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Source: http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=250786
Minorities and the Arab Spring
(Jerusalem Post) Zvi Mazel - The shock waves breaking over the Middle East are the result of the failure of the Arab states to come up with a coherent national narrative uniting their different components and to establish modern societies where all are equals. Nearly a century after they rose on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, the Arab states have failed to cause the mosaic of ethnic, national and religious communities which form them to coalesce into nations with common goals and aspirations. Those societies have been torn by ceaseless internal and external squabbles, political and economic discrimination, revolts, civil wars and military coups - resulting in an estimated five million dead and countless wounded as well as a growing number of refugees. The writer, a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, is a former ambassador of Israel to Romania, Egypt and Sweden.