I have discussed the various Israeli, Turkish and Iranian projects to reconfigure the Middle East to suit their interests, taking advantage of the circumstances and repercussions of the current war on Gaza. The situation, now, is poised to become much more complex. Donald Trump will be re-entering the White House in a few days, bringing with him a set of expansionist imperialist projects eying Latin America in one direction and Canada and the northern Atlantic Ocean in the other. Such plans jar with the widely disseminated image of Trumpist anti-interventionist isolationism, with its White ethnocentric overtones. They also involve the likelihood of active US intervention in the Middle East to expand the Abraham Accords on the one hand while backing Israel’s territorial expansion on the other.
The Arab region is once again caught in a vice between the ambitions of non-Arab regional powers and the ambitions of a global power whose teeth are being sharpened by the growing far-right in the West. Israel’s recent victory over the militias of the Axis of Resistance, leading to the Iranian withdrawal from Syria, has created a situation no less perilous than its predecessor. Israel has grown fiercer than ever in its greed for Arab land whether stolen through settlement expansion or by force. At the same time, the new Syrian “revolution” that overthrew the Baathist regime in Damascus has lent fresh momentum to the Turkish expansionist project, threatening renewed warfare against the Kurds. That same project provides cover for the Muslim Brotherhood offshoots that have assumed power in Damascus with the blessings of the West, which calls them “moderate” and even “liberal” Islamists.
Meanwhile, Arab countries have not abandoned Syria to the clutches of economic and social deterioration. They have established sturdy bridges of aid to our Arab brothers and sisters there. The same has always applied to Palestine and Gaza, in particular. However, amid the fog in the region, we should not ignore the negative developments in the Arab geopolitical and geostrategic environment. The Arab world has changed significantly since the so-called “Arab Spring”: what was the case before the 2010s is no longer appropriate to current times. Despite the general upheaval precipitated by that spring, a goodly number of Arab states took the deterioration by its horns, launching bold initiatives aiming to reform conditions marked by ideological distortions that were entirely unsuitable to present-day circumstances and the modern era.
The nascent Arab reform project is centred, firstly, around the need for a national identity as the foundation for a modern state for all its people, as opposed to one serving a despotic minority or a tyrannical majority. Such a state must also possess a monopoly on legitimate force and on political legitimacy. Secondly, the project is centred around comprehensive modernisation, through statewide mega-projects in communications, transportation and other infrastructural projects seeking to develop and mobilise the country’s untapped resources.
Nine Arab countries—the six Gulf states plus Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco—have joined this project. Two more are on the way: Tunisia, with its distinct and strong national identity, and Iraq, with its millennia-long heritage and abundant oil. This group of countries envisions a state cemented by a national affiliation that transcends all subnational, sociopolitical affiliations and is governed by a political authority whose legitimacy is based on building, development and achievement according to 21st-century criteria.
However, in our times, such a project is not feasible until two problems are resolved: the Palestinian cause and the Israeli question. No Arab state, on its own, can grapple with these issues under the current regional and international circumstances. After World War II, six European countries embarked on a journey to build the European region, which had been devastated by the war. The project was based on reassimilating Germany, divided at first, but later reunited. It also began modestly, focussing on creating a Coal and Steel Community, after which it evolved to a European Union that grew to 27 countries. Nor is this the sole example. Asia, in the post-Vietnam War era, provides another. This became one of the fastest-growing regions in the world in terms of both production and consumption.
To address the Palestinian and Israeli questions, the Arab Peace Initiative must be deepened. It should offer Israelis the option to integrate into a region in which Hebrew heritage still exists, in exchange for a modern national Palestinian state where arms and decision-making are united under a single authority within a broader regional security order. The alternative is perpetuating the status quo, which is to say a war every year or two while Jews in the diaspora endure growing anti-Semitism.
The Arab project is a project to rebuild the region on modern and contemporary foundations based on diversity, acceptance of the other, and tolerance.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 16 January, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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