Gaza geopolitical schema

A great bulk of people has turned out into the streets of Istanbul, Amman, Cairo, Sana, Baghdad and numerous other cities in Muslim and non-Muslim countries. People have registered their anger against Israel’s barbarism and their solidarity with the Palestinians. In parallel, the Arab League, the OIC and the Egypt Summit have gathered in urgency, calling for a serious political path to achieve peace based on return to the 1967 border and implementation of the Two-State Solution.

But while the Ummah takes this democratic and humane posture in showing its resent and deplore, the Israeli side has only upped the ante by not only cutting water and supplies; increasingly bombing Gaza, both North and South; and going as low as the bestial act of bombing the Al Ahli Hospital.

Pro-Israeli media and commentators have come to adopt a new narrative, that there is no proportionality in war. They have simply put the UN resolutions on ‘ethics of war’ in the trashcan and justify the trampling and annihilation of Gaza because simply it is the ‘evil’. It seems that where humanity can be anti-Semitic, the Zionist unquestionably prove to be anti-human in practice. So, as long as the Zionist project of exterminating the Palestinian people remains, so will the anger and retaliation of the Muslim world against them. If it is a question of good and evil, both sides have diametrically opposed definitions of what is good and what is evil, so there is no point of arguing, and there is only one option to wage war or accept crushing defeat.

So, the question is: are the Arabs just doing diplomacy over Gaza or is there any real thing they are doing? On the face of it, this time, warnings by different stakeholders that the conflict may become a regional one are pointing to the fact that regional players in the Middle East are prepared to go all out against Israel if the situation calls for it.

The fact that Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and their allies in the region are in constant diplomacy means that the Saudis are deliberately allowing Iran to attack Israel both verbally and via its proxy, the Hezbollah. Hezbollah has opened a concurrent front on the Israel-Lebanon border. It has taken down Israeli observation posts and radars and is firing into IDF posts and Israeli settlements. Israel has had to declare a 4km no-go zone and deploy heavily on the northern front in fear of Hezbollah’s stock of 150,000 smart cruise missiles and their barrages of Iranian-made swarm drones. Lebanon has been in conflict with Israel since 1948 with several major offensives. In 2006, Beirut was bombed down by Israel. Earlier it had always supported the Fatah fighters and since 1985 it harbours Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has fired from the Syrian border too, and in return Israel has hit the Damascus and Aleppo airports, rendering them out of use.

Israel has had a bad habit of routinely hitting Syrian targets with impunity. Since the Syrian War, this practice has been intense as Israel considers it its right to hit estimated Hezbollah targets in preemptive defence. Israel also holds Syria’s land, the Golan Heights, since 1967. So, Syria’s enmity with Israel is as strong as anyone’s. With Russian and Turkish forces still in Syria, both ensuring the Assad regime, and with Russian S-300 long-range surface to air missile system in Syrian possession, it’s anyone’s guess how close the Russian-Turkish capabilities are to aid Assad; and how close Assad is to Hezbollah; and how fond Russia and Turkey have become in ousting Western interests from the neighbourhood, like they recently did in Syria and Libya.

As Hezbollah keeps Israel’s northern front engaged, it has warned that if the US intervenes directly, all US locations in the region will become legitimate targets. Following that, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq has droned the two US military bases of Ain Al-Asad and Harir in Iraq, two among 14 attacks on US military bases in the Middle East in this time. Yemeni missiles have hit US navy ships passing by; Chinese warships are reportedly in the Persian Gulf and surrounding waters; and Turkey has ordered it naval fleets to anchor in eastern Mediterranean.

So, what would it look like if the Gaza War spreads out? Probably the Saudis won’t have to lift a finger that can be seen. All they have to do is condemn Israel and leave the dirty work to Iran. Turkey and Russia would ensure that Hezbollah and other armed factions in the area, who want to fight, smoothly get all the Iranian weapons they need, and allow Syria to use the S-300s.

Hamas needs to be provided ammunition too. But from the looks of it, it seems that have already been improvised to a surprising amount. Egypt however would need to just keep its eyes closed as more ammo is smuggled in through secret tunnel along the Rafah border.

Will trained fighters also be smuggled into Gaza is a question no one can answer; but it is not an impossibility considering the fury in the Muslim world. The truth is that the Muslim world has always been in fury against Israel, but in its previous wars it did not have the military strength to defeat a US-backed Israel.

Things are different this time. Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan rank among the top 15 militaries of the world; and Iran and Saudi Arabian militaries rank 17^th and 22^nd. If they agree to fly 10 aircraft each on a single day, they can do to Israel what Israel is doing to Gaza.

Israel, on the other hand, is having to divide its forces on two fronts. For help it has called back over 300,000 Jew reservists from around the world, but these reservists have no training, no uniform, no equipment. And they stand no chance in urban warfare against Hamas.

As of Israel’s ally, the US, it has more expertise of losing wars, like in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, and less of winning. Each of these three countries has fought resiliently against the US, and each is ready to back the Palestinians, directly or indirectly — like Pakistan which has reportedly agreed to share its nuclear warheads with Turkey if they need to be used for the Palestine cause.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2023.

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