Netanyahu's new Middle East will not bring stability

Even before the 7 October 2023 earth-shattering Hamas attack on southern Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was boasting about a new Middle East emerging where Israel would finally be accepted as a normal state with strategic ties extending in all directions.

Following the developing outcome of Israel’s war on Gaza, which later on included a punishing response to Hezbollah’s firing of missiles and rockets on northern Israel, Netanyahu became obsessed with the premise that Israel had carried out a geopolitical breakthrough by creating a new Middle East.

The 15-month war on Gaza allowed Israel to deal a heavy blow to Hamas and Hezbollah political and military leaderships, while drawing Iran into an open confrontation. Both sides exchanged blows that forced a temporary stalemate. Israel, helped by the US, was able to retaliate against Houthi missile attacks that resulted in heavy infrastructural losses to the Yemeni rebel group.

And then, in a sudden and unexpected outcome, the 5-decades-old regime of the Assad dynasty in Syria fell like a house of cards. Israel used the power vacuum there to occupy the high peaks of the Golan Heights, in addition to parts of southern Syria.

Israel’s attempt to redraw the shape of the Middle East had made spectacular breakthroughs. The pro-Iran front had collapsed. The Assad regime was no more. Hezbollah had suffered a historic blow; resulting in the Shiite group coughing up major concessions both politically and in the field.

For a moment, Netanyahu could stand up and declare that Israel was able to create a new Middle East. On Sunday he boasted that Israeli troops will remain in control of all of the strategically important Golan Height for an unlimited time. His army had created a buffer zone inside Syrian territory.

Political machinations

A new president, prime minister and government had been formed in Lebanon, and for the first time in over three decades Hezbollah’s sway over the political machinations of Lebanon had reached its end — for now.

Donald Trump had been elected in the United States, and Iran now looked anxiously on as Israel and the new administration worked closely to put in place a new common policy that included use of force to terminate Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu launched an aggressive military campaign to destroy the West Bank’s defiant Palestinian refugee camps. Without substantial international opposition, his forces had so-far displaced over 40,000 Palestinians, while rendering two refugee camps uninhabitable. On Sunday, Israel deployed tanks into the West Bank for the first time since the second Intifada.

Netanyahu and his far-right coalition were moving ahead with plans to annex most of the West Bank, while further weakening an almost bankrupt Palestinian Authority. And in Gaza, Netanyahu was doing his utmost to derail a fragile ceasefire agreement in a bid to resume the war.

Since he emerged on Israel’s political arena in the late 1990s, Netanyahu sought to disrupt any momentum that could lead to the birth of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories. Today, as the longest reigning premier in Israel’s history, he is bent on killing the Palestinian cause, while cementing Israel’s place as the most dominant military power in the new Middle East.

Stability and prosperity

Before, he had incited the Americans against hostile regimes such as Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran. His tactics contributed to over two decades of US misadventures in the region that destabilised the region.

But it would be wrong to believe that Netanyahu’s new Middle East would bring stability and prosperity to the region. If anything, it could herald new wars that could only bolster Israel’s military supremacy across the region.

The Middle East, a colonialist term, comprises most of the Arab countries, as well as Iran and Turkey and by some archaic accounts Pakistan and Afghanistan as well. Regardless, Israel’s size and population are a fraction of the total area of the Middle East and the number of its diverse population. The Middle East is almost entirely Muslim with ancient cultural roots.

Israel is a relative newcomer in the region that is seven-decades old. To think that this small country with its conceited leader could claim to have reshaped the region and is now sitting at the helm as its leader is farcical and insulting.

The fact of the matter is that Netanyahu’s new Middle East is a mirage. A region comprising almost a billion inhabitants will not bow to a war mongering entity that seeks to usurp the rights of the Palestinian people while claiming to be the dominant regional power.

Israel can truly be part of the region only if it shifts away from its contentious policies and embraces the essence of true coexistence, especially with the Palestinian people. Israel’s fortress mentality and its false belief in its superiority over the rest of the peoples’ of this region will only provide a breeding ground for extremists on both sides and never-ending wars.

Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.