The so-called “Arab Spring,” which has convulsed the Middle East and North Africa for the past several months, has been jolted by the carefully coordinated “demonstrations” against Israel on the 63rd anniversary of its independence.

Palestinians have labeled May 14-15 (Israel Independence Day) to be the day of “Nakba,” or “Catastrophe,” and cynical Arab rulers like Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad are using this occasion as a pretext for diverting attention from their violent suppression of peaceful protests against their own regimes.

On Sunday, hundreds of Arabs from Syria stormed across the border into Israel, prompting Israeli troops to respond with live fire, which killed up to four people, according to press reports. Meanwhile, in an apparently orchestrated action at the Lebanese border, Israeli troops fired on hundreds of Palestinians trying to force their way across. The Lebanese military reported that 10 “protesters” were killed and more than 100 were wounded. At about the same time, in the West Bank, about 1,000 demonstrators carrying Palestinian flags and throwing stones, firecrackers and gasoline bombs, clashed with Israeli riot troops near the military checkpoint between Ramallah and Israel. In Gaza, when marchers crossed a security zone near the border, Israeli troops fired into the crowd, wounding dozens, according to the New York Times. In Egypt and Jordan, in welcome displays of moderation and restraint, government security forces sealed off the borders, preventing similar crossings.

Anthony Shadid in a news analysis in Monday’s New York Times speculated that the actions at the Syria-Israel border were not merely a “random border skirmish,” but an indication that the besieged Syrian dictator Bashar Assad is “playing the Israeli card.” Shadid is right on the mark in his analysis. A spokesman for the U.S. State Department reflects the same point of view, that Assad, desperate to cling to power has launched a civilian invasion, or “Third Intifada” against Israel as a “cynical effort” to divert attention from his brutal crackdown, which to date has claimed the lives of at least 850 innocent, unarmed protesters in Syria over the past six weeks.

Richard Engel, chief foreign correspondent for NBC News, said weeks ago that the so-called “Arab Street” is “ferociously angry” at Israel, and that anger could be unleashed as a by-product of the “Arab Spring.” Sadly, Engel’s prediction is coming true. Adding to the credibility that all of these actions are designed to deflect anger away from the Arab dictators onto Israel, was the statement by Hamas a month ago that it wanted the anger directed against Arab leaders to be “channeled against Israel, where it belongs.” Israeli leaders are also clear-eyed about the intentions of Assad, Hamas and their Iranian and Hezbollah allies. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the weekend’s border clashes as “an appeal against the very existence of the State of Israel which they call a ‘catastrophe.’ We hope the calm and quiet will quickly return, but let nobody be mistaken, we are determined to defend our borders and sovereignty.”

The chief Israeli military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, said on Israel Radio that he saw Iran’s fingerprints in the coordinated confrontations. Syria has a well-known close association with the anti-Israel theocratic regime in Iran, and both Syria and Iran support Hezbollah, the Shia Muslim movement based in Lebanon which is listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization. Yoni Ben-Menachem, Israel Radio’s chief Arab affairs analyst, said that it was likely that Assad was seeking to divert attention from his crackdown in Syria by allowing confrontations in the Golan Heights for the first time in decades. Syria’s border with Israel has been remarkably quiet and free of clashes since then Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger negotiated disengagement agreements between Syria and Israel back in 1974, when Hafez Assad, father of Bashar Aasad, was president of Syria.

“This way Syria makes its contribution to the Nakhba Day cause, and Assad wins points by deflecting the media’s attention from what is happening inside Syria,” said Ben-Menachem.

All of these developments are unfolding in the aftermath of the odious and cynical agreement, brokered by Israel, under which Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas signed an agreement with Hamas leaders to form a government of national unity, a move which he knew would bring the peace process to a dead stop because of the Hamas stance that it would not recognize Israel under any circumstances and remains committed to its destruction. It is no coincidence that George Mitchell resigned just days after the Fatah-Hamas Pact, as President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East peace process. Mitchell, who secured the historic “Good Friday Accords,” which ended 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland, was not able to achieve a similar breakthrough in the Middle East, although he deserves credit for trying. What Assad and his brutal allies are hoping to accomplish is to provoke Israel into a strong military response to the cross-border clashes, counting on the anti-Israeli blocs at the United Nations and in much of the global media to condemn Israel for its “disproportionate” reaction. Once again, the U.N. Security Council which could not even agree on a toothless resolution “expressing concern” over the violence in Syria because of the threat of vetoes by Russia and China, will find a majority to condemn Israel for defending itself.

The “Arab Spring” has been disrupted by the wintry blasts of violence in Syria and Libya and the disgustingly cynical attempt by Bashar Assad to save his totalitarian regime by deflecting attention and directing violence towards Israel, which remains the one true democracy in the entire war-torn Middle East. Netanyahu is scheduled to come to the United States on May 24, where he is scheduled to deliver a major policy speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress. And President Barack Obama is expected to deliver a new speech reaching out to the Muslim and Arab worlds in the aftermath of the successful mission he ordered which resulted in the justified death of Osama bin Laden, leader of Al Qaeda.

We hope and trust that Netanyahu and Obama, two of the most gifted political speakers on the world scene, will use their considerable rhetorical skills to stand together against terrorism, violence and for freedom and democracy for all of the peoples of the Middle East, including the Palestinians, Egyptians, Syrians and Libyans who have been demonstrating for those very values for weeks before Sunday’s orchestrated mayhem.

Robert A. Cohn is Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the St. Louis Jewish Light.