CAIRO — About three years ago, when I was living in the United States, I saw how far Israel’s image and reputation had sunk, both in the media and in political and academic circles. More than once, I’d heard people describe it as “another shit hole in the Middle East.”
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At the time, six Palestinian prisoners had managed to escape from Gilboa Prison, a high security prison in northern Israel, through a tunnel they had dug inside their cell with great diligence over a long time. Then, about 18 months ago, an Egyptian reserve soldier named Mohamed Salah had managed to cross the border to kill several Israeli soldiers on his own, implementing a plan he had prepared based on his experience with video games. Was Salah an outlier individual or was there a growing security laxity of the other side of the border? Most likely both.
Beginning in January 2023, Israel has also faced a political crisis between secular and religious nationalists over plans by religious parties to try to curb the Supreme Court’s authority and grant the ruling coalition — led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a majority in the committee that appoints judges.
The secular nationalists revolted against what they considered a judicial coup aimed at undermining the civil nature of the state. Large-scale demonstrations continued for months and were accompanied by unprecedented levels of violence. At the time, Netanyahu accused his opponents of implementing foreign agendas, and of being supported by the Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros and American liberal circles to undermine Israel’s sovereignty.
Then came the Oct. 7 Hamas attack — the most painful operation in Israel’s history, the details of which revealed astonishing levels of security exposure and lack of military preparedness.
It was a lightning blow dealt to Israel’s supposed air and technical sovereignty.
I offer this recent history to respond to the shock many are now expressing over Israel’s transformation in the past year: it has gone from facing the most extreme levels of political (both internal and external), military and security exposure to now possessing an extraordinarily high state of real and theatrical deterrence.
In just the past two months, the State of Israel has assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the heart of Tehran and liquidated Hezbollah’s entire military leadership — including Hassan Nasrallah.
So how did Israel, in one year, transform a strategic defeat into what appears to be a strategic victory? How did it transform a shaky state into a project for regional domination?
Allies, sponsors, adversaries
There are important internal Israeli dynamics, of course, including its independent capabilities for mobilization, recruitment, and external political penetration, both in diplomatic and intelligence spheres. These capabilities are powerful, yes, but they do not account for all or even most of its strength.
The past 12 months confirm that Israel enjoys support, more or less quietly, from multiple fronts that help account for its current strength. Without such support, Israel is much weaker than it might seem. Despite the strength of its technical and military infrastructure, the intensity of its aggression around the region is actually a sign of Israel’s ultimate weakness.
It’s important to understand each of the lines of external support that help prop Israel up. It is not only military supplies, political covers, and security information banks provided by sponsors and allies, but also the objective conditions created by all parties in the region and their interactions over the past decades, in a way that paves the way for the current Israeli policy of evil and aggression.
Support comes from friends, but also from opponents and enemies, with their weakness, confusion, stupidity, tyranny, and the expiration of their political validity — not to mention the betrayal of their causes.
1. U.S.: decision-maker
The deep-seated bond between the United States and Israel, the so-called “51st state,” is well known. It’s worth remembering that some 14 million out of world’s 16 million Jews live either in the U.S. or Israel, which means that the Jewish issue in the global sense is primarily a domestic American issue.
But changes are afoot over the past two years ago vis a vis worldwide security issues, with the ongoing war in Ukraine having so far claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of “white men,” which is a problem in the racist classification of Americans who see less value lost in dead Muslims.
But the main key to understanding the United States’ support for Israel is not the nature of the latter as part of the former. Rather it is the current nature of the American empire, whose capitalist components have decided to subjugate the world and its markets with bombs, not through competition.
In this context, Israel is the star striker (in the words of football) of the American team for the Middle East.
2. The Gulf: Unpacking new alliances
The various levels of Gulf support need some detail; these Gulf regimes have never denied for a moment their allegiance with the United States.
In a short video that sums it all up, former Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir spoke about the 80-year alliance between his country and the U.S., in which they together defeated Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1960s, and then the Soviets in the 1980s.
What has changed in the past decade is that the distance the Gulf states used to take from Israel no longer exists, after the Arab Spring made the uprisings of the people the first and main enemy of the Gulf — prior to Iran and its allies.
The Arab counter-revolution forces were more aware of the revolutions than the revolutionaries themselves. In this context, the UAE left its position as the Arab economic wiseman, to become a political player destroying every spot in the region.
From its new position, the UAE became an official ally of Israel, sharing intelligence, diplomacy and investments. It thus became an actor in its own, expressing imperial and capitalist interests that may be more complex than what Israel expresses in the region.
As for Riyadh, the Saudi regime imagines that it is able to control the events’ pace and results according to its vision and perceptions of itself. This regime has declared since the mid-2000s that its main nemesis in the region is Iran and is primarily based on sectarian hostility. But what it has never stated is that its secondary contradiction with Israel has diminished to the point of a semi-declared alliance.
The Saudi regime imagines that it is able to force Israel to recognize a Palestinian state, after Israel completes its mission against Iran on behalf of the Gulf states. Thus, the Saudis can avert some embarrassment, and can declare that the Arabs gained some benefits. We must acknowledge, however, that this thinking is far-fetched indeed.
Syria: Arab catastrophe
In Syria, Bashar al-Assad has set a new standard for genocide that has devalued the human soul in our region to the lowest levels.
If Israel is the new shit hole in the Middle East, then the deepest shit hole in the Arab world is Assad’s Syria, who opened his country to Russian, American, Iranian and Turkish colonialism.
This diabolical regime is by definition a hotbed of crime and all forms of regional and international security breaches. Iran and Hezbollah’s support of the Assad regime could be the reason for their unprecedented security and intelligence exposure.
The genocide committed by Assad has turned Syria into a benchmark for what misfortunes and calamities can lead to. So if this is the new low Arab standard in approaching Syria, what about the Israeli standard?
I foresaw in 2016, that Israel would try to implement Assad’s practices for the extermination of the Palestinians — and, tragically, this is what is happening before our eyes right now.
Egypt: unoccupied colony
This is the most unfortunate front, because it is the result of historical choices that the Egyptian leadership at the time thought would reshape the region to suit its interests. Those choices, however, turned into a strategic predicament that was extremely harmful locally and regionally.
The Camp David Accords — the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel — are the backbone of the entire Middle East region. No one involved in politics in Egypt can deny that or deal with it on a different basis. Camp David is the past and present that has continued for about 50 years.
When the regime allowed some demonstrations at the beginning of the Israeli genocide, Egyptians went out to Tahrir Square and chanted “bread, freedom, and social justice again.” The result was multiple arrests, and the message to not do it again.
The current government is racing against time to maintain its authority at the expense of the future of its people, to force Egypt lose its independence without wars. Egypt’s rulers want the Gulf’s money and investments, and in light of the Gulf-Israeli alliance, Cairo will participate in the reshaping of the region according to their visions.
This means Egyptians will be subject to colonialism without occupation, humiliation without genocide, and eventually: genocide without bombs.
Iran: fading force
As mentioned above, the Camp David Accords were laid down as the cornerstone of the region, and after that everyone was stuck in the space of how peace could look like? When? And at what price?
From this position the term “resistance” emerged, with Iran as both guide and supplier. But after the past couple of months, the resistance project no longer exists, because there is no longer a peace project to resist, and there is no partial occupation with agreed-upon borders to resist, as Hezbollah did in the 1980s and 1990s.
There is only open aggression to reshape the entire region, and this is beyond the capabilities of this Axis of Resistance.
Within the old borders of the conflict with Israel, Iran could have led this axis. But since the conflict has crossed the old borders, Iran’s withdrawal has become inevitable, with or without a military defeat. Iran has its own strategic calculations and internal currents, which are diverse even from within its own ruling theological regime.
Many of these currents want Iran to distance itself from this entire conflict in exchange for a historic settlement with the United States that guarantees the survival of this oppressive regime.
Some also forget that Iran will face a major and earth-shattering change. The succession of Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, is not a trivial matter and the man is on the verge of death that may test the entire system, given that it’s impossible to find someone to fill his position, with the same powers that he inherited from Ayatollah Khomeini.
All of the above cannot be separated from the terrible blow that Hezbollah’s leadership suffered recently. The issue is bigger than an intelligence breach, but rather it is at the heart of political calculations and choices.
Finally, I would like to repeat what was said at the beginning of this piece: Israel’s current expansion is not a sign of strength nor an expression of a project. It is simply failure and chaos. The kind of destruction it will all lead to for the region and the world can only be imagined.
