Tahrir Square, Cairo, May 2011.
(Ahmed Asad / APA images)
(Ahmed Asad / APA images)
To be clear, none of this is to say that much of the emotion and solidarity was not genuine; most often, it was very much so. However, protests for Palestine or against Israel were also instances of populations of Arab countries projecting their own dissatisfaction in a politically “safe” way in light of the repressive nature of the regimes under which they lived.
Recently, while trading stories with a Syrian friend about protests, she recalled that her first protest as a child had been one for Palestine — in fact most of the protests she had participated in or witnessed growing up as an Arab living in the West were about Palestine. I nodded and smiled, not at all surprised. The reality is that Palestine, for better or worse, was the issue that most Arabs — both living in the Arab world or in their respective diaspora communities — spent a majority of their lives protesting.