It is hard to envisage the situation in the Middle East by the time this is published. At the moment, Israel is preparing to respond to the cartoonish Iranian strike on it while it bombs the centre of Beirut and carries out successive attacks on the south. Before that, Israeli fighter jets headed south over the Red Sea to mount a scorching air raid against the port city of Hodeida, in Yemen.
For weeks I had noted that escalation was mounting even as ceasefire negotiations were in progress. Now the negotiations have stopped, although there are negotiations about negotiations. It has also repeatedly struck me that the Arabs have no one to rely on but themselves. This is especially true when dealing with the cycle of warfare between Hamas and Israel, or the current “fifth Gaza War”, which has effectively become a regional war involving Iran and its affiliates in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Yemen.
The notion that the war is being waged for the Palestinian cause is simplistic and misleading. Israel bears a major part of the responsibility because of its ongoing occupation, continued settlement expansion, and anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian racism and oppression. However, we, the Arab states, are also to blame for assuming that the sparks from a fire in one part of the neighbourhood would not fly in our direction and set off other fires we are unable to handle.
The “Arab Spring” is to blame for the strategic weakness that has afflicted the region, encouraging non-Arab neighbours like Iran and Israel to shed all restraint in their bid to destroy the Arab nation state. For Iran, this took place through affiliated militias operating under the banner of resistance. In Iraq, the Popular Mobilisation Forces seized control over decisions of war and peace from the authorities in Baghdad. The same applied to the Iraqi Hizbullah, the Syrian version and the mother Hizbullah in Lebanon, as well as similar iterations in Palestine. In Yemen, the insurgence of the Houthi militias aimed to partition Yemen into three states while attacking neighbouring Arab countries and threatening international trade, economically harming Egypt.
Over the last decade, all this unfolded before our eyes until it exploded all at once, foreboding a fiercer and more destructive regional war than all its predecessors. Israel’s triumphalism has led it to bomb everyone who hurt it, even after assassinating the leaders it holds responsible. Moreover, it carries out its assassinations in ways that seem calculated to offend and humiliate, as occurred with the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran as well as Hassan Nasrallah and many of his companions in Lebanon. Iran, for its part, wants to sustain its “revolutionary” reputation and its political system at home by claiming false victories abroad. This dyad of violence is crushing those Arab countries that have succumbed to militias, and it is trampling the Palestinian cause by dragging it into even more occupation and injustice.
When, on 27 September, Saudi Arabia launched an initiative establishing the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, it emphasised the strategic priority of this goal and invited its Arab, Muslim, and European allies to work together to achieve it. Progress towards this end necessitates a credible driving force, one that can only be Arab and closely connected to all parties concerned. It must also have established precedents in a national project that can lead to the creation of a regional project for security, peace, and development.
Two points must be stressed in this context. First, as important as the US is, it cannot be relied upon to resolve the present, multifaceted multi-crisis unless the solution has a clear regional component first. Washington’s role comes after regional powers have done their job and made the tough decisions, after shaking free of inherited complacency.
Secondly, resolving the Palestinian issue, reviving the respect and esteem of the Arab state, and enabling it to reclaim its unrivalled ability to make decisions of war and peace are the first, not the last, steps towards reestablishing regional stability and security and freeing the region from the horrors of war and endless crises.
This is why I call for an Arab coalition consisting of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, and Jordan to forge a comprehensive strategy for addressing the primary crisis and its offshoots. Such a strategy must establish clear goals and engage all available political, economic, diplomatic, and media tools in ways best geared to deal with a crisis of this complexity.
Frankly, the alliance (as opposed to the coalition) of resistance and defiance has caused a horrific state of instability across the region, leading to the destruction of nation states that have long since disintegrated and turned into breeding grounds of terrorism.
Special strategies and approaches must be brought to bear with regional powers like Iran and Israel to pave the way for regional security, peace, development and the realisation of common interests, while closing the chapter on nuclear arms. The two-state solution is an essential and indispensable step. From a regional perspective, it must be the first step.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 10 October, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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