Daniel Korski

Israeli politicians have been worrying that the Palestinians would join the protests sweeping the Middle East. So far, this has not happened. But now the Israeli leadership is facing something it probably never expected: an Israeli Spring.   Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets last weekend to protest against the high cost of living and demand that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conduct extensive economic reforms. Over 150,000 people are thought to have demonstrated in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, Beersheba and six other cities in left-wing protests against housing policy, but which seem to be morphing into a broader political movement.

Syrian President Bashar Al Assad has praised his troops for ‘foiling the enemies’ of his country. Some enemies. 140 civilians are said to have died in a pre-Ramadan crackdown on protesters, adding to the toll of 1,600 civilians who have been killed since anti-government demonstrations began in mid-March. Details of the events in Hama are unclear because journalists have been kept out of Syria. But the pattern of events is familiar: protests against the Assad regime emerge; the army moves in to kill demonstrators; more protests then take place, which leads to more killings. Meanwhile, the international community stands by.

The Egyptian revolution may be in for its greatest challenge yet. Last weekend saw clashes between different groups of protesters, as one group sought to march on the Supreme Military Council. Now Salafists have promised to occupy Tahrir Square on Friday, seeking to turf out the broad-based group of revolutionaries that have occupied the square for a number of weeks. Many people fear a bloodbath. The military, meanwhile, is benefitting from a fracturing of the revolution. Some even see an explicit (if short-term) agreement between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists which will allow the military to push against the liberal Tahrir Square activists.

In the midst of the fall-out from the phone hacking scandal comes some positive news for David Cameron: it appears that the Libyan rebels have won control of Brega, as most pro-Gaddafi troops retreated westward leaving around 150-200 loyalist fighters pinned down inside the town. If true, this is an important step towards the end of the Gaddafi regime: control of the oil-rich town is decisive for the Transitional National Council in Benghazi. It gives the rebels control over Libya's eastern oil network, with access to more than 2m barrels of stored crude.

The end might be nigh for the euro. The currency has hit an all-time low against the Swiss franc, as individual eurozone government bond yields vaulted higher due to mounting concerns about the region's debt crisis. To spell out what this means: in Spain, 12 billion euros of interest payments will accrue for every 100 point bond rise in Germany. That is more than Spain's annual public investment in infrastructure (8.6 billion) and its entire defence budget (7.6 billion). At the same time, Greece is heading towards disorderly default or some form of devaluation. Or both. And now Italy looks vulnerable.

In the minds of many pro-European left-wingers, a new ogre is taking the place of old pones: the credit rating agencies. James Carville famously said that he wanted come back as the bond markets in a next life; coming back as a credit rating agency might be the next best thing. The agencies are blamed by many on the Continent for being too tough on a range of assets and too American to understand Europe. And EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barrosso has talked about a "bias" against European assets. Worldwide, there are about 150 credit rating agencies. But many of them are only regional, while three U.S. companies dominate the market: Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch.

Syria is still ablaze and the West seems unable to do douse the flames. And the risk of the Assad regime committing even greater violence will increase when the world's media moves on. The reasons for Western impotence are manifold. First, for a long time Western leaders thought they could reason with Assad and therefore shied away from direct pressure. When they decided to act, they discovered that Assad is immune to European pressure because Syria does little trade with Europe. But, crucially, many Syrians are either loyal to the regime or fear triggering disintegration of the sort they have seen in neighbouring Lebanon and Iran. Finally, unlike Libya, the Syrian regime is not hated by fellow Arab states.

While analysts and diplomats are wondering who will win the forthcoming Egyptian presidential election, the military junta (the Supreme Council for the Armed Forces, or SCAF) that runs the country has organised a poll on their Facebook page. More than 200,000 people seem to have taken part. And even accounting for the obvious deficiencies (e.g. the bias towards an unrepresentative, internet-savvy, and liberal electorate) and bearing in mind the near-certainty of fraud given that the SCAF’s FB site is run by military intelligence, the results are interesting nonetheless. Topping the poll is, not unexpectedly, Mohammed El Baradei, the former head of the IAEA, whose internet-connected supporters have put him on 31 percent.