[Salon] How Israel’s imperial hubris will prove its undoing - ArabDigest.org Guest Post

How Israel’s imperial hubris will prove its undoing Summary: as Israel expands a war driven by an expansionist colonising vision, it risks driving the Arab governments who are its friends and allies into making a choice between their citizens who support Palestinians and a regime intent on destroying the possibility of a Palestinian state. We thank our regular contributor Maged Mandour for today’s newsletter. Maged is a political analyst who also contributes to Middle East Eye and Open Democracy. He is a writer for Sada, the Carnegie Endowment online journal and the author of the recently published Egypt under El-Sisi (I.B.Tauris) which examines social and political developments since the coup of 2013. You can find Maged’s most recent AD podcast here. On 8 October Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech directed at the people of Lebanon. In it he threatened the Lebanese with Gaza -like destruction, and the “abyss of a long war”, if they do not act against Hezbollah. It was a direct call for a new civil war in a country already heavily scarred by civil war. The speech was followed with a documentary by the German broadcasters ATRE, where the far-right Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, stated that “It is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus.” The enthusing for the expansion of the war to Lebanon and the rising risk of a full-scale regional war is not limited to Israeli policy makers but has extended to the United States where several top national security advisors see the expanding the war as a "history-defining moment — one that will reshape the Middle East for the better for years to come.” It is a rhetoric reminiscent of the American assertions before the invasion of Iraq that not only led to expansion of Iranian influence in the region but to the rise of radical jihadi groups culminating in the Islamic State. This hubris will not only backfire, it will undermine the regional order that saw Israel become an integral part of a conservative Arab axis that included the largest Arab states. Indeed, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, its siege of Gaza and its policy of perpetual subjugation of the Palestinians were fully accepted by these powerful Arab states, in itself an historic precedent. However, Israel’s new “forever” war does not only undermine this order, but also threatens the stability of some of its closest Arab allies, with unpredictable consequences. This is clearest in the case of Egypt, one of two regional mediators in negotiation with Hamas (the other being Qatar.) Since the start of the war relations between the two sides have clearly soured. For example, in October 2023 a document issued by the Israeli Intelligence ministry suggested that a mass transfer of Palestinians from Gaza to Sinai would be an acceptable solution to the conflict. It was a policy that seemed to have received backing from Washington and was starting to attract and mobilise financial resources for a possible resettlement scheme though it was soundly rejected by President Sisi. Even though the idea appears to have been abandoned, at least officially, actual Israeli policy has as a tactic the ethnic cleansing of the Strip by making it unliveable. For example, during the first year of the war 60% of residential buildings, 80% of commercial buildings and 68% of cropland have been damaged along with hospitals, schools and university, electricity, waste and water treatment infrastructure either severely damaged or reduced to rubble, in all a stupendous amount of destruction. This is on top of the 42, 979 people killed, the 10,000 missing, and the 98,486 wounded. The situation is compounded by the Israeli insistence that ‘the day after’ in Gaza will involve direct Israeli security control, a euphemism for full occupation, rejecting any role for the Palestinian Authority. In other words, an open-ended security operation that will continue to wreak havoc on the Strip, increasing the chances of mass exodus of the Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt. In a case of imperial hubris the Israeli war on Gaza and Lebanon will not only fail to eradicate Hamas and Hezbollah but will weaken Israel’s regional allies and make any progress towards regional integration led by the Israelis even more unlikely Such an exodus threatens to destabilise a regime whose legitimacy rests on nationalist credentials, one of which is stopping the establishment of a Palestinian state in Sinai, one of the many conspiracy theories used by Sisi to discredit the Muslim Brothers and justify their overthrow. A mass influx of Palestinians would cause irreparable damage to the regime's domestic legitimacy amid a grinding debt crisis. Tensions were not eased between the allies when Israel occupied the Philadelphi Corridor, under the guise of destroying tunnels and controlling the smuggling between Gaza and Sinai, with the Israeli accusation that weapons were being smuggled to Hamas from Egypt. According to the IDF when they seized control of the corridor only 9 tunnels were discovered already sealed by Egypt before 7 October. This claim seems to have been used by Netanyahu to block a ceasefire deal, knowing Hamas rejects continued Israeli presence in the corridor. Another Arab country close to Israel and facing the repercussion of Israeli hubris is Jordan. With violence in the West Bank escalating, unleashed by settlers and the IDF, leading to the death of 749 Palestinians, there is good reason to fear that a scheme of ethnic cleansing is in the works, this time pushing Palestinians to Jordan. It is a concern echoed by Jordan's King Abdullah himself. These fears are not unfounded, considering that in March 2023, Smotrich showed a map referring to greater Israel, which contained parts of Jordan. The ethnic cleansing of the West Bank is a policy that predates 7 October; however the war on Gaza has provided the necessary cover for its expansion and intensification. Despite these fears, Jordan participated in the downing of Iraninan missiles and drones launched into Israel in April and October. Israel’s desire to destroy all its enemies in one go has also derailed the grand prize of normalisation, namely Saudi Arabia, arguably the most powerful Arab state and the heart of the conservative axis. Before the war, normalisation looked to be within reach buttressed by American security and military commitments and civilian-use nuclear assistance. Indeed, over several years prior to 7 October Mohammed bin Salman had expressed both publicly and privately his criticisms of the Palestinians. One such instance was in April 2018 when he stated “It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining” lamenting several supposed opportunities that the Palestinians had lost. His sentiment seemed to have not changed with reports as recent as September 2024, where he told US Secretary of State Blinken that he does not personally care about what he called “the Palestinian issue”. However, he is also acutely aware that the young Saudi population does and that a normalisation deal on the back of the slaughter in Gaza would be immensely damaging. A deal could well have been possible before the Hamas attack but now - despite American claims to the contrary - the prospects are dimming. The expansion of the war to Lebanon and the continuing slaughter in Gaza will only make this prospect even more remote. This is reinforced by the developing detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia, as reflected in the meeting between MbS and the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Aragchi on 9 October just two days past the first anniversary of the Hamas attack. Iran also warned the Arab Gulf countries that allowing their airspace or territory to be used to launch strikes against it will draw a response, a terrifying prospect for countries whose citizens are assumed to be largely sympathetic to the Palestinians. The Israeli war on Gaza and Lebanon in what is a case of imperial hubris will not only fail to eradicate Hamas and Hezbollah but will weaken Israel’s regional allies and make any progress towards regional integration led by the Israelis even more unlikely. Indeed, the Israeli responses to 7 October has revealed something that many Arab leaders chose to forget, namely that alliances with an apartheid state, based on racial supremacy and colonial expansion are fickle and unstable. As such, Israel was and remains a huge threat to the stability of all the Arab regimes, be they allies and foes. Members can leave comments about this newsletter on the Arab Digest website