Amid its wars, clashing visions of a new Middle East struggle to emerge

Israel, Iran, the US and the rich Gulf states each have different ideas about the region's future.

- Jonathan Eyal

News from the Middle East remains grim. The Gaza tragedy continues unabated. The war between the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon and Israel is expanding. And a broader military confrontation between Israel and Iran is unfolding, offering yet another torch to the Middle Eastern powder keg.

Yet, as strange as this may seem, all the region's governments and the United States, which continues to have significant influence, privately agree on one point: A new Middle East will emerge at the end of the current fighting.

Sadly, however, each protagonist has a different vision of this new Middle East. And all the region's actors are guilty of wishful thinking, either because they overhype their advantages or ignore their opponents' strategic options.

The wars being waged right now are seen as transformative for the region. Before the current fighting, Israel and Hamas confronted each other in no less than four other conflicts: in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021. But none was as destructive as the present one. The total number of Palestinians - civilians and Hamas fighters - killed in the previous four wars was around 4,000. The number of Palestinians killed now is at least 10 times higher and continues to rise.

Indeed, the current Gaza war is already responsible for creating two new and grotesque statistical "records". The war started with the biggest single mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust. It ended by inflicting the biggest tragedy on the Palestinians since the so-called Nakba ("Catastrophe") of mass expulsion of Arabs when the Jewish state was created in 1948.

Whatever Hamas claims, the radical Palestinian organisation no longer functions as a fighting force. Add to this another horrible statistic - up to two-thirds of Gaza's housing stock have been pulverised - and it is evident that when the guns finally fall silent in this conflict, there can be no return to the arrangements of the past.