Violence erupts at Israel borders

[مستر/ عصام الجاويش]

On one level, the "Nakba" day incidents on Israel's borders may have represented an attempt by the Palestinians to join the Arab revolutionary spring.
So far, the Palestinians, in a very different position from most Arab nations, had been largely left out as the spirit of assertive demands for rights and freedoms swept the region and threatened its dictators.
The pent-up frustrations of the Palestinians largely took the form of pressure on their own divided leaderships to unite, something that has now happened.
The 15 May challenges to Israel on its borders with Lebanon and Syria, within the fragmented West Bank and on the Gaza frontier, undoubtedly embodied the same kind of risk-taking, confrontational people-power ethos that has fired the revolts in many parts of the Arab world.
Palestinian militancy and desire for self-assertion in keeping with revolutionary Arab times are very strong and can be taken as a given. But the ability to express those sentiments is something else
By Jim Muir BBC News, Beirut .