Transforming Israel's strategic landscape, the war against Hamas and the reconfiguration of regional geopolitics

Marta González Isidoro, journalist, international analyst, specialist in Israel and the Middle East, analysed and developed the report published by the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies on Onda Madrid's "De cara al mundo" programme: "Transformation of Israel's strategic outlook, the war against Hamas and the reconfiguration of regional geopolitics". 

Marta, how is geopolitics in the Middle East being reconfigured?

Slowly but surely and with uncertainty in recent times. In the report I try to analyse this evolution of the strategic panorama in the Middle East, with Israel as an important geopolitical and geostrategic pivot in recent years, and how these alliances have been shaping a geopolitics of cooperation that broke the ideological moulds in which a complicated region is anchored from the point of view of all the issues that cross it. And like these geopolitical fault lines, on the one hand, the war in Ukraine and everything you have been analysing in the previous time, with the war in Gaza, which has a point of union and is the passage of all the maritime, land, oil pipeline and geopolitical routes with Israel and with the area of the territories, especially Gaza, as a strategic point. 

Marta, Israel, do you wonder whether it can, given its current situation, withstand a long-term conflict with Iran and its proxies? 

It is difficult, because Israel, over the years, has been a very resilient country, accustomed to low-intensity conflicts, and in recent decades conflicts, even between states, have lasted very little time. 

The maximum was the Yom Kippur war, which lasted three weeks, and the '67 war, which lasted six days. Israel's security strategy is based on low-intensity or short-lived conflicts, because it has a resilient army, but above all a very large social mobilisation through reservists. And it is a very small country that cannot sustain a long-intensity war.   

The war in Gaza is causing not only very serious internal problems of internal polarisation, but also of economic resilience and a very dark future for Israel's economy in the coming years, and it is not getting back on track. 

In your work, Marta, you place special emphasis on something that is perhaps not dealt with in as much depth as it should be, and that is the economic interests at stake. International trade, the Silk Road, the Indian corridor, the Middle East, Europe, are all issues that political leaders disaffect and take into account. 

Of course, because the Middle East conflict is focused on the Palestinian question, and the Palestinian question is just one of the many ideological and territorial conflicts that plague the region.  

What is happening is that behind this ideological conflict, which also exists, and behind a part of the territorial claim, which also exists, what is at stake is precisely the control, as I said at the beginning, of the maritime, land and gas routes in the area, at a time when the multipolar world has not yet been born, the unipolar world, on the part of the United States, is reluctant to cooperate with other regimes or with other powers that are emerging in the area, and when there is also an element that distorts everything, and that is the possibility that Israel and the Gulf countries, aligned in the Abraham agreements, will take on a leading role as an autonomous strategic entity in a world that is once again being configured in blocs, this time between the United States and China and the Middle East. 

The battleground of the two superpowers, because the Middle East and Central Asia is the place where the future war is going to take shape, where it is brewing and where the future war is going to be fought, we are already in a cold war between blocs for the control of gas resources and maritime routes. 

And, if I may, I would include water. 

Of course, all of them. Yes, when I talk about resources, water resources, energy resources, food resources, sea routes, everything. 

Israel and its ever-improving relations with its neighbours, in the economic, trade, transport, scientific and technological sectors, is something that is being maintained right now. In spite of all the pain, all the campaigns, all the propaganda, all the demonisation, all this, for the moment, Arab and Muslim countries in the region are not cutting off as it seems Iran or Hamas intended, but rather these countries value normalisation and the Abraham Accords and what their application represents in terms of wealth, development and progress in the region. 

Of course, because at a certain point, the countries of the region valued the possibility that Iran, without breaking off relations with Israel, could play a role of deterrence or détente. 

And the Gaza war, and above all Iran's direct attack against Israel, has provoked the reaction of the Sunni Muslim world, which is panicking about a regional, military, ballistic, but also nuclear, escalation by Iran in the region. What it has provoked is precisely not cutting ties, taking advantage of the fact that Israel is still a technological, economic and military power, and what they are waiting for is for Israel to demonstrate that "it knows how to speak the language of the Middle East". Israel is a democratic, Western-minded country, but it lives and is anchored in the Middle East, and the language of the Middle East is not the language of diplomacy spoken in the chancelleries of Washington, Brussels or Canada.  

It has to step up and make it clear that it is a military power, and that it can be trusted, and that it is reliable, and that is what Saudi Arabia is waiting for at the moment. 

I wanted to point out, you mentioned that there are other conflicts, 11 conflicts in the Middle East, although the focus is only on Israel and Palestine. Which 11 conflicts are they? Let's think back.  

Territorial conflicts, we have in Kurdistan, in the Golan, countless territorial and maritime conflicts in the Gulf, between the Gulf States themselves, in Yemen, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, even Jordan, there are many. The focus is on the Palestinian territories. 

I am very interested in that part of the report where you talk about what could be considered a post-war process in Palestine: which Palestinian National Authority could be legitimate in order to be able to take charge of the post-war period and to try to stabilise the situation and a relationship with Israel in security and peace? 

Today it is difficult to mention the possibility in society and in politics, in Israeli politicians, that there could be a renewed Palestinian National Authority. They don't believe it and they question it. A survey has just come out, the latest survey, which says that Mohamed Dahlan, who I have spoken about here a few times, and Marwan Barghouti are the two people who have the greatest capacity for leadership within the Palestinian Authority. 

Society itself does not want either Mahmoud Abbas or anyone linked to the Fatah party. We are therefore facing an impasse, because they are very radical figures in the Palestinian milieu who do not recognise the existence of the State of Israel. 

So it would be an impasse. And the only possibility that I see, and I point this out in the report, is that within the clans, because the Palestinians are loyal to their own families and their own clans, that within each clan they look for a person with sufficient authority so that their authority is linked not to a Palestinian Authority, but to the donors. 

In this case it would be the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia together with Egypt, and we will see in the coming weeks, which is the only possibility that there could be a Palestinian autonomy that would eventually lead to a unification of the territory, an independence of the territory or not. But for the moment it is complicated. 

In other words, the Palestinian state is still complicated, no matter how much touring some people do.

A state needs conditions that do not exist today, not only in terms of territory and political leadership, but you also need to have a national project that does not exist today, you need to have relations with your neighbours of mutual recognition that do not exist, and an interlocutor, institutions, it is that.... 

Elections, there have been no elections since 2006. 

Well, not in China either, and the state exists, I mean... 

I think the United States has already been asking, demanding Israel to hold back, because we have to remember that there are elections in November in the United States, even in the last few days we have seen student protests in universities, we will see who is organising and who is financing these types of student demonstrations. Marta, what is your opinion on how far-reaching this attack should have been?

It is true that Iran is a destabilising element in the Middle East and an element that disturbs international relations, it is a very, very disturbing element, not only in Latin America, where its presence through Hezbollah is very important. In Venezuela, Cuba and so on. The whole of Latin America has a very significant presence in Africa, and it is not an element to be left aside either, and it is penetrating very strongly into Europe. 

So the Iranian regime, as it is conceived, is a danger to freedom and democracy. Israel's response has been very balanced and above all very rational. You have to think that Iran is a big country, it is a military power, it is also a social power, it has more than 80 million people, with a possibly very close nuclear capability, but with a very advanced ballistic and drone programme.

And although it is a military power, direct confrontation would be a mistake. Both have measured each other's strength, both have made it clear what military capability each has, and Iran is at a very dangerous moment right now because the future of the supreme leader and the future of the regime is in the balance. 

The Revolutionary Guard is constitutionally guaranteed to maintain the regime and the president is positioning himself as the future leader. Therefore, he has to take a strong position in order to have the consensus of the Revolutionary Guard, which is the real power holder in Iran.