The consequences of political scene in the region after the war on Gaza

By Muhammad Al-Awdat

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to reshape the Middle East after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation launched by the Al-Qassam Brigades - the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas - on October 7.

Netanyahu's statements indicate that Israel wants to exploit American and Western support and support to the maximum possible extent in order to preserve and maximize its gains from the war.

The events of October 7th have consequences, as they will reshape the Middle East in the future, according to the rules of conflict between the major projects in the region, the American-Western-Israeli project, the Iranian project, and the Turkish project.

Operation quality

The same planning used by the late Egyptian President Mohamed Anwar Sadat in the October 6 War of 1973. On Yom Kippur or Yom Kippur, “the day of purification from sins,” the Egyptian forces surprised the Israeli army and achieved a major victory in which they regained the occupied Egyptian land.

On the same days of Yom Kippur, on the 7th of last October, the Hamas movement repeated the same sudden qualitative attack on Israeli settlements and military sites around the Gaza Strip.

The quality of this resistance operation comes from several aspects:

- The size of the great loss inflicted on Israel: It is the second largest loss inflicted on the Israeli forces after the 1973 war, as the Palestinian resistance killed more than 1,400, wounded more than 5,132 others, and captured more than 250, most of them military personnel, some of whom were high-ranking officers in the army.

- The resistance operation struck Jewish immigration with a death toll: The promises of security, well-being, and comfortable living that were promoted to immigrants to Israel were dissipated after the operation, and there is no security after the resistance succeeded in storming the settlements and military sites in this way that the whole world witnessed.

The operation constituted a major blow to Israel's intelligence image: After the operation took Israel by surprise without any leak or prior expectation, the operation was a witness to a miserable failure of Israeli intelligence.

- The operation demonstrated Israel's military fragility. The country that offered itself to normalize relations with the Arab regimes through security and military superiority showed that it was incapable of protecting itself, and that when it sensed the real danger, it turned to the Western ally to protect it in the region. Whoever presented himself as the protector of the region and the allied regimes today is asking for protection from America and the West.

- The operation restored confidence in the idea of resistance and its usefulness in the Palestinian liberation process. This confidence had collapsed due to the Naksa War and the perpetuation of the idea of an invincible Israeli army for more than half a century, especially after the settlement option that the Palestinian Authority had followed for 30 years had failed to achieve anything. Mention of the Palestinians.

Current war scenarios

First scenario:

An overwhelming Israeli victory over the Palestinian resistance: The victory that Israel wants is to completely eradicate Hamas, make Gaza demilitarized, and recover the prisoners. Any talk about Hamas staying or keeping weapons in Gaza and negotiating over the prisoners means for Israel an abject defeat. The victory that Israel wants is a zero-sum victory and that the opponent It must surrender and end completely, and this is the declared Israeli and American goal.

This goal has what supports it and serves its realization on the ground, including the presence of an American and Western green light to use force against Gaza without any red lines, the airlift of advanced American weapons, the deterrent battleships that prevent the expansion of the war in the region, and the large financial support that the West provides to Israel until it reaches... In US President Joe Biden's latest calls for Congress to agree to allocate $14 billion in military support to Israel.

Behind this is a Western media machine that is sympathetic and supportive of Israel, conditions that the Israeli political and military leadership will not leave without seeking to end Hamas, the resistance, and Gaza’s weapons forever. This is an opportunity that will not be repeated for Israel from the point of view of the Israeli leadership.

Second scenario:

The survival of the resistance, the leadership of the resistance, the weapons of the resistance, and the survival of the prisoners under the hands of the resistance, whether they are alive or dead. The mere survival of the resistance, whether with or without Israeli ground losses, will represent a failure and defeat for the Israeli campaign. Everything short of uprooting the resistance and its weapons is a Palestinian victory.

This scenario is supported by previous experiences in Israel's ground wars. The 2006 war in Lebanon surprised everyone, Hezbollah withstood, and Israel eventually submitted to a prisoner exchange deal and suffered losses it had not expected.

The Lebanese model can be repeated in the ground war on Gaza, but this depends on how much the Palestinian resistance has prepared for the ground war, and this is what the first weeks of the ground war will be judged on.

Post-war

If Israel achieves the first scenario and achieves an overwhelming victory and is able to occupy Gaza again and end the presence of the resistance and disarm it, the military and political scene in favor of Israel in the region will be as follows:

- Netanyahu emerging victorious from the war means tightening the grip of the Israeli right on the reins of government in any future elections and for many years.

- Netanyahu will intend to capitalize on the victory and seek another war and repeat the same victory in southern Lebanon over Hezbollah, benefiting from unlimited Western and American support, especially after southern Lebanon entered the war, albeit in a limited way so far.

- Consolidating and deepening Israel's policy of deterrence and the policy of managing military brutality that it has pursued in its wars with the Arab armies and Palestinian resistance movements throughout the history of the Palestinian cause.

- Weakening any chance for a third Palestinian intifada in the West Bank, and going to the most important plan of the Israeli right by dividing the spatial location of Al-Aqsa Mosque, expanding the temporal division of Jewish extremists, and accelerating the plan to Judaize Al-Aqsa Mosque.

- Israel's victory will most likely mean handing over Gaza to the Palestinian Authority and working quickly to implement the provisions of the Deal of the Century by force and by imposing a fait accompli, by annexing the Jordan Valley and the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which occupy more than 43% of the West Bank's lands for Israel, and establishing Palestinian self-rule with geographically unlimited cantons. Connected with work to start a soft displacement policy.

- A leaked study revealed the Israeli plan to settle two million Palestinians in Egypt at a value of $8 billion, to build cities for Palestinians in Sinai, and to pay compensation that could reach $30 billion to the Egyptian state, provided that Gaza is completely bulldozed and Israeli settlements are built on it.

- The Iranian project in the region has declined, the so-called axis of resistance has declined, and the American-Western-Israeli project has advanced and excelled. This means accelerating the rotation of the wheel of Arab normalization with the Zionist entity, making Israel the major power in the region, and returning the Turkish project to the square of understandings with the American-Israeli project, not contradicting and competing with it.

However, if a victory is achieved for the resistance, and by victory I mean “the resistance and its weapons remaining in Gaza and negotiating over the prisoners,” the political scene in the region will be completely different, as follows:

- The victory of the resistance means entrenching Hamas to be the primary force in the Palestinian cause, and the international community and Israel must deal with it as the most important player in determining the fate of the Palestinian cause and the decline of the role of the Palestinian Authority, which has become a structure without substance or content.

- The decline of the Israeli right and the end of Netanyahu’s political career, forcing the United States of America and the less right-wing movement in Israel to re-engage with the Jordanian story, narrative and perception, which is still adhering to and defending the option of the Arab initiative for a two-state solution and reproducing the idea of establishing a viable Palestinian state on the June 7 borders. In 1967, a Palestinian state was established on the entire territory of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the Jordan Valley.

- The rearrangement of the Middle East and the stronger rise of Iran in many issues in the region, which will create Arab-Iranian understandings and expand the trend opposing the American project, with the possibility of a greater Turkish-Iranian rapprochement supported by Russia, a rapprochement that will strengthen Russia’s position and influence in the region.

- Greater satisfaction for the encirclement countries, especially Jordan and Egypt, by getting rid of the displacement project, even if those countries accept that political Islam will benefit temporarily as a symptom of the victory of the resistance in Gaza, with their ability to keep political Islam under control and weakening in exchange for getting rid of the obsession with displacement and resettlement in Egypt and Jordan, with what it represents. A strategic threat to the national security of the cordon countries.

- The wave of Arab-Israeli normalization has receded, as normalization was driven by the motivation of Israeli military and security superiority. The Israeli loss will show Israel’s strength in its true size, far from what Israel promotes itself as a strong and superior security and military ally, with whom the Arab countries can cooperate in confronting the Iranian project.

A different war

No one can predict the results of the war. American-Western support for Israel is unlimited and unconditional, and no time limit has been set for it, and there is no Western popular pressure yet sufficient to stop it, which makes this war completely different from its counterparts from 2008 to 2023 on Gaza.

At the same time, no one can estimate the strength of the ground resistance, as Hamas is a highly secretive organization and the size and quality of weapons flowing to it cannot be estimated by anyone, which makes all possibilities of war open.

It is certain that before October 7th is not like what comes after it, and that we are heading towards major political events and developments that will make all parties affected by the Palestinian issue vigilant, anxious and fearful and do not want the solution of the Palestinian issue to be in Israel’s favor at their expense.

Everything that has happened so far in the Israeli war and the aerial bombardment does not change anything on the ground, and only the results of the ground war will reshape the region, strengthen axes, weaken others, advance projects and retreat others. The Al-Aqsa Flood land war may be the biggest event of the twenty-first century in the Middle East and the Palestinian issue.

Source: Al Jazeera