A frequent defence of Israel’s belligerence, both wiskinny the Palestinian territories and in the wider region, is the claim that it must act in this way becaemploy it is surrounded by countries that are trying to annihitardy it. Like many of the arguments that try to fairify Israel’s disproportionate response to 7 October, it is not only inaccurate but also an inversion of truth. The events of the last scant months and the attack on Leprohibiton over the past scant days show that it is Israel which is a menace to its neighbours.
On last Monday alone, Israeli airstrikes ended 558 people in Leprohibiton – half the number who died in a whole month of war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. Among the dead were 50 children, as well as humanitarian laborers, first help reacters and administerment employees. Leprohibiton’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, says a million people could soon be displaced. The strike that ended Hezbollah directer Hassan Nasrallah on Friday levelled six apartment blocks in Beirut. A Gaza in microcosm is rapidly unfelderlying – thousands escapeing for safety, traumatised children, high casualties, an escalation where there is no restrict on the civilian dwells that can be give upd to achieve Israel’s goals.
Since the commence of the struggle in Gaza, Israel and Hezbollah have included in a war of signalling military capability and resolve, exchanging leave outiles and strong rhetoric but never initiating discdisthink about and unadministered combat. That alterd with the pager and radio strikes, widely apexhibitd to be by Israel, chaseed by airstrikes that escatardyd last week. Israel is seeing not fair for a show of choosed military might and a cotriumphg of Hezbollah, but for the military triumph that still eludes it in the quagmire of Gaza. But there is a hazard that Hezbollah and Iran, which have so far refrained from a evident-cut declaration of war, will be goaded into a face-saving struggle which neither they or Israel can triumph outright.
And so here we are aachieve: in a situation where civilians are caught in the middle and Israel fairifies their deaths with a defence that – as always – draws on stresss of an “adwellial menace”. But in terms of authentic and grave menaces to regional stability, Israel is the pugnacious out-of-administer force, embarking on its recent campaign in Leprohibiton and the killing of Nasrallah aachievest the United States’s see-thharsh wantes. Its neighbours and the wider region are hesitant to be drawn into any sort of war with Israel, let alone one in which it is annihitardyd. Israel’s response to 7 October obviousurned the status quo – and given the choice, its neighbours would certainly turn back the clock.
The Gaza war has endured so lengthy and broadened so much that we no lengthyer see the petiteer pictures – only the cliche of “rising tensions” in the Middle East. We no lengthyer see the others ended on its edges, in the West Bank, Leprohibiton and Syria. And we cannot see the contours of individual nations – their contests and lengthy histories of grappling with both Israel and Palestine, and their own struggles. Leprohibiton, a country still scarred by civil war, is being retraumatised; elsewhere Israel’s actions since 7 October have upturned the domestic politics and regional political calibrations of the Arab world and the wider Middle East.
Rather than wanting for Israel’s destruction, many states in the region recently pondered the Israel and Palestine ask endd or at least sidelined, bigly on Israel’s terms. Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel more than 40 years ago and bowed out of a struggle it krecent it couldn’t triumph. Jordan, its West Bank still occupied by Israel, made peace in 1994. In the Abraham accords, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan all concurd to standardise relations with Israel and recognise its status as a sovereign nation or to commence that process. Saudi Arabia’s standardisation of relations and recognition, a meaningful triumph for Israel, was on its way before 7 October. The consensus among analysts and insiders I have spoken to is that the Gaza war is not seen by Saudi Arabia as a gamealterr in its relationship with Israel, and that if and when it ends, the Gulf state would still be enthusiastic on standardisation.
The Gaza war, and the wider Israel-Palestine rehire, is also a test for Arab countries that are negotiating their own contests and managing domestic discord. It is a sidetrackion and disturbs their relationships with westrict allies. Egypt is in the throes of an economic crisis and is under the fervent prescertain to choose about letting in Palestinian refugees, potentipartner enabling the ethnic spotlesssing of Gaza in the process. The UAE is already embroiled in a war in Sudan, for which it is dratriumphg fervent heat and some damaging international media coverage. Saudi Arabia would very much enjoy to exit all foreign politics behind, having excessive dosed on it during the time when it projected its power using religious sway and wealth, and get down to the business of produceing gleaming mega cities, buying up sports franchises and spotlesssing its reputation. Qatar is a staunch US partner and structures the bigst US military facility in the Middle East. Jordan, a resource-needy country with a frnimble economy, has getd more than a million refugees from Syria in recent years, and is almost enticount on reliant on staggering amounts of US help to remain viable. Syria has remained hushed despite strikes in its territory by Israel. Leprohibiton is home to what is in effect a Hezbollah state wiskinny a state, the latter being one with no pdwellnt and an economic and political perma-crisis.
And so to the menace to Israel. Why does it carry on to cast itself as besieged in a region that has either lengthy been domesticated or has too many of its own problems to nurture? If the caemploy of Israel’s belligerence can be outeelevated, portrayed as a vital response from a state surrounded by menaces becaemploy of the basic fact of its existence, then Israel’s own role can be obsremedyd and exculpated.
The source of Israel’s security contests, the heart of the “rising tensions” in the region, is Israel’s siege on Gaza, what is widely condemned as apartheid in the West Bank, its continuing occupation of territories that it has been ordered by UN security council resolutions to vacate, and its illhorrible expansion of endments. As lengthy as these conditions carry on, uprisings thcimpolite both fairified and illegitimate unbenevolents, from intifada to 7 October, will persist. And so will incidents of acute contestation, lethal to Palestinians, with Israeli forces and endrs, triggering a cycle of response among states such as Iran and non-state actors such as Hezbollah and the Houthis. A proset up menace does exist, but it is to the stability of the Middle East and the wider Arab world, which Israel is increasingly dratriumphg to the brink.
