BIRZEIT: Clustered around TVs in cafes across the West Bank, Palestinians are transfixed by events in Egypt, wondering when the regime might fall and which Arab leader could be next.
Revolt in the biggest nation in the Arab world has especially caught the attention of younger Palestinians, who are also keenly following developments online through blogs, Twitter and Facebook.
“It is good that the Egyptian people are expressing their will and saying what they want to achieve, like the Tunisian people did,” said 17-year-old student Mohammed Taha.
At Birzeit University, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, many students said it was time to remove a generation of leaders who have monopolised power for years and robbed the people of their rights.
“What is happening now in Arab countries is a natural thing,” explains 20-year-old Mohammed Murrar.
“The Arab people have risen up to offload decades of oppression and repression by dictatorial governments,” he says.
And the next in line? “Algeria,” he predicted.
Rampant nepotism has enabled autocrats to keep their stranglehold on power, added media student Shadi Sader.
“The Arab leaders are not satisfied to just stay in their chairs, but they are also planning to pass that power on to their children, which is the biggest way of overriding the people's right to self-determination,” he told AFP.
That said, no-one in the West Bank is anticipating a popular rebellion against the Palestinian leadership, given the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Last week Al Jazeera television released leaked secret documents that referred to far-ranging concessions offered by Palestinian negotiators to Israel during peace talks.
But rather than provoke public anger against the Palestinian Authority, the leak sparked a backlash against Al Jazeera, with thousands taking to the streets to accuse the pan-Arab channel of targeting president Mahmud Abbas.
“The way Al Jazeera handled those documents caused them to lose their meaning, and it will not cause a Palestinian revolution as some had wanted it to do,” student Nuwwar Nazzal said.
There is a deeper reason for not looking to shake the Ramallah leadership, Murrar added -- it is the biggest single employer in the Palestinian territories. “We cannot break the Authority,” he explained. “It is the source of livelihood for a lot of Palestinians.”
For Nazzal, what has unfolded on the streets of Cairo and Tunis is “the biggest proof that people are not stupid.”
“It is not logical that certain presidents govern for more than 20 or 30 years without any change, and by always winning 99.9 percent of the vote,” she said.
“Is it possible that these large numbers of demonstrators represent that 0.1 percent who voted for others?”With open dissent in Egypt and Tunisia has come no shortage of humour, with students swapping jokes and cartoons online.
One cartoon depicts Arab leaders as talent show contestants vying for a chance to win a trip to Saudi Arabia – the kingdom to which Zine El Abdine Ben Ali fled after his ouster as Tunisia’s president.
There is disagreement, however, on the impact of the Internet.
“Thanks to Facebook and Twitter we now have revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia,” says psychology student Ibaa Fteiha. “Those social networks enabled the youth to plan and organise away from the authorities.”
But student Amun al-Sheikh said: “Facebook and Twitter were only tools to express their opinions and a way of communication between the youth.”
“They were not the main component of the revolution, or the Egyptians would have stopped demonstrating after the ban,” she told AFP. “The spontaneity of youth is stronger than these networks.”
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