The press responded to this popular desire for Israeli (and hence ‘trustworthy’) reportage, sending correspondents to cover the Tahrir demonstrations, whose personal experiences with Egyptians, and their interlocutors’ attitudes to Israel and Israelis in general, were the subject of considerable interest.

Here, the relative lack of overt anti-Israeli rhetoric in the revolutionary period – when compared with the prior demonization of Mubarak as a US and Israeli stooge by many Egyptian opposition movements – was noted in commentary and, to an extent, by the wider public.

Israeli recognition of a profound human security deficit as the root cause of the Arab social struggle has been promoted by the parallel emergence of food and gas price inflation in Israel. This has led to a minor revolt within the ruling Likud. There have been warnings from within the party and Histadrut labor federation that the government is risking its future due through purportedly promoting a potential popular ‘revolt’ against further price hikes.

The Arab social revolutions have served as inspiration for Israeli workers’ struggles, with the repeated referencing of developments in the Arab world in an ongoing social workers’ strike. A placard during one of the demonstrations read: ‘We want air like in Tahrir Square.’

Much of the above borders on a generalization that is always dangerous in Israel, which is rived by differences of observance, race, class and culture that makes any broad summation of popular opinion fragile at best and unrepresentative at worst.

It is important not to overstate the short-term significance of the Egyptian and wider Arab social struggle to the Jewish-Israeli impression of Arab-Israeli relations. Jewish-Israeli popular opinion on racial issues remains radicalized by both an entrenched domestic racial divide and Palestinian-Israeli conflict; a tendency subject to further intensification through militant attacks – as seen in the immediate response to this week’s bus bombing.

There has been little coverage in the mainstream Hebrew press of ongoing, related developments in the Palestinian territories where a process similar to that in Lebanon is taking hold of popular, youth-led foment for factional reconciliation. This absence is notable when juxtaposed with the extensive, supportive coverage of the Libyan liberation struggle and growing interest in the current Syrian protests.

Politically, the future of Arab social revolutions remains in the balance, but their potential success could allow the emergence for the first time of a direct relationship between truly representative governments. This cannot but have an impact on Israeli foreign policy, although how remains moot.

In Israel, the courage and sacrifice of the youth of Tahrir, Sidi Bouzid, Benghazi, Sana’a and Pearl Square has been noted with a mixture of admiration and amazement, particularly with regard to the non-violent character of most struggles.

Depending on developments both in Israel and liberated Arab states, this altered impression may provide the necessary starting point for a long-term shift towards the breaking down of extant walls of mistrust, hatred and fear in a way that no politician since Sadat has achieved, with potentially greater depth and effect.

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