In the last months, the Arab world knews a lot of incidents, and the important incident is the revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests that has been taking place in the Arab world since 18 December 2010. To date, there have been revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt; a civil war in Libya; civil uprisings in Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen; major protests in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, and Oman, as well as on the borders of Israel; and minor protests in Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania,[16] Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Western Sahara. The protests have shared techniques of civil resistance in sustained campaigns involving strikes, demonstrations, marches and rallies, as well as the use of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, to organize, communicate, and raise awareness in the face of state attempts at repression and internet censorship.
The series of protests and demonstrations across the Middle East and North Africa has become known as the "Arab Spring", and sometimes as the "Arab Spring and Winter"[34], "Arab Awakening"[35] or "Arab Uprisings"[36] even though not all participants in protests identify as Arab, but, these protests have also met violent responses from authorities, as well as from pro-government militias and counter-demonstrators. The slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world has been Ash-sha`b yurid isqat an-nizam ("The people want to bring down the regime").
It was sparked by the first protests that occurred in Tunisia on 18 December 2010 following Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation in protest of police corruption and ill treatment. With the success of the protests in Tunisia, a wave of unrest struck Algeria, Jordan, Egypt, and Yemen, then spread to other countries, with the largest, most organized demonstrations often occurring on a "day of rage", usually Friday after noon prayers. The protests have also triggered similar unrest outside the region.
As of May 2011, demonstrations have resulted in the overthrow of two heads of state: Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on 14 January following the Tunisian revolution protests, and in Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak resigned on 11 February 2011, after 18 days of massive protests, ending his 30-year presidency. During this period of regional unrest, several leaders announced their intentions to step down at the end of their current terms. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir announced that he would not seek re-election in 2015, as did Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose term ends in 2014, although there have been increasingly violent demonstrations demanding his immediate resignation. Protests in Jordan have also caused the resignation of the government resulting in former Prime Minister and Ambassador to Israel Marouf al-Bakhit being appointed prime minister by King Abdullah and tasked with forming a new government. Another leader, President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen, announced on 23 April that he would step down within 30 days in exchange for immunity, a deal the Yemeni opposition informally accepted on 26 April; Saleh then reneged on the deal, prolonging the Yemeni uprising. Libyan ”leader” Muammar al-Gaddafi has refused to step down, causing a civil war between his loyalists and rebels based in Benghazi.
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