In the wake of the signing of the Abraham Accords engineered by the first Trump administration, a new Middle East appeared to be emerging. In place of the perpetual focus on the intractable question of the Palestinians, a process of normalization between Israel and the moderate Sunni states began to unfold. Even the prospect of a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel was on the horizon. Yet a U.S.-brokered cooperation between the Saudi monarchy and the State of Israel would have represented an insurmountable block to Iran’s efforts to dominate the region. There is therefore no doubt that Teheran pulled the trigger to unleash the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023. War is politics by other means, and the political goal of the Hamas war was preventing that normalization between Jerusalem and Riyadh. The victims of the Gaza war that ensued should be blamed on Iran: Teheran knowingly sacrificed Gazans in order to pursue its political agenda. This is a sadly familiar pattern whereby the Iranian leadership is happy to fight to the death of the last Sunni Arab. The new Middle East will have to wait.
Yet while the violence of the Gaza war has deferred the realization of that new Middle East, its rationale remains as convincing as ever. The path to modernize the region, to raise the standard of living for all and to generate wealth involves linking Gulf capital, especially from Saudi Arabia, with Israel’s high-tech prowess and dynamic economy. A connection with Saudi Arabia would greatly enhance Israeli legitimacy and security in the Muslim world, while access to Israeli technology would facilitate the Saudis reaching the ambitious developmental goals of its “Vision 2030.” Given this underlying logic, sooner or later, the political processes in the region will revert to this optimistic agenda for a better future. It is important not to lose sight of that opportunity
In the meantime, however, a new landscape has developed in the wake of October 7. Progress has become more complicated, but it is by no means impossible. The regional constellation has taken on a different character, as the several actors have undergone transformations and face new challenges. This process is evident in an examination of each of the relevant parties: Israel herself, the Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, the Syrian regime, the fragile dictatorship in Iran and the reform monarchy in Saudi Arabia. In the meantime, U.S. power is undergoing its own change, due, in no small measure, to the new administration in Washington, Each of these elements needs to be examined in turn.
Israel: The brutality of the Hamas attack, its sadistic violence and the rape warfare that the perpetrators filmed and quickly posted online, were intended to undermine Israeli morale. Prior to October 7, Israeli domestic political life had already been bitterly polarized due to the government’s proposed judicial reform. The Hamas attack was an attempt to further divide the country and subvert the national self-confidence. Certainly, some appropriate self-questioning on the part of the Israeli military and the intelligence services has ensued, and the public rightly expects eventual explanations as to how the catastrophe could take place. What’s more, Israel has faced an internal national divide over the relative priority of defeating the enemy and rescuing the hostages.
Yet despite these domestic tensions, the primary impression of Israel at war is commitment and dedication. While contemporary military age youth had sometimes been disparaged as members of the “Tik Tok generation,” their perseverance in the battlefield has led others to speak of the return of the “spirit of 48,” the courage of the soldiers who fought in Israel’s War of Independence. Of course the war has taken its painful toll on the fallen soldiers and their families and the economy as well. The net effect however of the Hamas attack and the nearly year and a half of war has been a resilient nation with no doubt about the need to fight and to win.
Hamas: The enemy in Gaza persists. Hamas has not yet been eliminated. Yet it has lost key members of its leadership, notably Yahya Sinwar, and its ranks have been thinned. Significant portions of its infrastructure, the tunnel network, have been largely destroyed. Nonetheless the unbroken radicalism of Hamas’ Islamist ideology will scare away the investment necessary to rebuild Gaza: no one will want to invest if there is a likelihood that new construction will be destroyed. This implies that it is Hamas’ continued presence that stands in the way of significant reconstruction, which in turn points to the likelihood of renewed fighting. Rebuilding Gaza requires the elimination of Hamas, which has managed to survive, even though it has been considerably degraded and less able to rely on support from its erstwhile benefactors in Qatar and Iran.
Hezbollah: Meanwhile the Iranian proxy in Lebanon has similarly suffered major losses, including the killing of its former leader Hassan Nasrallah, as well as a significant blow throughout its cadre thanks to Israel’s pager attack of September 17, 2024. Evidence that Israel has been able to infiltrate the upper ranks of Hezbollah has further reduced the movement’s credibility. In addition, the cease fire agreement of November 27, 2024 has put in place a new national government, with Joseph Aoun, former head of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), as president. Aoun’s ascendancy is regarded as a success for US influence, a loss for Iran and a clear measure of the declining power of Hezbollah: it is weakened but, like Hamas in Gaza, it has by no means disappeared. Iran surely wants to rebuild its control in Lebanon–some Lebanese used to refer to Hezbollah as the Iranian occupation, الاحتلال, the same term with which Palestinian militants describe Israel. Recent attacks by Hezbollah militants against UN forces near the Beirut airport point to the dangerous potential for renewed violence. The challenge for Aoun’s government will be to defang Hezbollah, but Iran will try to push back. To make matters worse, the LAF may be Hezbollah infiltrated. More fighting in Lebanon is likely, where the nightmare of a civil war continues to haunt the national imagination.
Syria: The collapse of the Assad dynasty, in power since 1970, meant the demise of a brutal dictatorship, the end of which has been rightly celebrated in Syria and far beyond. Yet it was toppled by an Islamist organization, Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), with historic ties to Al-Qaeda, and although it has been claiming since 2017 to have distanced itself from that radical past, its own track record of repressive Islamist rule in Idlib is grounds enough for concern for the future character of Syrian governance. The net effect on regional power arrangements is mixed. The Assad regime survived only thanks to support from Russian forces, who appear to have departed from their bases on the coast at Tartus; the U.S. has a clear interest in assuring that the Russians remain out. In addition, Assad’s Syria had acted as a willing conduit for Iranian arms and militias on their way to Lebanon; for now, that supply chain has been curtailed. Indeed, the developments in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria taken together represent a major degradation of Iran’s “axis of resistance,” a key step toward a new Middle East. Yet HTS is closely linked to Erdogan’s Turkey which has its own ambitions in Syria, building out its regional influence in the north and confronting the Kurds who have enjoyed some measure of protection by the U.S. presence in the northeast. In general, U.S. interests in post-Assad Syria include assuring that Russia remains banished, limiting any residual Iranian influence, managing Turkey’s ambitions especially concerning the Kurds and maintaining the apparent calm between the new regime and Israel. An aspirational goal could involve inducing Damascus to recognize Israeli’s sovereignty over the Golan, a legacy of the first Trump administration.
Iran: The Islamic Republic has been the root cause of much of the instability across the region (and frankly beyond; it has fueled radicalism in Europe, Latin America and the U.S. where according to the former Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines it contributed to the recent wave of campus protests) . It is Iran that is the primary regional force opposing American power, just as it is Iran that has funded Hamas, Hezbollah and other proxy forces in Iraq and Yemen as vehicles with which to attack Israel. It is also Iran whose ambitions for nuclear weapons have occupied the world for decades, at least since the Obama administration’s ill-fated Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Reports indicate that Iran continues to accumulate fissile material and grows closer to weaponization. While there have been some reports that the Trump administration might be open to a negotiated resolution, there are also indications that the U.S. is returning to a robust sanctions regime, the “maximum pressure” policy of the first Trump administration. We may also soon see an Israeli or joint American-Israeli direct attack on the Iranian nuclear sites.
Saudi Arabia: The Kingdom remains a key piece to the regional configuration, not only because of its wealth and resources, but also its symbolic standing in the Islamic world as the guardian of Mecca and Medina. On the one hand, Saudi Arabia stands to benefit significantly from cooperation with Israeli technology, while on the other hand, it is particularly vulnerable to attacks from Iran. It hopes, therefore, to achieve a security guarantee from Washington as well as access to civilian nuclear energy, both as potential components in an exchange for normalization with Israel: that would put the two key U.S. allies on the same page. Previously reluctant to provide support to Iran-dominated Lebanon and Syria, the Saudis have begun to reengage in the Levant. A new competition between Ankara and Riyadh may now be unfolding there. A likely outcome could bring the Saudis closer to the U.S. through participation in the Abraham Accords, which, however, will complicate relations with NATO ally Turkey.
This is the transformed landscape into which the second Trump administration enters, eager to build on the Abraham Accords success of the first administration, confident in its ability to solve problems that have festered for decades, and driven by the President’s clear ambition to leave a legacy of peace-making, albeit through strength. It is worth noting that the formula for the recent pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas had been put forward half a year earlier by President Biden. However the agreement was not reached until after the election–but still before the inauguration– and only in the presence of the Trump administration’s special envoy Steven Witkoff. For all the chatter about declining American power, this agreement, which led to the return of some hostages, was clearly an accomplishment of the new Washington: the Europeans did not take part nor did the United Nations. Expect both of those parties to be marginalized in future negotiations. The UNRWA –the United Nations Relief and Works Agency dedicated solely to support for Palestinians–has lost influence and credibility because of accusations of its collaborating with Hamas. The Trump administration therefore ceased funding it, as have Sweden and (soon) Australia, while European support has been intermittent due to analogous concerns. Yet it is not only UNRWA whose role is in decline. The significance of the United Nations as a whole and other international organizations like the International Criminal Court are likely to shrink during the Trump era.
The game-changer, as of this writing, is President Trump’s proposal for Gaza, a vision in which the U.S. “owns” Gaza, the Gazan population departs, and the strip is rebuilt as a “riviera.” His remarks included no details, and in its stark form it has elicited extensive opposition, decried as a call for ethnic cleansing. In contrast, the plan has been seen more positively as an incentive for others to develop alternative plans; President Sisi of Egypt announced a conference to formulate an Arab response. This response includes proposals for reconstruction under Arab leadership, still linked to the prospect of the establishment of a Palestinian state. At the very least, President Trump’s provocation has set some strategic thinking in motion.
Still, it is always worthwhile taking the President of the U.S. at his word and to consider the direct implications of the plan itself. There are three key components. First, the plan states that the U.S. would control the territory, presumably as a sort of protectorate. This approach is consistent with the geographical thinking evident in the proposals concerning Greenland and the Panama Canal. Whether or not any of these initiatives comes to fruition, they may be symptomatic of a new era of global competition in which genuine control of territory is becoming important in a new way.
Second, the ambitious intent to rebuild Gaza–as a “riviera”-- implies much more than minimal infrastructure or the subsistence level construction of an impoverished, underdeveloped region. Riviera-quality reconstruction would require extensive resources which will not be forthcoming unless conditions have stabilized and are conducive to investment. Those terms surely include the elimination of Hamas–according to President Trump, an Israeli task–and probably the exclusion as well of the Palestinian Authority, whose penchant for corruption would scare off any serious investment. Should these right conditions be met, rebuilding Gaza could depend on foreign aid, especially from the Gulf, but the opportunity could potentially also attract private capital to support developers.
Third, the suggestion that the Gazans leave their homeland has led to consternation that the local population might be forcibly removed. Such concerns are surely warranted. However, the alternative position, insisting that all the Gazans be prevented from leaving and therefore condemning them to remain in an environment where most infrastructure has been destroyed is also not palatable. Living conditions will not at all be optimal during the long period of reconstruction, and some Gazans may reasonably prefer to find better places to spend the next decade.
At a minimum, Gazans should be granted the freedom to leave. When Hamas was in control of the Egyptian border, Gazans could in fact exit, but only by paying hefty bribes both to Hamas and to Egyptian border guards. An alternative transaction is imaginable: reconstruction resources–whether from foreign governments or private capital–should include sufficient funds to purchase property in Gaza from the rightful owners. Only Hamas-owned property would be confiscated. Gazans without property could be offered funds to facilitate starting a new life elsewhere. Millions of Syrians were welcomed into Europe when they fled the Assad regime; why should the Gazans be denied a similar right to leave?
But where would they go? That is the difficult question: certainly Gazans should be accorded the right to leave (as established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Can they claim asylum rights elsewhere? The European countries that opened their doors to refugees only a decade ago are now caught up in a very bad case of buyer’s remorse. An anti-refugee sentiment has swept across the continent, just as skepticism about illegal immigration has gripped the U.S. Even countries like Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan that previously accepted high numbers of refugees have seen anti-refugee sentiment rise. Are there any doors open for the Gazans? One might call on Ireland, Spain and Norway, countries that last year chose to rush to recognize Palestine as a state as a reward for the October 7 attacks; unfortunately they are unlikely to back up their virtue signaling with genuine solidarity and hospitality.
The probable goals for emigrants would in fact be, as President Trump suggested, Egypt, immediately contiguous with Gaza (Egypt had, in fact, occupied Gaza from 1948 to 1967) and Jordan, already housing a large Palestinian population. Both countries are very dependent on U.S. support. Both President Sisi and King Abdullah may end up persuaded by President Trump to open their borders to the Gazans, or the very prospect of that resettlement may motivate them and other Arab countries to come up with a workable alternative. In any case, the current phase of conflict began with the Hamas attacks out of Gaza, but the new Middle East may conclude with a very different Gazan future.
