Whether or not they had been in agreement from their opposite positions, Israel and Hamas emerged victoriously, or this is what we will hear from many tongues. Israel has said, and it will keep saying again and again, that it destroyed terrorist infrastructure by killing some Hamas military commanders and technical experts and destroying tunnels and missile storage or production facilities.
For its part, Hamas has said and will keep saying again and again, that its rockets have proven better than they had been in the 2014 war and that they have longer range, as well as boasting that it managed to force Israelis into shelters for days and nights. Central Israel was not exempt.
“Combating terrorism” and exploiting anti-Semitism will be the Israelis’ banner and argument. Hamas’ rhetoric will be brimming with talk of “honor,” “dignity,” “determination,” and the “Aqsa Mosque.” The Israelis will focus on the stances of supportive governments from across the globe, especially those in the West. The Hamas people will focus on the peoples of the world’s solidarity with them.
This isn’t to say that the two sides’ words are just talk. Indeed, as several observers and commentators have said, Israel will fall into the extreme right’s grip with or without Netanyahu, and triumphalist rhetoric will thus be their bread and butter. And for a period that may be long or short, its trivial politicians will race to present the war as a sufficient reason to prevent any settlement with the Palestinians.
The trajectory Israel has been on for more than two and half decades- to the effect of ‘be more extreme, win more-’ will become increasingly fortified and popular until further notice.
On the other hand, Hamas is expected to expand across Palestine, with its ideas and its model expanding with it amid the exacerbating stagnation afflicting the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and the Palestinian Liberation Organization since before the eruption of the latest war, when they made the huge mistake of canceling the general elections. Hamas’s knack for announcing divine victories- paralleled by the godly promises of the Jewish religious extremists- as we know, is on par with that of Hezbollah.
So, those expecting the forthcoming period to be extremely dark are not wrong, especially after the triumphant celebrations die out and major predictions for the future are announced by the two opposing sides. Here, we are not dealing with an engrossing seasonal game, nor are we facing a winner-take-all scenario. In all likelihood, the entire region will be drowned deeper into darkness and decay in light of the Israeli right and Hamas’ victories. As for the high human cost that we saw a painful manifestation of in Gaza, it could continue to be incurred for a long time, especially if predictions that the current ceasefire is a fleeting and maybe short armistice pan out.
Those clinging to the idea that military fronts will pave the way to salvatory solutions will firmly object to such assessments. Absolute optimism pervades on these fronts. With that, their objections and optimisms are undermined by two things: on the one hand, the victorious Palestinian faction is not qualified, with its formation, model, relationships, and leadership, to transform its victory into one for the Palestinian people that further their rights. It is also not qualified to make use of the novel global sympathy that the Palestinians have received.
Our recent popular discovery of Hamas’ virtues and perhaps Hezbollah’s, which we missed, is not likely to last long.
On the other hand, the factions that are qualified to gain, though in the immediate and near term, are not Palestinian. They are Khamenei’s Iran and Assad’s Syria. The former will hold presidential elections on June 18, and, as its current President Hassan Rouhani has hinted, it could be celebrating the return of the famous nuclear agreement. The latter will also hold presidential elections this Wednesday (May 26), after the Syrians voted in the countries that they had been displaced to by Bashar al-Assad.
Of course, those opposed to Velayet-e Faqih will not be allowed to run for the Iranian presidency, let alone reach that position. Of course, there is also no reason to worry that any of Assad’s “competitors” could become Syria’s president.
This “democratic flourishing” in Iran and Syria does not only go hand in hand with the state of war on the Palestinian – Israeli front. It also goes hand in hand with the degradation that the Israeli democracy drowning in Palestinian blood is undergoing, as well as the parallel degradation of Lebanese democracy, which has become buried beneath a thick layer of mud. Therefore, Khameneist and Assadasit democracy may become the only available democracy that complements the open conflict with Israel. To ask for anything more is a betrayal of the fateful war.
As such, with the money that the lifting of sanctions will provide Iran, the Iranian-Syrian model may advance to gradually get a foothold in other regions that it had not managed to enter before. Lebanon is most likely to fall. As for those who object, they will be chased by accusations of sympathizing with Israel, especially since Ismail Haniyeh has put the matter beyond doubt: Thank you, Iran.
Thus, if we look at the Arab Levant’s portrait in its entirety, away from its fragmentation and the scattering of its parts, it has become our right to read beginnings in light of their endings. By so doing, matters can be seen a little more clearly.
