Gaza War Puts Region at a Crossroads

The repercussions of the war in Gaza have hit the very foundations of the international system. The world has become more politically polarized, and international and regional alliances have become more entrenched on both sides of this conflict. The global economy - including oil and food prices - is facing major turmoil as an upshot of the war.

The longer the war lasts, the more it stokes fears for the future of the region and fuels the risk of an international conflict, just months after a string of Arab countries normalized their relations with Israel.

Yet the conflict’s implications will reach go far beyond the region. It is likely to be followed by waves of violence and violent extremism which have already begun to spread around the world. The global risks include economic disruption, growing military vulnerabilities, deeper political polarization, new strategic challenges and the changing nature of warfare caused by conflict involving non-state actors.

Washington’s Weak Position

The conflict has turned Gaza into the latest theater of destabilization in an already fragmented and chaotic world. The attack by Hamas on southern Israel on October 7 sparked a violent reaction from Israel, which has caused a spiraling number of Palestinian civilian casualties and sparked a wave of resentment and indignation around the world. This has placed political decision-makers around the world in a difficult position, given the vast number of missiles Israel has dropped on Palestinian civilians under the pretext of destroying Hamas.

The violence has not only pushed the Middle East into further turmoil, but it has also raised serious questions about American hegemony and the future of the international order. In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the conflict in the Gaza Strip has become a microcosm of global chaos. It has particularly highlighted the collapse of international norms, American bias in favor of Israel, and the growing division between the West and the countries of the Global South. The war in Gaza has revealed efforts by Israel and the U.S. to sideline or neutralize the Palestinian issue completely, by effectively abandoning the internationally accepted basis for a settlement, the two-state solution.

Under the Abraham Accords they concluded starting in September 2020, Israel and several Arab agreed on a number of mechanisms to establish comprehensive and effective stability and security in the Middle East, along with efforts to rein in Iran’s ambitions. In the longer term, the accords aimed to enable Washington to focus on its primary strategic concern, confronting the rise of China, by turning the Middle East into a second-tier strategic priority for Washington.

The reality, at least since October 7, could hardly be in starker contrast. First of all, and whatever the outcome of the conflict in the Gaza Strip, it is clear that the Palestinian cause cannot be ignored as a central issue in the Middle East. The war has also revealed the limits of American power in the Middle East and beyond, and even implicated Washington alongside Israel in killing civilians. Gaza has turned into a war zone where Israel commits atrocities with a total lack of regard for ethical benchmarks and international legal standards.

The United States remains the world’s top power, but its international reputation has been deeply damaged over its involvement in the Gaza war. This is why Washington is trying to pressure Israel to alter its tactics, after months of bombing from air, land and sea which have killed thousands of Palestinian civilians and partially or completely destroyed the majority of buildings in the Strip.

Washington believes that the assassination of Hamas leaders does not require the destruction of the remaining buildings in Gaza. Washington offers this advice as a service to Israel, as it is no longer able to drum up global support for its ally. Indeed, Washington itself is increasingly isolated in its support for Israel’s military operations. But Washington’s position also implies that U.S. officials believe the ambitious goals the Israeli leadership has set for the war – bringing back the hostages and completely destroying Hamas - were neither realistic nor achievable. The logic is therefore that Israel must be helped to lower this ceiling by searching for other means and facilitating negotiations on a prisoner exchange.

Washington’s return to intervening in Middle East crises reveals the continuation of the American administration’s realist approach and adherence to the most important principles of American foreign policy: unconditional support for Israel. This approach also holds that the continuation of American hegemony in the Middle East region depends on the presence and security of the Jewish state.

Will Russia and China benefit from American involvement in Gaza?

China and Russia have taken positions on the war in Gaza that are diametrically opposed to those of Washington and its complete bias towards Israel. This emphasizes the hostility of Beijing and Moscow towards Washington and its foreign policy. China and Russia’s perspectives on the war in Gaza are focused on securing their own interests and exploiting the war to deepen global hostility towards the U.S. They are also eyeing the geopolitical and economic gains they could reap from Washington’s collapsing popularity and its declining global role.

Beijing believes that the Biden administration’s policy of strategic containment of China is now bound to fail, while the Kremlin is betting that the already evident erosion of American and broader Western support for Ukraine will accelerate, which would significantly increase the chances of a political settlement to the war in Ukraine - on Russian terms.

It is likely that China will benefit from the conflicts in both the Middle East and Ukraine, taking advantage of the preoccupation of Washington’s preoccupation, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, with helping Ukraine and supplying it with equipment and weapons. It will also benefit from the fact that Washington now faces similar obligations towards Israel. Concurrently, Russia is exhausting its military resources in a war of attrition in Ukraine, while China faces no similar strategic or military challenges.

Despite this, China is not likely in the near or medium future to step up its rivalry with the U.S. Indications are mounting that owing to investors’ lack of confidence, China will not succeed in overtaking the U.S. to become the largest economy in the world by the end of the decade, as had been predicted. Bloomberg Economics forecast in October that Beijing may not become the world’s top economy until the mid-2040s at the earliest, and that even if that happens, it will only overtake the U.S. by a narrow margin before returning to second place again.

In the context of the broader scramble for global influence underway since the turn of the millennium, China has deepened its relations with the countries of the Global South, many of which are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. The war is thus an opportunity to mobilize support for Chinese leadership in developing countries, with the aim of chipping away at Washington’s global standing by capitalizing on global public sympathy for the Palestinians. This, in turn, could help win support for Chinese positions on key issues like Xinjiang province and Taiwan — and for Xi Jinping’s vision for global governance.

The End of the Rules-Based Order?

The Gaza war has delivered another devastating setback to the liberal vision of a rules-based international order led by the U.S. Few outside Washington’s circle of allies believe that this regime still has any moral legitimacy or political credibility. Many around the world see these “rules” as dictated by the West, for the West’s sake, and rarely meaningful and consistent with the rules the rest of the world believes in.

Since the end of the Cold War, any return to an international system centered around the balance of great powers has appeared unlikely, because because the authority and capacity of these powers has become weaker than ever before. Therefore, the conflicts currently underway not only constitute a defeat for U.S. policy-makers and for the liberal vision of global governance, but also clearly demonstrate a larger and deeper crisis in the international system and the neoliberal order.

Yet despite the clear limitations imposed by the post-Cold War liberal order, no alternative is likely to emerge in the near future that would confirm the complete triumph of multipolarity. It is still unclear what form the “multipolar system” dreamed of by policymakers in Russia and, to a lesser extent, China and other countries of the Global South, would take. So far there are only a few indicators, mostly as regards the “democratization” of international relations.

Southern Countries and Independent Policies

There will be no winners from the horrific tragedy unfolding in the Gaza Strip. However, the war has reinforced the growing importance and influence of Global South countries. Although Western researchers and scholars question this proposition, the countries of the South have emerged as a strong, effective and harmonious political bloc. This bloc is not only attempting to take clear positions on the current conflict, is also trying to establish a new vision for the international system and to formulate independent policies that avoid polarization, in contrast with the West’s emphasis on “rules of the game” that have only limited legitimacy outside the West, or arrangements based on “reconciliations” among the great powers that would consolidate their supremacy. Most southern countries aspire to a system that is more diverse and representative, and less controlled and directed by the great powers.

Conclusion

In the absence of any prospect for a solution in Gaza or the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in general, it seems clear that the West’s superficial, crude, and immoral handling of Israeli massacres against the Palestinians have shown that the usual prescriptions for resolving international problems are no longer valid. These prescriptions can no longer fulfill their intended purpose, given the marginalization of international law and the unrestrained unleashing of brutality and chaos, in the total absence of a collective desire to stop it.

Western powers’ attachment to worn-out slogans such as the “rules-based order” and the illusion of “universal” values, along with an obsessive preoccupation with geopolitical competition, threaten to plunge the world into a cycle of chaos. Escalating violence in the Middle East will inevitably generate blowback and the rise of forces that refuse to deal with the international system in its current form.

However, major powers are still able to deal realistically with the threats and challenges facing the world. The conflict in the Middle East, as well as issues such as climate change, food and health security, require fundamentally different, more comprehensive and cooperative approaches. Continuing to adopt wrong-headed policies will throw the world into a state of permanent and never-ending chaos.

In an intensely polarized and war-wracked world, the war on Gaza has exposed deep divisions, that go beyond pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian camps into the realm of antisemitism and threats to annihilate Arabs and Muslims. Hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations from London to Kuala Lumpur. The war also strengthened divisions within NATO. For example, while the U.S. has condemned the atrocities committed by Hamas, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has continued to describe Israel as an occupying power and deny that Hamas is a terrorist group.