Is Gaza The “Mother Of All Wars” Or Just A Diversion From China? On Western Drift In The Middle East

-Analysis-

CAIRO — The Oct. 7 Hamas attack and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war thrust the Gaza Strip to the center of the world.

International organizations issue reports on the war on an almost daily basis, the media publishes statements by world leaders about Gaza around-the-clock and too many draft resolutions to count have been presented to the United Nations in attempts to bring the fighting to a halt.

Meanwhile, the war has also now seen the International Court of Justice issue arrest warrants for leaders of both Israel and Hamas, as public demonstrations and counter-demonstrations fill our screens wherever we look.

As an issue of global public opinion, the main change is how a number of the most important Western countries have now declared (or repeated for the first time in a long time) their support for a two-state solution to settle the decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict when the war ends.

And yet, all this global interest does not stem from the war’s impact on major international balance of power. In this respect, it is not comparable to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, nor even to the American-Chinese economic and strategic dispute, including control of the China Sea and Taiwan.

Yet it is an important moment in the course of a conflict that dates back to the beginning of the Zionist settlement in Palestine. This conflict not only affects both sides, but also severely affects a strategic region, which is home to the most important global trade routes, and is the global major exporter of oil and gas.

A global issue

This broad global impact is consistent with the fact that the Palestinian cause began as a global issue. Yet the Arab world has been concerned about the Palestinian cause long before the establishment of Israel. After Israel was established, it fell to neighboring countries, especially Egypt, to deal with the Palestinian issue. And gradually, the Palestinian cause was imposed on the global agenda.

Egypt also managed to impose the Palestinian cause as the top interest of the newly-independent countries in Africa and Asia. Those countries established the Non-Aligned Group, as part of the wave of national liberation that swept the world after World War II.

Before and after the 1967 defeat, the Arab countries collectively sponsored the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the strengthening of its international standing. The Arab world also managed to get the world to recognize the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

All of this led to the United States — Israel’s main backer — to adopt the principle of resolving the issue peacefully, leading to the official inauguration of the Oslo Accords in Washington in 1993. Since then, the U.S. has sponsored all negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis.

​Islamic globalization

The rise of political Islam movements in the region has added what we can call Islamic globalization to the Palestinian cause, given that they adopt the Palestinian cause from their own perspective. These movements have expanded in Islamizing Muslims, so to speak, among the communities of Arab and Islamic countries around the world, with the support of Arab countries, led by Saudi Arabia, and with the green or yellow light of the U.S. and the West.

Such activities later declined, however, due to the terrorist attacks in the West, and attempts to separate Muslims from the national frameworks of Western countries, with all the social and security problems that result from such efforts.

The war shifted the ambiguous cooperation between Islamists and sectors of the European left.

Before the Israel-Hamas war, Islamists’ activities in the West focused on attempts to Islamize the West, violently and peacefully. They often raised religious issues, most notably to prevent the criticism or ridicule of Islam, considered an infringement on basic Western values, beginning with freedom of expression.

There were also terrorist attacks that sparked anti-Islamist reaction from the far-right. The outrage sometimes extended to all Muslims in general (Islamophobia), who were seen as a security and cultural threat.

Many Western political and societal forces, generally left-wing, participated in resisting Islamophobia, but within the framework of general liberal ideas about preserving minority rights. This raised confusion that still exists, given the great contradiction between the starting points of Western liberal supporters and those of the Islamists.

Ambiguous cooperation

With the Israel-Hamas war, the ambiguous cooperation between Islamists and parts of the European left shifted to focus on the Palestinian cause. This shift benefits both sides. Islamists were able to improve their image by defending a just humanitarian cause that attracted the attention and sympathy of significant segments of the Western public. The war gave the Western left an additional opportunity to criticize the policies of their countries.

The Palestinian cause itself has benefited from the accumulation of organizational efforts by Islamists in the West over the decades. But it has also been undermined by the negative legacy of the Islamist movements there, and the ambiguities of the leftist-Islamic alliance.

Increasing political polarization in the West has favored both the far-right and the left.

For example, slogans such as “Palestine from the river to the sea” — which calls for the elimination of Israel, at least as a state, and supports antisemitic practices — have provoked many forces in the West, who reject such antisemitism, which has an ugly legacy in the West.

The contradictions of Islamists in the West — between their imperial ideology and liberal and humanitarian slogans — was once again revealed. Most importantly, it contributed to increasing political polarization in favor of both the far-right and the left, which objectively strengthen each other. Similarly, Hamas and the Israeli far-right have strengthened each other the expense of center-right and center-left, which have dominated Western political balances since fall of the Soviet Union.

Such contradictions can also be found in official Western policies. Israel represents a major weight in favor of the West in the region. It played a critical role in curbing the Arab nationalist movement, which was generally hostile to the West during the Cold War, and later in curbing the mullahs-tilled Iran and its allies. Israel is also linked to the history of the West.

Western pressure

The Gaza war, meanwhile, has highlighted an important yet long neglected aspect: the continued Palestinian-Israeli conflict is one of the most important causes of tensions in the region, as well as one of the most important pretexts for the Iranian-militia camp’s activities and expansion.

Western governments seek to solve these Western and regional dilemmas with one stroke, a two-state solution, which they believe would calm internal polarizations in the West as well as tensions in the Middle East — at the resistance camp’s expense. This calm is important on a strategic level, as it would allow the United States and NATO to focus on their rivals: Russia (militarily) and China (economically).

But Israel has rejected the principle of the two-state solution. It has expanded its settlements, imposed restrictions on the western-backed Palestinian Authority, sought to get rid of UNRWA and insists on continuing to destroy Rafah.

It seems one of Washington’s most important goals is to persuade Israel to trust the West’s direct support to stop its opposition to the two-state solution. The U.S. is trying to do so through supporting Israel militarily and deterring attempts to expand the war to allay Israel’s fears of the growing hostility towards it in the region.

Western pressure on Israel is far from symbolic.

But this “carrot” has been accompanied by a “stick,” which went beyond adhering to the two-state solution. The United States imposed sanctions on Israeli settler groups, demanded Israeli government control the settlers’ practices, and pressured it not to invade Rafah. The U.S. went further and halted the delivery of some types of weapons for Israel. Western pressure on Israel could exceed this limit later, especially after the end of the war.

Contrary to some populist Arab viewpoints, Western pressure on Israel is far from symbolic; it is the main obstacle to Israel reaping the benefits of the war — with its human, economic and political sacrifices — at least according to the Israeli far-right’s perceptions.

Western pressure has already led Israel to largely back away from the idea of expelling the Palestinians from Gaza, to Sinai, and to weaken the idea of Israel ruling Gaza directly after the war. This pressure has already aroused great bitterness among Israel’s leaders, because it means that the West’s firm commitment to Israel’s security does not mean supporting all of its perceptions, ambitions and plans toward its enemies.

The Gaza war has actually eroded the influence of the Zionist vision among the masses of the West. It also increased the interest of significant segments of young people in investigating the historical dimensions of the conflict, which in the long term could lead to a change in the Western position on the Zionist idea itself.

This is in addition to the increasing global isolation of Israel. Many countries have demanded Israel to stop the war, and some, such as Bolivia, have severed ties with it.

​Israel’s two options

Israel must choose between worsening its international isolation and swallowing the bitter medicine of the two-state solution. Although even if it led to normalization with important Arab countries (Saudi Arabia), it would not end the danger of the regional militia camp. It would not bring peace unless after at least one more Israeli war against the Iranian-led camp; a war that no one has promised to participate in.

The Gaza war appears to be a conflict between two perceptions about the region: an Islamic militia vision with an imperial tendency, and a moderate statist vision whose project is a peaceful solution to the Palestinian issue.

The war has undoubtedly weakened the Islamist militia camp, and the Israeli right, its “objective ally.” This however does not mean the elimination of Hamas. And the other camp’s use of the war to its advantage through implementing the two-state solution, faces obstacles imposed by both the Israeli side and the Iranian-militia.

If this difficult path does not succeed, the region will return again to managing the conflict with palliatives and temporary solutions.