone contemplating such an intervention.” The Syrian opposition, impressive and courageous as they have been, is divided, weak and controls no territory. Air power of the sort the West can provide would not be effective in preventing civilian deaths, and the fighting is taking place in densely populated cities. For these reasons and more, a Libya-style no-fly zone simply won’t fly.

Eventually, the Syrian government’s efforts to suppress the rebellion may be so bloody that the Obama administration feels compelled to intervene. But so far, the conditions that were present in Libya are not present in Syria. It may be a double standard, and one that liberal hawks are not comfortable with, but it is one with good reason.