The uprising in Egypt has framed a dilemma in the starkest of terms: Does the West want true democracy in the Middle East, even if it brings the possibility of some rather frightening scenarios? A democratic Egypt could blossom into an open, pluralistic society, with equality for all religions and between men and women, continuing good relations with the West and enduring peace with Israel. But it could also follow a path similar to Iran’s after the overthrow of the shah, with the popular movement hijacked by a well-organized militant religious movement, leading to decades of oppression and strife — in other words, a regime that works to create a solidly anti-Western, anti-Israel Middle East.

The dilemma is most acute inside Israel, where each Egyptian scenario has an almost immediate impact. It is impossible to exaggerate the degree to which Israel will feel the shockwaves of this Arab revolution. But it is unclear just what that impact will be. That’s why Israelis have used tectonic metaphors to describe the situation. Many have called it “an earthquake,” while others have said that Israel is now “living on a volcano.”

Like observers in the U.S. and Europe, Israelis have felt mixed emotions when watching the images of spontaneous revolt against the three-decade-long dictatorship of President Hosni Mubarak. Israel is home to some of the most ardent advocates of democracy, people like Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident who spent a part of his life in the Siberian gulag. Sharansky has argued that Israel should not make deals with dictators, even if they offer peace, saying nobody — not Israel, not the U.S. — should trust a dictator who mistreats his own people.

Contrary to the common perception, a large percentage of Israelis are deeply idealistic and progressive. But Israel is also a country whose very survival may depend on making the right strategic decisions. Nothing fosters realism more than heavily armed enemies on your borders. As Yossi Klein Halevi explained, “Israelis want to rejoice over the outbreak of protests in Egypt’s city squares.” But, he added, “the grim assumption is that it is just a matter of time before the only real opposition group in Egypt, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, takes power.”

The unfolding revolution in Egypt, with reverberations in the rest of Arab world, has caused anxious hand-wringing and a gnawing moral quandary in many capitals. This time, the dilemma is not academic. The showdown in Cairo drew into sharp focus the inconsistency between the democratic West’s avowed values and its realpolitik behavior. While Washington and its European friends speak out loudly for political freedom and human rights, they have spent decades knowingly supporting Arab dictators who violently suppressed democracy, for the sake of stability. Suddenly, the very Western governments that have proclaimed their passion for democratic rights faced a stark choice: Would they support the protesters demanding the dictator step down, or would they stand by their man, hoping to preserve that much-prized stability?

The ambivalence was apparent in Israel, when the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement saying that Netanyahu, in private conversations, had told other leaders that Israel is a democratic nation that supports democratic values in the entire Middle East. “The advancement of these values will help peace,” Netanyahu said, before adding, “However, if this will make it possible for extreme forces to take advantage of democratic processes to rise to power and promote anti-democratic goals — as happened in Iran and elsewhere — then the results will harm both peace and democracy.” The statement came after Netanyahu had urged the West not to abandon Mubarak.

Israelis already see the outlines of what could turn Egypt, a country with which it has had a cold peace since 1979, into a dangerous enemy. Muhammed Ghanem, a top figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, was quoted in Iran’s Al-Alam on Monday saying that the Egyptian people should prepare for war against Israel. Another ominous sign came in Tunisia, where the Arab revolt toppled its first dictator. There, unknown men set an old synagogue on fire, while nearby police did nothing.

One of the most dangerous aspects of today’s events is that, while many of the Arab autocrats have good relations with Washington and often quietly good relations with Israel, their populations have been fed a diet of anti-American and especially anti-Israel conspiracy theories.

No one painted the outlines of today’s dilemma better than Sharansky, author of, “The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror.” Writing at a time when the Camp David Accords, a treaty signed by an unelected Egyptian president, had already kept the peace for a quarter century, Sharansky articulated the fears he heard in response to his support for Arab democracy:

The answer for Sharansky is clear: Everyone, in every country, deserves democracy. Besides, making deals with dictators ultimately produces disastrous results. Sharansky often quotes his fellow Soviet-era refusenik Andrei Sakharov, saying, “You cannot trust leaders who do not trust their own people.”

Dictators cannot be trusted, so peace will be an illusion.

More importantly for Israel, dictators need external enemies. When Israel and Egypt signed a peace agreement, the Egyptian dictatorship risked losing a much-needed enemy. So Egypt tried to have it both ways. While keeping official peace with Israel, it allowed anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment to brew for decades, with practically no effort to counteract it. Now Israel and the West are losing their ally at the top, and are left with a population whose views are sharply different from those of the government they despise. That is true even if Islamists do not take power.

The answer to the West’s dilemma could have come years ago, if it had more forcefully pushed friendly Arab dictators to allow civic society to develop in their countries and to allow democratic values to develop. No one would argue that would have been easy, but it would have helped bridge the yawning gap between the West’s ideals and rhetoric and its actions.

Now, the West faces the instability it feared. If Sharansky is right, the West is now paying the price of not living by its principles. Eventually, however, if democracy takes hold in Egypt, the outcome will be positive for Israel and for the West. The regime that ultimately assumes power might end up being less friendly, but Egypt would be ruled by a government that doesn’t need external enemies, and one so focused on helping its own people that it would have no interest in launching a new war. Israelis, like observers in the West, can only hope that democracy takes hold.

Frida Ghitis is an independent commentator on world affairs and a World Politics Review contributing editor. Her weekly column, World Citizen, appears every Thursday.