Change? What change?

As President Obama comes up with another fatuous speech about the Middle East, showing that he seems not to have understood anything about recent events there or North Africa and promises lots more aid to countries with dubious governments, the question I asked on whether anything has changed in our media because of the "Arab spring" remains valid.

According to a report by JustJournalism the period before the various uprisings was characterized by serious under-reporting from Arab countries and over-concentration on Israel. As a consequence events in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other countries sent journalists scrambling for information that they ought to have been collecting for some time and publishing. Of course, it is far easier to report from Israel than any other country in that area.

The question of whether anything will change remains. Clearly, President Obama has made up his mind that, despite everything that took place in the last few months, it is Israel that he needs to pressurize into surrender. Whether he will be successful is questionable.

Meanwhile, Phyllis Chesler reports that Facebook groups that call for mass invasion of Israel (anything to turn attention away from what is going on in Syria, Bahrain, Egypt etc etc) are proliferating.

The Third Palestinian Intifada on Facebook seems to have at least twenty different groups or pages, each with hundreds or thousands of fans. One group has 365,000 fans. According to Yedioth Ahronoth (YNet), these sites are now urging all Arabs to “rush the Israeli borders” after Friday prayers on May 20.

Look: This could be the work of one nerdy Palestinian in a basement in Ramallah. The fans could also be people who exist only in cyberspace.

But, these Third Palestinian Intifada websites could also be the work of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria, and the Palestinian Authority, all of which have problems of their own and for whom a diversion would be mighty fine. In fact, I think they are. Thus, this promised new aggression must be taken seriously and stopped in its tracks.

Well, you can see the logic: we have no freedom, democracy, economic development, good education, rule of law, scientific and technological achievements, so let's destroy the one country in the area that has all those. That will solve our problems. Right!