People around the globe have watched with a mixture of awe, excitement, and dread as history kicked into high gear in the Middle East in December 2010. When an account of the past few months—and that of those to come—is written, special attention will hopefully be given to Mohamed Bouazizi. Remember him? Maybe not.

This college-educated 26-year-old had been operating an unlicensed vegetable cart for years in the Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid to provide for his family. Like many in the North African country, he was unable to find work in his profession. Then, when the cart was confiscated by police and local authorities soundly refused to hear his case, the young man did what he must have felt was his only option: on Dec.17, 2010, Mohamed set himself on fire.

Less than a month later, Tunisia’s resident autocrat was driven from power in a popular revolution that took the media, the American intelligence community, and the dictator himself utterly by surprise. And even when all the pundits and intelligence officials claimed it would never happen in Egypt, a handful of weeks later, protests brought down the decades-old regime of Hosni Mubarak.

What’s more, protest movements have sprung up in countries across the Middle East and North Africa and to top it off, Libya has descended in an all-but-official civil war as rebels attempt to drive the crazed Muammar al-Qaddafi from the country.

So what does all of this mean? Among countless other things, these events mean the defining U.S. foreign policy of the past several decades is going to change. The U.S. and Israel have had an extremely close relationship since Israel became an independent country in 1947. So close has this bond been, in fact, that even President Obama—arguably the least-friendly president toward Israel we’ve ever elected—had his U.N. Ambassador unilaterally veto a Security Council resolution earlier this year that would have condemned the Israelis for not ceasing settlement construction in the West Bank.

An anti-Semitic undercurrent in many of the protests sweeping the Middle East is coming not just from the radicals, but from young university graduates, educated professionals, and other darlings of the movement’s supporters in the West.

Remember that many of these dictators now getting the boot have long been complicit in U.S. foreign policy that advocated peace with Israel—or at least willing to acquiesce to it given proper incentive (i.e, billions in U.S. aid money). If these popular uprisings do produce genuinely democratic governments (or if, as some have suggested, organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood succeed in hijacking them), most agree the new leaders will almost certainly be less friendly toward Israel simply because the people who elected them are.

Not to over-simplify things, but all of this adds up to a new crossroads for the West, particularly for the United States. Public opinion in Israel is consistently against negotiating with the Palestinians and especially against ceding territory to them. Public opinion among Palestinians is also against negotiating with Israel; remember Palestinians duly elected a government in Gaza headed by Hamas, a terrorist organization.

The choice it appears increasingly likely the United States will have to make will be between continuing its longstanding support of Israel or following the shifting winds of world opinion to force the Israeli government into some sort of settlement with the Palestinians. Will this actually happen? Will Israelis consent to giving up their territory? Not known.

What will the Middle East look like at the end of 2011? Only God knows that one. We can, however, come to one conclusion: 2011 will be a year of reckoning for the next several decades. If Arab regimes continue to implode, the governments that step in to fill the vacuums they leave behind, whether headed by extremists or not, will almost certainly be less friendly toward the West and its interests.

So, in the end, Mohamed Bouazizi probably didn’t know the full effect his actions would have when he doused himself in gasoline. As trite as it may sound, he was probably just a young man who didn’t know what else to do. Mohamed and thousands like him were oppressed under a system that made its rulers rich at the expense of the people. He was spat at, humiliated, and ignored by those in power and probably did the only thing he could think of to make his plight known.

I hesitate to adhere to the predictably bleak assessment of the situation by the ample naysayers, but I certainly have my doubts and I acknowledge the present situation appears to be accelerating toward some sort of showdown. Whatever thoughts were ricocheting about in Mohamed’s mind as he struck the match, it’s unlikely one of them was, “I’m about to set the world on fire.”

Particularly alarming is this paragraph from Klein’s article:

Obama’s reference yesterday to “occupation that began in 1967” comes after a top PA official, speaking on condition his name be withheld, told WND earlier this week the Obama administration largely has adopted the positions of the [Palestinian Authority] to create a Palestinian state within two years based on the 1967 borders, meaning Israel would retreat from most of the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem.

That could include the Temple Mount, but even if it does not – the term “contiguous” implies the creation of a large, solid block of territory that will not be easy to traverse by Israel in times of emergency.   It would occupy the center of what is now Israel.

President Obama has chosen to stand with the Palestinians, I think most Americans will choose to stand with Israel.  I know that I will.

President Obama’s Mideast trip has been hailed as a “new beginning.” Indeed it is. Obama very pointedly did not visit Jerusalem on this his first trip to the region.

Liberal Democrat Harry Truman dared to recognize Israel in 1948 – minutes after the struggling Jewish state was born – and minutes before Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the rest of the Arab world tried to strangle the infant in its crib. Republican Richard Nixon – despised by the liberal media – saved Israel’s life by re-supplying her with arms during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

The U.S. commitment to Israel has been a constant of both parties – until now. By demanding a halt to the natural growth of Jewish settlements on the West Bank, Obama is applying a tourniquet to Israel’s throat. If she cannot grow, she will die. Which is what Obama’s new-found friends have wanted since 1948.

Israelis are grumbling, not surprisingly, asking why Americans who inhabit Iroquois territories should want to choke off Israeli growth. But they know they are heavily dependent on U.S. goodwill.

President Obama looked more than a little uncomfortable in Riyadh as King Abdullah draped a golden chain around his neck. He posed for pictures with the man who rules the most anti-Christian nation on earth. He could not visit a local church because no churches are permitted in Saudi Arabia. No Bibles. No crosses. The only American flag in view was the tiny one Obama has lately taken to wearing on his lapel. The Saudi flag, of course, bears an Arabic inscription: “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger.” To those who might disagree, the Saudi flag also bears a scimitar to remind all that their heads will be cut off if they even murmur.

Obama allowed himself to be photographed with the bankroller of thousands of militant Wahhabi schools and mosques and “chaplains” even in U.S. prisons. This photo op was a cruel disappointment to millions of Christians in Africa. For centuries, Arab slave traders have descended on the wounded continent. Even today, especially today, African Christians are in danger from Saudi-backed predators. Saudi Arabia abolished slavery only in 1962–one hundred years after the U.S. Emancipation Proclamation. Obama was not permitted to visit Mecca or Medina to see for himself that Saudi Emancipation was real.

By telling the world in his Cairo speech that Iran had the right to develop nuclear power, but only in conformity with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a treaty the mullahs in Iran have been flouting for a decade, Obama may have put Israel in an untenable position. Will the Europeans now demand tougher sanctions than the ones they are already unable to enforce? Or even agree upon?

Scripture calls on us to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem.” Indeed we should. And we should pray as well for the embattled Christians of Africa and the Middle East. Nothing President Obama accomplished on his recent tour can give any comfort to the Christians and Jews. It remains to be seen whether his “outreach to Muslims” will bear any but the bitterest of fruit.

Ken Blackwell is a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and a senior fellow at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.

This article originally appeared in The Fox Forum on June 5, 2009.