Gaza, the Arabs, and the fate of the Middle East

After six weeks of genocidal war and mass destruction in the Gaza Strip, it has become clear today that Israel will not be able to win the ongoing war, and that instead of weakening the will of resistance by inflicting on the Palestinian people huge losses in lives, buildings and property, it is increasing the determination of its leaders to continue fighting. It gives it a greater opportunity to assert its strength and rally free people around it, not only in occupied Palestine, but also in all parts of the world. In the eyes of most observers, Israel, now more than ever, appears embedded in the deep sands of Gaza, not knowing how to advance in it or how to emerge from it.

Tunnel of War: All information indicates that Israel, instead of entering the Gaza tunnels, has entered the tunnel into which all colonial projects had previously entered, after racist laws and Zionist self-centeredness closed off any opportunity for it to establish a single state that would bring together Arabs and Jews under the dome of democracy and citizenship. One, in the way the apartheid regime crisis was resolved in South Africa, the extreme right’s control over its successive governments undermined the two-state option, and the pledge of that was the double assassination of its true sponsors, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin. By eliminating this last option, and adopting a policy of apartheid, the most prominent embodiment of which was the siege of Gaza and turning it into a “closed ghetto” for its residents, Tel Aviv closed all doors on itself, to find itself today with no options other than “ethnic cleansing,” and then the ongoing war to abolish the Palestinian people will cease to exist politically, and if possible, physically.

The situation is that, instead of weakening this genocidal policy in the deep sense of the word, this people, and removing them from the picture, as the Israeli extreme right aspired to, it urged them to work and strive to assert their existence as never before. This is what was brought to light on October 7 by the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, which struck this racist policy like a thunderbolt, and once again put Israel facing its formative crisis, that is, the existence of a people in a land that it had always assured itself and the world it was without a people, after it believed it had no people. It is on its way to achieving this dream with many Arab governments signing normalization and cooperation agreements with them. Hence, the Israeli government, and perhaps the majority of its public opinion, did not view what happened on October 7 as not only a military and security failure, but also saw it as an existential threat that brought Israel back to the day it declared its existence. Hence, in its view, the current Gaza war is no longer merely a response to the “Al-Aqsa Flood” that restores the IDF’s prestige and deterrence, but rather a second “war of independence.” The Palestinians realized the significance of this declaration, and rightly viewed it as a threat of a second Nakba, that is, a new displacement similar to the first displacement upon which present-day Israel was founded.

Free from responsibility for continuing the tragedy by blaming it on the Arabs has always been one of the axes of the Arab-Israeli conflict

This is the content of the war taking place on the land of Gaza, which means the Levant and the entire Middle East. Israel does not hide that it is waging a comprehensive war of annihilation, and that, after its liberation from the two-state solution and its rejection of the one democratic state, it has only one option, which is to flee forward and exploit this opportunity to achieve the strategic goal that it sought during the previous long decades in stages, I mean the deportation of the Palestinians and force them to flee to neighboring countries once and for all. 

Alternatively, this means acknowledging the historical defeat, preparing to dismantle the system of apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and searching for what Yasser Arafat used to call, to ease the shock on the Israelis, the peace of the brave, while he was dealing with a gang of killers.

Hence, the deportation of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank has never been a current and serious goal of Israeli policy as it is today. This explains the nature of the war and its focus on completely destroying Gaza, transgressing all taboos, and not paying attention to any voice other than the voice of liquidation. 

This is what the United States and most of Israel's Western partners understood in blocking any Palestinian achievement that weakens Israel and harms its strategic deterrence function vis-à-vis Arab countries and governments. This deportation and ethnic cleansing will remain the goal of the war, whether Israel succeeds in destroying the Hamas movement, which is an unattainable goal as indicated by six weeks of war and the confusion of the Israeli strategy, or it fails in this goal. 

Rather, its military failure to achieve this goal could push it to flee directly towards its main goal of evacuating the Palestinians from Gaza, to serve as a decisive alternative achievement that it presents to its public opinion, which has been waiting for its achievement for decades, in exchange for its military defeat.

In the misery of the Arab response... In this case, the focus of the Israeli effort will necessarily shift from the fight against “Hamas” to pressure, by all means, including military ones, on the Arabs to force them to accept the new fait accompli, receive the Palestinians on their lands and liberate Israel from “ The burden of the Palestinian issue and placing the responsibility for addressing it on the Arabs alone. 

In fact, freedom from responsibility for continuing the tragedy by blaming it on the Arabs has always been one of the axes of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Tel Aviv's demand was that the Arab countries wash their hands of the Palestinian issue and leave Israel to act freely.

This is also what was meant, in one of its main dimensions, by the normalization agreements that were destabilized by the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation. But the course of the current war will completely reverse the equation. It is no longer required for the Arabs to abandon support for the Palestinians in any way, but rather for them to engage with Israel in liquidating the Palestinian issue and at their expense, so that Israel can enjoy peace and stability, expand settlement in new lands, and transform Israel into a Pure racism state, and strengthening its military and security power.

Israel and its partners have no other alternative to the collapse of the Western Zionist dream except to throw the Palestinians at the Arabs and liberate Israel from its deep internal crisis.

It is not correct to say, as is now being said among some Arab observers, that Israel does not have a vision for the aftermath of the war in Gaza. Those who do not have such a perception are the Arab governments that believe that by declaring that they do not accept the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank to Egypt and Jordan, they have blocked the way to Israel and to the West, which clings to it as a central military base, essential for their global empire. 

Perhaps they have been numbed by returning to talking about a two-state solution that is impossible to achieve. The situation is exactly the opposite. Israel and its partners have no other alternative to the collapse of the Western Zionist dream except to throw the Palestinians against the Arabs and liberate Israel from its deep internal crisis, if they do not accept its imminent disintegration and demise. 

Washington’s retreat from deporting the residents of Gaza to Sinai after seriously discussing it with Egypt does not mean that it will not return to it to spare Israel from a historic defeat before the Palestinians, and thus the Arabs, and to hold these, i.e. the weakest party in the equation, responsible for finding a solution for the new refugees, and to consider the Arabs’ refusal to accept this as tantamount to an expression of continued hostility to Israel and the rejection of the promised normalization with it. 

President Biden’s superficial and fleeting talk, along with the deceptive Western chorus, about this solution has no value and is not linked to any commitment. It is impossible as long as Israel remains a racist state, an advanced base for American and Western influence, and a heavy stick that it uses with Arab and Middle Eastern governments and forces them to follow it and according to its interests and will. Talk will return about the complexity of the problem and the impossibility of dismantling the settlements, and even launching a new wave of them under the auspices of these same countries, as soon as the war ends, and the extent of the massive losses and comprehensive material and moral destruction that cannot be compensated becomes apparent. 

The identification between Washington and Tel Aviv goes beyond ideology and the relationship between Christian Zionism and Zionist Judaism, and is linked to the mutual strategic interests represented by the American-Israeli alliance or unity. 

The controlling American establishment sees the project of Israel or the Jewish state as a living and continuing embodiment of the “epic” of the establishment of white America on the ruins of Indian America. It also sees the Arabs as Indians, remnants of the Middle Ages, and a stumbling block to the establishment of a civilized and advanced Israel that protects Western civil and human values. As for Israel, it sees in the United States the model and example of the will to control and power through which white American immigrants succeeded in seizing land and establishing a state that now controls the world. Israel, its partner, also wants to control the region, as it is a state that was and will remain exceptional and has the first and last word in affairs. The region is exactly as America sees itself as the exceptional country that leads the world and imposes its will on other countries. They both believe that this control is not only a right acquired by virtue of superiority in power, which calls for permanent and increasing investment in developing the means of superiority and power, but it is also an inevitable necessity to establish order and harmony between weak and lacking sovereign states that do not have any qualifications to participate in international decisions or even to lead themselves. 

The basic thing is to prepare to face the upcoming risks, by being aware of the reality of the challenge and preparing to confront it

Hence, Western countries view Israel's defeat or loss of the war in the Levant and the Middle East as a loss for Israel in the world and a threat to its influence. Regardless of what is said in propaganda speeches, Washington believes, just as Tel Aviv believes, that the war on “Hamas” is in fact nothing but a war on the Arabs. It also believes that the lack of Arab cooperation in eliminating “Hamas” and thus accepting the deportation of the Palestinians, receiving them reflects their hostility to it and their rebellion against it, and does not contribute to achieving peace, rather, it is a complete rejection of peace, like the rejection of free normalization with Israel.

So that the victory of the Palestinian resistance does not turn into an Arab defeat... The Arabs have lost an important round in the ongoing conflict, by leaving Gaza to fight alone and with the bodies of its children, women and elderly in a battle that primarily targets them. The war is neither Gazan nor Palestinian, but before that it is a war to determine the fate of the Middle East and reduce the margin of its countries’ initiative for many decades to come. Perhaps the reason for this laxity was their exaggeration in the extent of their international influence and the magnitude of the interests that united them with Western countries, most notably the United States, in a period of major transformations and reformulation of the global order.

Perhaps most of their governments feared their stability and their dependence on these countries for their existence, not the support of their people. Instead of secluding themselves and discussing, political and military leaders, a practical plan to influence the course of this war in one way or another, and to confront its current and future consequences, in order to spare their countries and peoples from its consequences, they sought to float their direct responsibilities in a loose conference, which is of little benefit, for 57 Islamic countries Most of them have no interest in engaging in this Arab-Israeli confrontation, and the votes of most of them in the United Nations have little value on this issue, not even for this organization itself, which was unable to issue a ceasefire resolution to which only three countries objected: the United States, Canada, and Israel.

What the Arab Islamic Conference recently did to confront the war in Gaza and Palestine, and what the speeches of the Arab leaders highlight, does not show a deep awareness of the magnitude of the challenge facing their countries in the near future, despite the exceptional achievement of the Palestinian factions and the moral, political and moral collapse of Israel and the American policy of collusion with the violation of international laws and rights. Arab rulers are wrong if they believe that Washington is sensitive to the argument of the inevitability of resolving the Palestinian issue to ensure security and stability in the region or to preserve its major strategic interests there. The opposite is true. Israel only takes its value and enjoys unlimited support from Western countries because it threatens security and destabilizes this Middle East, so that Washington can easily fish in its turbid waters and preserve these interests against the will of its people.

The war is neither Gazan nor Palestinian, but rather, before that, it is a war to determine the fate of the Middle East and reduce the margin of initiative of its countries for many decades.

Israel was defeated in the “Al-Aqsa Flood” and will be defeated in its battle against the resistance factions. But the success of the Palestinian factions does not necessarily and automatically mean a victory for the Arabs against Israel. Without a clear position and preparation for all possibilities to prevent Israel and the United States from implementing a new Palestinian catastrophe in exchange for its loss of the war, they could become a scapegoat for the Israeli defeat, which would be reprehensible in every sense. In the eyes of public opinion, it can only be covered up by a defeat for the Arabs who are accused, in any case and regardless of their choices and policies, of collusion with Hamas and Palestine and sponsoring terrorism and anti-Semitism.

  As long as they do not accept the fait accompli, free normalization with Tel Aviv, and cooperation with it in liquidating the Palestinian issue.

Israel's defeat before the factions will push the Arab countries to place the responsibility for resolving this issue and pressure them to cooperate in eliminating Hamas, and thus to transform the internal war in Israel/Palestine into an Arab-Arab war.

What are the options of the Arabs, especially the countries surrounding Israel, which are threatened to bear the burden of Tel Aviv’s looming military and strategic defeat, and to contain its dire consequences? There are not a thousand ways to confront aggression at any time and place. The basic thing is to prepare to face the upcoming risks, by being aware of the reality of the challenge and preparing to confront it, which requires organizing forces, unifying will, joint action, and developing a plan and strategy to study all possibilities and confront them. 

The important thing is to realize that it is impossible for security and stability to prevail in the region, unless Israel's hands are tied, its ambitions are curtailed, and its settlement and expansion projects are aborted.

It is difficult for this to happen if the Arabs do not succeed in demonstrating their unity, strength of will, and willingness to sacrifice in defense of their rights. That is, unless they show a real will to confront the aggression, greater clarity of goals, deeper coordination of efforts, and a stronger willingness to defend their interests, most importantly, not recognizing the existence of a regime of apartheid and permanent aggression in their land and region.

This cannot be achieved without taking a strong stance that forces Israel, the United States, and other countries concerned with the Levantine situation and its interests in the region to bear their responsibilities and pay the price for their aggressive choices and policies. Such a position is not taken into account by the data or its length, but rather by the action that follows it.

Only the immediate sending of aid convoys, medicines, water and fuel to the besieged Gaza, taking collective responsibility for it and waging the battle to lift the humanitarian siege on the people of Gaza would have made the meeting of 57 Islamic countries an event and transformed this gathering into a force to be reckoned with.

From Alaraby Aljadeed