expel a foreign occupier which is something that we would do if the same thing happened our country the point were to have to leave it at that thank you for coming on the show that is my uprising or even iraq or that. and that does it for now but stay right here because we'll have more news for you in just an hour and a half a lot more interviews at seven pm. assures that so much to know there's a huge because it is rare to find in the market what is the distance between the arab spring in the arab democracy some people of the arab middle east have demonstrated they can rid themselves of dictators. download the official policy of location joy so the i pod touch from the i choose i'm still. like on the go. video on demand r.t.s. mine you'll see an r.s.s.

feeds now in the palm of your. machine on the com. we'll. bring you the latest in science and signal from around the world. we're going to the future of coverage. we can. welcome across town people about what is the distance between the arab spring and arab democracy some people of the arab middle east have demonstrated they can rid themselves of dictators but one of the challenges associated with the ballot box and is the west sincerely interested in seeing democracy take root in the arab world. you can. still.

get cross-talk arab democracy i'm joined by lisa daftari in los angeles she's an award winning journalist with expertise in the middle east in boston we have your him may tell he is head of the charm hertzog center and on the faculty of ben gurion university and in seattle we cross the ramsey group he is editor in chief of the palestine chronicle all right folks the crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want lisa since you have to go first this morning for this program what is your opinion of the state of the democratic process in the arab world right now from tunisia egypt leave libya and then maybe looking a little bit about the struggles going on in yemen and syria. but i don't know if democratic is is the word that we should use. entire across the middle east but particularly in this case because it doesn't look like that's the way it's going to go i mean these things don't happen overnight revolutions on happened overnight and

we're not going to see the exact results pan out overnight however these revolutions usually happen in three steps first as a popular uprising second the dictator is toppled and third there is an empty stage an opportunity for a well organized well supported well funded groups to step right in and in all of the cases that we've seen in all the countries that have experienced an arab spring we are seeing an islamist influence hovering overhead and groups that have been around for many years not giving the young people in these countries an opportunity to form a secular coalition together their constituents i mean it's been three decades in egypt for decades in libya that they have not been to the governing themselves they're new with this they don't have the experience and they're not having that be the opportunity or the time to. organize and for the young people to really get themselves heard this was their movement and unfortunately we're watching as it unfolds and it might be a hijacking of the movement by these these other islamist groups ok we heard the

word hijack really early in the program i thought we were hearing a little bit later what do you think about the state of the democratic process i mean you know we were looking at obviously where there has been major changes and that's to me and that's also egypt and olivia but ari do you see this hijacking process is it too early to say. no i do believe that there might be that might be the is in fact some hijacking process taking place but the hijacking is not happening by the groups within these countries who are very much interested in having a real democratic process and the way the hijacking is happening by the us it's happening by france happening by britain happening by the very forces that have supported the dictatorship in these countries for many years i mean who have propped and allowed her to rule over his people for all those years whose money

whose support whose military funding wasn't the us i know it was in south africa i know for a fact it wasn't trash it must have been the us it is infallible us so if there is any hijacking that's going to happen to take this country's back to the to the era where mobarak and khadafi and these men have ruled over the middle east the hijacking will happen from the us and other western allies however as i think the question itself after a kind of clues to the answer it's a democratic process it's a process it has a start and it's already started the question is will it yield the results that are intended by that evolutionary is and i think there is going to be a struggle and a struggle is underway right now to ensure that democracy in fact becomes the real outcome the ultimate outcome of all of this ok your image i'm going to you involved in so we we have the word hijacked we have we've heard one hijacked from within islam was mentioned and we have ramzi that is saying hijacked from without where do

you stand there or is there a third way. well first i think it's too early to see if all we are having this hijacking scenario no doubt. your. watching or experiencing. this size the moment in the story of the mainly. societies and regimes in the middle east to this. transition phase or stage there will be a different span of time egypt is not libya. is not the iman and so on so for now it's for the question of the. meanings of this transition phase i would say that the most important challenge here is of course to the egyptian society or arab society in general.

first the challenges coming through this new political map we are having a completely different political map in tunisia in egypt and the beginning of this in of course. the uprising in libya. second it will come very soon that this struggle between the different political parties will get to the question of phrasing a new constitution it's really this is a huge. if i may jump in here and say i mean but also there's another dynamic that's in play here is how much is the old regime want to hang on in it in a different guise of different party in that we see that very much in egypt right now we've seen a lot of scuffles going on right now so at least if i can go to you i mean you know you see this the mubarak two point zero coming in because you know the military is extremely powerful in egypt extremely close to the united states still and be the

united states would probably like to see that ally relate ally relationship stay there and so the regime and the postman particularly jeanne is just mubarak without its head. right but there's a there's a problem here where you have yes the military on one hand but how about this big constituency of eighty five million people who are incompatible revolutionary mode they have no means of moving forward in seeing this next chapter of the of are not able to go on and do the nation building as we'd all we talked about back in february and at the beginning of their movement that they will have to spend the next few years obviously the next few months with you know in long term at least another decade in the nation building mode and they haven't been able to do that and in the meantime. groups such as muslim brotherhood they have the the they've won over the people because they've been around for years they've done things for

the people they put up soup kitchens and schools and libraries and they have pander to their constituency which is usually the lower socio and i cannot make groups and you know that's why revolution starts because of poverty it's because unemployment people do not go to bed at night thinking about democracy and about you know these lofty ideals and they don't also go to bed thinking about sharia law but they do go to bed thinking about is how they're going to put bread on the table the next day how they're going to feed a family how they're going to use their education that they've received and there's no jobs i mean these are the real concerns of the people and whether or not they're going to be heard in the next chapter of islamic rather egyptian government i doubt it because their extremist influences are too strong and the united states well i mean this is you know you see these are the stream live is it is it really is in the stream is there if you have soup kitchens and libraries can we look at the muslim brotherhood the muslim brotherhood of yesterday. ramsey go ahead you

know let me just say something i think this is a very condescending view of the arabs and this is a very typical kind of right wing american view or at least mainstream america and then a little bit know that let me let me just let me just finish my thought out i am you can jump in but i have to finish ramsey i have to finish my thought know people do go to bed people do go to bed thinking about democracy and arabs do go to bed thinking about freedom and their rights to express themselves and to have their own representatives of the parliaments the think about it they have earned it the worry about it the whole revolution for it say it's not about the money back poverty per se libya by the way libya in particular is one of the has the highest national g.n.p. in the entire continent of africa yet this still went through a process that yielded almost fifty thousand deaths obviously democracy does have

a price freedom does have a price and they would do anything to to to get this guy who you know will clearing the muslim the muslim brotherhood's opening opening kitchen we you know soup kitchens and all of that and this is how they won hearts and minds just this old archaic thinking that is still purple choice for some reason the muslim brotherhood have been around for over eighty years and they have been a solid and a consistent jumpy million years the are you are in the last ten years going on in boston you've only spoken once of this program go ahead sir. well i think that we should think about the role of the political islam and especially of the muslim brotherhood in this stage out of the box of the previous stage which was the stage of authoritarian regimes supported by the west and all this now it's not that the west or other countries are not interested in sometime involved in what is going on in egypt of course and other places but the most important thing is there

the challenge today is not only to normally islamist parties it's a huge challenge for the political islam. parties especially the muslim brotherhood now see what happened since the beginning of this year in egypt the muslim brotherhood themselves have been split to be inclusive of all camps so they come for the first time to the place that it's not one monolithic muslim brotherhood it's by far more complex so the coin here that i would like to make is that we should think in a different concept about the role of the political islam in this stage and i don't think that political islam or most pacifically the muslim brotherhood are about to hijack the revolution in egypt. all right joe we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion of arab democracy state are going. to.

start. mission free cretaceous free lance for charges free to make humans free. three stooges free.

download free blogs just plug in video for your media projects a free media oh god r t v dot com. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like sleep you think you understand it and then he glimpse something else and you hear see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. brought our hero. we hear it because our cash outs that. god promised them this linda long stuff. will if they are still going to be thinking. and gone chosen people will not believe that god is

a real estate agent say look at this that is just for you guys disguised as we. undergo to want to be this is the one this is my god that. up until. then look up to. cut. extra. gave. me food. food.

low incomes. elude to the full. well come across on a funeral bell to mind you were talking about democratic transitions in the arab world the flow can come from. slow. ok i'm going to go back to you in seattle i suppose really when it gets down to one i hear in the mainstream all the time is that islam and democracy and arabs are just three things they just can't get along but it's kind of interesting isn't it that the muslims and arabs in this type part of the world has just been denied democracy for forever they've never had a chance at it and so you everyone comes out batting saying it's all an authentic i mean as it hasn't why should we just give arabs and muslims

a lot of arabs or muslims a chance of having building their own democratic societies instead of being told if it's extremist or comic stream mr moderate enough or status to now for outside influence enough i mean it's very early days still. exactly peter but good for them it's really not too early because what's really worries them is not about the relationship between islam and democracy this issue is being resolved based on the internal mics and electric's of this very society's single day there are debates everywhere in the arab world and arabic t.v. stations about secularism in islam how is this relating to women how is it relating to. the economy but these things do not really matter to the very people who come and infuses who are islamic elements what war is there are two things first they are worried about this menace this islamic terrorist menace that have they have exaggerated they have created to some extent and exaggerated and they kind of get

over it frankly and it's just really not part of our society we do not think about our car that they are night just not part of our culture i was inside and the knowledge is just hold on hold on the other point i have here is that is that the other thing that's worse than israel and this is a major major issue they don't bring it up sometimes straightforward but this is what it is they are worried that if the muslim brotherhood in egypt take over the market and the world renegotiate camp david you know in fact the glow of it all together so they are worried about their ally israel they are worried a bit of a vis foreign policy interest but they are not at all worried about the needs and the desires and the interest of the people but they wouldn't come straight forward and say that as it is this is this is in fact what is happening currently so you want to jump in and go right ahead lisa go ahead no that's absolutely absolutely untrue it's about terrorism it's about extremism has nothing to do with israel it

has nothing to do with us it has everything to do with the people of these countries who went out onto the streets who risked their lives who are continuing to risk their lives it's about the daughters and the sisters well just and just the other day i read a report about the judges who die in a wheelchair and they're about the long. there's and this is your cary grant jerry about them if you raise your head and listen listening in to hear what this half of this question was just and what they actually said was simply as a fluke is that he was he has so much about these anyone why did you find a military regime why did you find the military regime in egypt and you funded also supporter of three games in the middle east for so many years why did you give the egyptian army one point three billion dollars a year for what see for the daughters and sons of egypt you really care about them that much that you would be arming the very people who have been have been posing as as the defenders of the egyptians but in reality they have been a crashing course with a gyptian people ok you are and i want to go to you know i want to go to boston

here israel was brought up here and i want i don't want to talk about directly about israel because we don't want arab democracy here but there are people who would say and you might call them cynics is that the only thing the west is particularly interested in is in democratic change in the arab world is make sure their progress that's what they want they don't really care about anything else because ramses pointed out for decades dictators were supported because they were friends of the west so no matter what the outcome is does it's not about democracy it's about western influence still go ahead. well this is one perspective the western influence or a. spark or by this. huge transformation but i would say actually two point clear the one is that at the very beginning of the uprising in egypt tunisia other places this world was not on the actually on the table it was not an issue israel it started. later on we had. disagreements about.

saving gas to israel. after the whole debate within egypt about the can they do it now i would like to say here. i think something that is important to this discussion we should look at various perspectives here it's not that one party in egypt including the muslim brotherhood will gain a dnd of the one hundred percent they want from the cake so yes the army most probably will transfer power to an elected government but they will play a significant role behind the scenes this is obvious to the egyptian army really connected with the united states with the peace with israel so i think that concerning the peace treaty or commitments to the peace in general i do not predict . they have this commitment but three and this is the most important the change is

there an elected government in egypt we surf the voices of criticism an end gear and resentment against israel's policy and this would bring to the table a much more aggressive egyptian policy told israel without risking all neglecting commitment their general commitment to the peace with israel let me run through. on this one because it's an interesting point it's an interesting point here i think again you know. ours have been so involved in the region and move people would call it a neo colonial experiment it's coming to an end are this is really what's at issue here is that these countries that are going through this transition whatever that transition we want to call it is going to have eventually their own foreign policies and this is something that really shakes up the work we haven't seen that in the post-war period go ahead. we know very well through so many public

opinion polls that have been taken in recent years how do our ups actually feel about about israel about us foreign policy about the creation of iraq about all of these things we know for a fact how they feel and we know that if these these future governments in the debris presenting the opinion of the masses then we know that there is going to be a problem here for the u.s. it is going to be a very serious problem for israel as well and this is why this is really the major game underway here and which the u.s. and nato are trying to hijack the arab revolution to insure that the outcomes are as immutable and as likable to u.s. foreign policy as possible and they are not as as you as mention too aggressive towards israel i think the outcome of this game will determine a great deal but from what i see especially especially in egypt and in tunisia it's going to be a democracy for the people and by the people and it's not about bread and it's not

about food it's about the life of the egyptian people have to be really we'll have these themselves and the relationship in the region it's not that's all. that's that's completely that's completely wishful thinking what we have said from the beginning of the arab spring is that we have not seen it being an anti-american movement or an anti israel movement we didn't see american flags being burned on the street we didn't see israeli flags being burned on the street and i was a very positive sign that this is a grassroots movement it's about nationalism and you know what to do as soon as those whatever government takes form in the next stage they will use exactly those sentiments the anti-american sentiment the anti israel sentiment to rally the people around the flag it was done in iran three thirty years ago it will be done again if the smartest move the government can do to rally and unite the people the common goal at this point with the people with nation building the common goal of the new government will be anti israel anti us anti west sentiments mark my words

your him when he says well democracy is very scary for you isn't it. you reply that i was saying this is why the marker see real democracy is very scary for people like lisa because you are going to produce what you would perceive as anti american but by the way they are we are not anti americans egyptians are not anti americans egyptians are anti the very policy that the us has instituted in their country they want to see that change change those policies and believe me you will see egyptians not being at the americans that's all ok you're about to find go back to you in boston it is what it will be as this could continue saying we're talking about independent foreign policies and i mean would not be better for what some people call mystic we call the peace process between the palestinians and israel because israel would have more of a stake in making a peace with the palestinians and then you take the issue off the table well understood from you that this one is not the issue here in this program so what was

no i'm saying you know what i mean really mean it's very clear we don't make it very clear here is that lisa saying you know it's going to be anti-american and it's going to be anti israel but if israel has this moment this opportunity to make a peace process real then they get their security in the palestinians good person date i mean and and that shows that these countries would have have genuine foreign policies that are independent where people would actually support their government in having a peace process in itself alter the region go ahead. ok so first i would say that i don't think that. the an elected government will automatically reflect. i would say an aggressive. foreign policy toward the united states i think there will be much more criticizing the american policy and especially more criticizing of israel but the more important thing here is also

that when we raise the issue of israel israel is not. you know a remote player so it heavily depends on what israel will do or perceive about the arab spring or most specifically about an egyptian. government who would like to maybe rephrase because in the camp david agreement now in israel we have a right wing coalition this right right wing coalition do not interested at this point in progress in the peace process with the palestinians especially because for . the arab spring presents a threat they see they are of supreme court process of them across the nation as a huge threat coming in their direction officer and they trying to defuse this threat just by. buying some time through this money pullup leave the policy that. is basically. doing

with the american administration here. ok i'm going to jump in here we've run out of time here we'll see what happens when arabs go to the ballot box many thanks to my guest today in boston los angeles and in seattle and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are the scene expanding remember last august.

pro brought our hero. we hear it because our country alex. god promised them this milind belongs to our. will if they are still going to be thinking the. gold chosen people will be well believe the dog is a real estate agent say ok this is not this is for you guys i'm disguised as for you. going to go go on are you this is your mine field research my family. problem your. buck.