EMET ONLINE
A Look Back at the Arab Spring, Ten Years On
by Sarah Stern
December 31, 2020

It is hard to believe that next week will have been a decade since Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian fruit vender, set himself ablaze on January 4, 2011 setting off what has come to be known as “the Arab Spring,” and unleashed several decades of frustration with the Middle East’s entrenched autocratic leaders, throughout the region. For a brief period during that time, the hopeful eyes of the world were watching, with the aspirations that this might lead to a more open and democratic Middle East, or at least one in which the most entrenched, tyrannical leaders would be overthrown and basic human rights would be established. It is time to ask: How did it all work out? READ MORE