THE ARAB SPRING IN SUMMER

By Sig Demling

Once upon a time columnists were raving about something someone labelled "The Arab Spring."

Events in Tunisia and Egypt has the center-to-left pundits waxing ecstatic about some dreamlike conception called democracy in the Middle East.

The supposition -- roughly equivalent to an mirage in the desert -- was that the Obama-inspired ousting of Hosni Mubarak would herald a brave, new enlightenment era in the Arab World.

It's time for us to check out that Arab World.

* EGYPT: There has been a revolt against the peoples' revolution. Obama's most coveted Arab-spring-aling, the Muslim Brotherhood, 

MB -- as in Mostly Bad -- spent a year proving that it's about the worst thing to happen in the Middle East since, well, Assad's Syria.

* SYRIA: And speaking of cockeyed examples of the Arab Spring, the murder count now has passed the 100,000 mark and The White House still is trying to determine which homicidal group to support.

* TURKEY: Erdogan's government has managed -- so far -- to stifle oppostion while remaining a dictatorship pretending to be a democracy. Clear-minded Turks know what's going on but their ability to further protest is overshadowed by the potential for Assad-type assaults. 

Rather than remind you of the burlesques on democracy in Libya, Tunisia, Lebanon and Gaza, let me point out that such august outfits such as the United Nations and the European Union seem to believe that their fervent focus should be on Israel.

And maybe the UN and EU are right.

Perhaps there is a threat to home building.

Maybe the fact that Jews want to live in East Jerusalem is some kind of sin but I can understand why.

Imagine if the citizens of Bethesda, Maryland decided that nobody in Washington, D.C. should be allowed to build in their hallowed community. 

The roar of protest against such an outrageous concept would be heard from the Maryland Court House to the Supreme Court across the river.

But Jews in East Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria rubs the pious souls along the East River and in Brussels the wrong way. 

And because the UN and EU feel that way, folks such as Mahmound Abbas feel secure in their ranting that a potential Palestinian state will be judenrein.

That in a nutshell should tell you how absurd is the concept of an Arab Spring. 

It has sprung and it smells to high Heaven!