An Al-Arabiya survey found that a whopping 71 percent of respondents aren't the least bit interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I'm not a big fan of online polls, but Efraim Karsh responds with an important point.
If this result represents wider Arab views, it pretty much kills the Mideast domino theory which claims that if Israel and the Palestinians make peace, the rest of the region's problems will fall into place, the Arabs will like the US, Iran will be isolated, Al-Qaida will have no reason to fight, etc.
Karsh writes in the NY Times:
. . . it is a positive sign that so many Arabs have apparently grown so apathetic about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. For if the Arab regimes’ self-serving interventionism has denied Palestinians the right to determine their own fate, then the best, indeed only, hope of peace between Arabs and Israelis lies in rejecting the spurious link between this particular issue and other regional and global problems.
Arab indifference would also lay to rest any notions that so-called "Israeli intransigence" in the peace process directly undermines US security interests in the Mideast — a much-discussed issue in March over comments attributed to Gen. David Petraeus.
Related reading: The Palestine Peace Distraction
