Politically Unstable: Is peace and security in the Middle East possible?

Nearly two years ago, Hamas participated in an unprecedented attack on Israel, and since that day, Israel has refused to back down.

What does an end to this war look like? Is peace in the Middle East ever possible?

Political analyst and senior fellow for research and diplomacy at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs Dalia Ziada joins Washington Times Commentary Editor Kelly Sadler on Politically Unstable to discuss.

[SADLER] What we’re seeing in the Middle East is, there’s unrest. You have Israel still trying to finish off the job with Hamas. What happens to the Gaza Strip? What happens to the Palestinians? It’s still an open question. There were talks today that Israel’s counteroffensive into Lebanon is ending, that they found peace with Hezbollah… not found peace, but basically are ending that front of the war. However, the situation with Hamas is still dire. There’s still hostages that Hamas has, and it has not released. IDF troops, Reservists were pulled in for the final countermeasure to rid Israel of Hamas. Could you speak from your perspective, what you think the biggest questions are moving forward and ultimately, how do we find peace and security in the Middle East? Especially Israel that is surrounded by neighbors, they want to wipe them off the face of the map.

[ZIADA] Wow, actually, it’s a very hard question. How can we find peace in the Middle East? It’s a question politicians and scholars have been trying to answer for so many years. But it seems that only recently, Israel started to take actual steps to give a practical answer, a real answer, an on-the-ground answer to this important question. And the first step towards achieving that was the big success that Israel achieved against Iran and its militia over the past two years. We are now witnessing a new Middle East in the making, a Middle East where Israel is a key regional player. It’s not, anymore, the tiny state defending itself and so overwhelmed by terrorist organizations targeting it from every side. 

This is a great progress for the region, but at the same time, it’s creating a new type of conflict, a new pattern of conflict, and new types of tensions that we have to be aware of. So the new conflict that this new dynamic is creating is that it’s turning the geopolitical conflicts in the region into giving it some kind of a religious dimension, as right now we are seeing the rise of the Sunni axis in the region versus the fall or collapse kind of or slow collapse of the Shia access is creating a new dynamic that is making Sunni countries take perhaps, especially I mean, I’m especially speaking about the Sunni-leading Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, for example, taking some steps that we can describe as unwise or immature. Like for example, supporting a jihadist regime in Syria. Again, it’s its own people, a jihadist regime that is committing ethnic cleansing against religious minorities in Syria. So this is very concerning. 

And the new pattern of tensions we have to pay attention to is that there is a growing feeling among Arab countries right now that there is a new power rising in the region, which is Israel. For them, always Israel has been seen as an enemy and in best cases, it’s a country they are obliged to have cold peace with. Like the case is for Egypt and Jordan, for example, because they are security and economically interdependent on Israel. So they had to have cold peace agreements with. So now, no, this is not the case anymore. Israel is an agenda setter. It’s going to set the agenda for the future. It’s already right now, as we speak, setting the agenda for the future of the Middle East, which this is something disturbing leading Arab countries, especially as a new leader of the Arab world, of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.

Watch the video for the full conversation.

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