Neoconservative ideologues have joined liberal internationalists and left-wing global utopians in celebrating the collapse of the authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt and the ensuing political uprising in other Arab countries.  Their glee suggests that the Middle East is about to go through the kind of political and economic reforms that have been sweeping the former Soviet Bloc and East Asia since 1989, with members of the internet-savvy generation of Arabs—like those who organized the protests at Tahrir Square—leading their people into the promised land of democratization, liberalization, and integration into the global economy and the modern world.

But is it good for the Jews?  Neoconservatives like the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol and former Bush administration official Elliott Abrams have been caught in the headlights of the Democratic Peace Theory: A democratic Egypt will never go to war against a democratic Israel.  But since the start of the so-called Arab Awakening, a large number of Israelis have concluded that the collapse of Arab regimes who supported some form of coexistence with the Jewish state—that of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, for example—is actually bad for Jews.

Indeed, the way members of the Israeli political establishment see it, the Arab Spring marks the arrival of an Israeli Winter, creating the conditions for Islamic political radicalization in Egypt—did we mention the Muslim Brotherhood?—and the rest of the Arab world.

Against the backdrop of continuing political tensions and economic distress, the Arab elites and masses could end up gravitating toward the main and authentic source of their collective identity—Islam.  And the political figures and movements that promote it will become the driving force in the revolutions that obliterate the old order in the region.

Americans who welcome the changes taking place in the Arab world and identify with the spirit of the Yasmim Revolution and the goals of the protesters in Tahrir Square—and that includes President Barack Obama—seem to be confident that, despite the occasional political regression, there is a good chance that democratic reform and economic liberalization, including free and open elections, will bring to power political players who will be well disposed toward the United States and the values she represents—à la the so-called Turkish Model.

But for Israelis that kind of talk brings back the nightmarish memories of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, when celebrations over the downfall of the despotic shah were followed by the coming to power of Khomeini and the rest of the butchering ayatollahs who hate the West and Israel, Jews and Christians, and who have a habit of stoning women and homosexuals.

From the Israeli perspective, even under the best-case scenario, the collapse of the status quo in the Middle East—a status quo that has been propped up by the United States and which has benefited Israeli interests for several decades—will end up strengthening anti-Western Islamist parties and bringing into power those more hostile toward U.S. interests and toward Israel.  So it’s not surprising that many Israelis have been comparing Obama’s “betrayal” of Mubarak, a long-time U.S. ally, to the way former President Jimmy Carter treated the shah in 1979.

In fact, the downfall of Mubarak and Tunisia’s President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali—another pro-Western Arab leader who advocated détente with the Jewish state—are just the latest in a series of developments that seem to highlight Israel’s increasing isolation in the region and the growing power of Iran and other Islamic radicals: a successful campaign by Hezbollah to overthrow the pro-American government in Beirut; the inclusion of a militant and pro-Iran Shi’ite political party in the coalition government in Baghdad; and the move by the Islamist ruling party in Turkey to bring to an end the country’s strategic partnership with Israel while improving her relationship with the Arab world.

These Israeli fears may not be misplaced, but comparing Obama to Carter misses an important point.  In 1979, the United States was in a position to change the outcome of the crisis in Iran by pressing the Iranian military to continue backing the shah, repressing the insurgents, and preventing the ayatollahs from coming to power.  That Carter chose to embrace a different policy that ended in a devastating strategic U.S. defeat reflected his diplomatic naiveté and political misjudgment.

But even if a Ronald Reagan had been occupying the White House in 2011, it is very likely that his approach to the crisis in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world would have looked very much like Obama’s.  With an overstretched U.S. military—thanks, in part, to the neoconservative-led fiascos in the Middle East—and a crumbling American economy, Washington just doesn’t have the diplomatic leverage that is required to contain this challenge to the Pax Americana it has been trying to impose on the region in recent years.

Hence, Israelis who expect the Americans to help recreate a new strategic balance of power that will be more favorable to Israeli interests are bound to be disappointed.