Since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, the Middle East has been rocked by mass protests. Egyptians have demonstrated in solidarity with Palestinians at great personal risk, and Iraqis, Moroccans, Tunisians, and Yemenis have taken to the streets in vast numbers. Meanwhile, Jordanians have broken long-standing redlines by marching on the Israeli embassy, and Saudi Arabia has refused to resume normalization talks with Israel, in part because of its people’s deep fury over Israel’s operations in the Gaza Strip.
For Washington, the view is that none of this mobilization really matters. Arab leaders, after all, are among the world’s most experienced practitioners of realpolitik, and they have a record of ignoring their people’s preferences. The protests, although large, have been manageable. Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and other leaders have long encouraged protests about the treatment of Palestinians which allow their people to blow off steam and direct their anger toward a foreign enemy instead of against domestic corruption and incompetence. In time, or so the argument goes, the fighting in Gaza will end, the angry protesters will go home, and their leaders will carry on pursuing self-interests, an activity at which they excel.
U.S. foreign policymakers also have a long history of disregarding public opinion in the Middle East—the so-called Arab street. After all, if autocratic Arab leaders are calling the shots, then it is not necessary to put stock in what angry activists shout or in what ordinary citizens tell pollsters or the media. Since there are no democracies in the Middle East, care need not be given to what anyone outside the palaces thinks. And for all its talk of democracy and human rights, Washington has always been more comfortable dealing with pragmatic autocrats than with publics it regards as irrational, extremist mobs. It rarely pauses to consider how this might contribute to its dismal record of policy failures.
The United States’ willingness to dismiss popular concerns is strengthened by the memory of 2003, when Arab public opinion was wildly against the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, but most of the region’s leaders cooperated with the invasion and none took steps to oppose it. Despite decades of frequent mass protests against Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank, Jordan and Egypt have maintained peace treaties with Israel, and Egypt has even actively participated in the siege of Gaza. Indeed, U.S. complacency has actually increased as anticipated eruptions of popular anger—for example, over moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem or bombing Yemen—failed to materialize. Washington’s conviction was briefly shaken by the Arab uprisings of 2011, but it returned in full force as autocracies reasserted control in the following years.
That seems to be what the United States and most policy analysts expect this time around, too. When the bombing is finally over, the crowds will return to their homes and find other things to be mad about, and regional politics can go back to normal. But these assumptions reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of how public opinion matters in the Middle East, as well as a deep misreading of what has truly changed since the 2011 uprisings.
The term “Arab street” is used by policymakers to reduce regional public opinion to the rantings of an irrational, hostile, and emotional mob that might be appeased or repressed but is without coherent policy preferences or ideas. The expression has deep roots in British and French colonial rule and was adopted by the United States as it entered the Cold War and came to believe that education and capitalism are capable of transforming the Middle East into the image of the West. These ideas underpinned Washington’s policy of cooperating with Arab dictators who could control their people. That suited Arab leaders, who could deflect Western pressure on issues such as Israel or democratization by pointing to the threat of popular uprisings, and Islamic bogeymen waiting in the wings to take their place.
Prior to 2011, the high point of the Arab street concept occurred during the so-called Arab cold war of the 1950s, when populist pan-Arab leaders enjoyed great success in mobilizing the masses against conservative Western allies in the name of Arab unity and support for Palestinians. The sight of thousands of angry protestors responding to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s radio addresses by rampaging through the streets in countries including Jordan impressed itself on Western policymakers. Washington, in particular, concluded that the Arab street was dangerous, creating........