Walls are falling, dictators are being deposed or simply die, while crowds fill the squares looking for liberty, and yet an old vice is proving to be hard to die. It is an extremely dangerous vice because of its ability to erode any democratic process from within. Three recent episodes exemplify this.

First episode: Lebanon, the country each of us hopes to see soon free as it deserves, withdrew from the Eurovision singing contest that will take place on May 19 and 20 in Kiev, Ukraine. The reason for the withdrawal was Israel’s participation in the popular festival. The head of the Lebanese television confirmed the decision and justified it by adding that Lebanon was not aware of Israel’s participation when it accepted the invitation to attend the singing contest. Otherwise, he clearly would have never accepted, since the Lebanese law prohibits broadcasting the Israeli song, while the Eurovision contest’s regulations require broadcasting all the competing songs. No need to say that the Israelis never had a problem with that regulation.

Second episode: the Arab League, which opened its sessions Tuesday in Algiers, strongly rejected a proposal from the king of Jordan, Abdullah, to open up and to normalize the diplomatic relations with Israel. Yes, it was clearly a revolutionary idea and a very reassuring one for Israel, still traumatized by years of terrorism. Prime Minister Sharon has benefited from the recent return to Israel of the Egyptian and Jordanian ambassadors, Maarouf Bahit and Muhamed Assem Ibrahim. In addition, the Jordanian king was attacked with reproaches and pressures, especially by Syria and by the hard and obsolete secretary of the Arab League, Amr Mussa, for having finally indicated that Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Iraqi terrorism are the real danger for the Islamic world. But seeing Israel as the threat is so much more comfortable and easy.

From Washington, King Abdullah took another step and promised to take a firm action against the spread of anti-Semitism in the Arab world. His promise is in fact an implicit recognition that the Arab refusal to recognize Israel is not simply and solely based on political reasons, but also on biased and prejudicial motives. Abdullah did not attend the Algiers summit.

The third episode is even more serious and it is about Mithal Alusi, one of the heroic leaders of the internal opposition to Saddam Hussein for more than 30 years. He visited Israel on December 12, 2004. It was a sign of friendship after all the missiles that rained on Tel Aviv and the $25,000 Saddam provided for every suicide terrorist. The government of Ayad Allawi, revolutionary of course but not in the field of the relations with Israel, ordered the police to arrest him. Only later it decided to withdraw the warrant for his arrest, but it allowed Alusi to become the victim of a witch-hunt while the threats and menaces were growing around the man who dared to visit Israel. The 8th of last month, in an ambush, the bullets of the Iraqi “resistance” killed his two sons: Ayman, 30 years old, who leaves three children, and Jamal, 22 years old.

The truth is that even the earthquake of democratization keeps alive among its enemies in the Arab anti-Semitic humus the racist temptations against Israel, which are nothing but the ideological fuel for the local dictatorships.

The sooner the evolving democracies realize this, the better they will be able to eradicate one of the essential roots of the authoritarian and terrorist forces.

Ms. Nirenstein is an Italian journalist.Translated by Giordana Grego.