In recent months, as a slew of anti-democratic and racist legislative initiatives were advanced by Labor's government allies and as even the façade of a functioning peace process was removed (and Labor's justification for being in the coalition was to ‘save the peace process'), many Labor ministers felt uncomfortable in the government and attacked its policies. The end was near.  Several MKs were pushing to bring forward party leadership elections to unseat Barak and to pull Labor out of the government.

The name of the new faction, "Independence," is being treated with deep irony, it is anything but that. It is as much a creation of Netanyahu's as it is Barak's, and is dependent on the former's good will. The only part of today's drama that surprised no one was that Ehud Barak himself would betray the Labor Party in order to save his own political skin.

Many consider Barak to have single-handedly snuffed out the remains of Israel's peace camp when Barak himself declared there was no Palestinian partner after the failure of the Camp David negotiations in 2000. The "No Partner" meme has become a defining motif of the Israeli discourse ever since.  Barak presided over the total loss of support for Labor amongst the Palestinian Arab population in Israel, and once Kadima was formed, mostly as a Likud breakaway, and later when serving in the Kadima-led Olmert government, Barak chose to relocate Labor from its natural place - to the left of Kadima - to a more hawkish centrist position to Kadima's right.

Tunisia basically has a choice ahead: whether to continue as the IMF’s, the World Bank’s and Europe’s alleged best pupil in the Arab classroom, with the mixed resultsthat are plain for everyone to see, or to decide for itself, according to its own interests and sovereign decisions, what path and what policies to adopt, whether it be in the foreign policy, domestic policy or economic policy fields. Tunisia can chose to be like Turkey, Brazil, India or Malaysia, or it can pursue in its post-colonial striving for acceptance and the occasional pat on the head by its Western partners, a path followed by Jordan or Morocco with limited success.

For all practical purposes, this is the kind of government that Benali could have appointed himself had he had more brains – his last speech actually outlined exactly this sort of government, and he actually met with some opposition members before being deposed.

The Tunisian people have ousted the dictator, but they haven’t yet got rid of his institutional and political legacy. This is just the beginning, if democracy is to take hold.

If every Arab leader has watched Tunisia in fear, then every Arab citizen has watched in hope because it was neither Islamists – long used by our leaders to scare many into acquiescence – nor foreign troops that toppled the dictator: it was ordinary and very fed up people.

While it's tempting to suggest that Egypt could be next – the Mubarak era is plainly coming to an end – the regime itself, unpopular though it is, does have an extensive patronage base that may be enough to keep it in power for some years yet. And the same could be said of several other countries. The Tunisian regime, on the other hand, looks especially vulnerable because it has relied so heavily on fear and repression as mechanisms for control. Other Arab regimes do that too, but they also have more subtle and diverse weapons in their armoury. Once the fear barrier is broken in Tunisia though (as seems to be happening), there is little left to protect Ben Ali. So, I don't expect Tunisia alone to bring down the entire Arab house of cards. What it will do is intensify the pressure for change that exists already in other countries and encourage people to look to themselves, rather than outside, for solutions. It will also help dispel the idea that the long-surviving regimes we see in place today are permanent fixtures. They are not, and one day they will be history.

The tacit contract that has defined the North African country since its independence in 1956 is the ‘bread’ provision - mostly subsidies - in return for political deference. With modest resources, Tunisia has historically funded subsidies of strategic commodities - bread, sugar, tea, coffee, kerosene - and education, health, housing in some cases, and even recreational activities, such as sport. The National Solidarity Fund and the National Employment Fund, still under centralised control, have had some successes. They have partly shifted the burden of providence from the state to society. Tunisians dug into their pockets to volunteer what little of their non-disposable income they have to the cause of poverty alleviation, and improvements of the so-called ‘shadow zones’ (bidon-villes), the misery belt suffocating the rich towns and suburbs. But even this system of quid pro quo bread and political deference has failed many Tunisians, leaving many hopeless and jobless.

The state is a control-freak to the point that it disallows the existence of any hint of an informal economy. There is one in Italy - even in America - but not in Tunisia. If the state is partly failing in its provision of jobs, then it is unwise to ban informal trade and work. A youth empowered by education but disempowered by marginalization can be the spark that ignites social upheaval and social tension. In Tunisia, marginalization is today being translated into irrational and tragic suicides.

the notion of ‘total state’ and ‘total politics’ may not be apt for successful social engineering and re-distribution. Total control can translate into loss of control.

Reporting of these events has been sparse, to say the least. The Tunisian press, of course, is strictly controlled and international news organisations have shown little interest: the "not many dead" syndrome, perhaps. But in the context of Tunisia they are momentous events. It's a police state, after all, where riots and demonstrations don't normally happen – and certainly not simultaneously in towns and cities up and down the country.So, what we are seeing, firstly, is the failure of a system constructed by the regime over many years to prevent people from organising, communicating and agitating.Secondly, we are seeing relatively large numbers of people casting off their fear of the regime. Despite the very real risk of arrest and torture, they are refusing to be intimidated.

Ben Ali may try to cling on, but his regime now has a fin de siècle air about it. He came to power in 1987 by declaring President Bourguiba unfit for office. It's probably just a matter of time before someone else delivers that same message to Ben Ali.

international news organisations have shown little interest: the "not many dead" syndrome, No, that's not the reason. The reason is that this SOB is one of our SOBs. We must be absolutely sure that we don't risk letting let any nasty Islamists or not-compliant folk near the levers of power before we start to fan the flames of democracy.