Turbulence in the Mashreq - World - Al-Ahram Weekly

Al-Ahram Weekly

16-07-2025

It is not just the Occupied Palestinian Territories that are up for a major reshuffle — most of the Mashreq is also threatened with major shifts, reports Dina Ezzat
Fewer than two days after his return from a visit to Washington, where he held three successive meetings with US President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered intensified strikes by the Israeli occupation army on Gaza.
On Sunday, the daily toll of Israeli strikes on Gaza saw the deaths of 100 Palestinians, including those hit in shelters and those eliminated while trying to get basic food aid.
At the same time, the negotiations hosted in Doha between Hamas and Israel were moving from the phase of cautious hope to that of growing despair. Egyptian sources informed about the negotiations unfolding in the Qatari capital said this week that the chances of a prompt agreement on a temporary and partial truce in the war on Gaza are not imminent due to the 'typical' intransigence of the Israeli negotiating team.
According to one source, 'the Israeli team did not go to Doha to negotiate but to put on the table a set of conditions, assuming that a weakened Hamas would succumb. This is not working and nor is the US pressure on both Qatar and Egypt to get Hamas to accept a deal that does not have as its basis a roadmap for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.'
Another source said that what Israel is offering in Doha is 'close to nothing'. He explained that while Israel, 'under much international pressure', had agreed to allow the UN and humanitarian organisations to take over the distribution of aid after catastrophic violations against civilians, it has been suggesting lumping the Palestinians in the southernmost part of Gaza 'in isolated blocks with no connective axis or corridors'.
The source said that the maps that Israel had put forward were not even subject to the consideration of Hamas. He added that the Egyptian delegation in Doha had shared its concern over these proposed maps, given that they clearly plan to cluster the Gaza population right next to the Egyptian border.
'Some may think that the Israeli-American plans to displace the Gazans have been dropped, but this is not true. The plan is still very much there,' a third source said. 'We know that it is there, and we know that it is not the only plan to change the realities on the ground in the Mashreq,' he added.
According to this source, the talks that Netanyahu held in Washington from Monday to Friday last week did not produce any serious commitment to move towards the 60-day truce that Trump has been and is still promising. However, he added, the talks had included 'new understandings' with regards to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iran.
On Iran, he said, 'it is clear' that Netanyahu had managed to convince the US president that there should be no interdiction of a new round of Israeli, and possibly American, strikes against Iran. Netanyahu's message in Washington, he added, was that the strikes that Israel and the US had conducted against Iran's nuclear and military facilities had not fully eliminated the chances of Iran restarting an ambitious nuclear programme and that it might be necessary for Israel 'to finish the job'.
On Syria, the same source said that Netanyahu had received American assurances to support direct Israeli-Syrian talks to reach a new security agreement to replace the 1974 disengagement deal that Israel violated in December last year on the fall of the regime of former Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.
The Israeli-Syrian meeting in Baku on Sunday this week, according to a regional diplomatic source, saw some significant progress on the path that has already been unfolding for a few weeks. 'I don't think that we are very far from a new security deal between Syria and Israel. It could happen this summer,' he said.
This deal, he added, would take some of the pressure off the back of the new Syrian regime of Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, who is faced with considerable internal problems, including the major issue of the Syrian Kurds who are still in control of considerable segments of northern and eastern Syria.
Last week, Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey and envoy to Syria and Lebanon, said that the Syrian government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the US-backed Kurdish militant group, are not close to a deal that would allow for the government of Syria to regain the territories that had been under the control of the SDF prior to the fall of Al-Assad and for the SDF to be integrated within the national Syrian army.
In Cairo, where communication with the new regime in Damascus has been ultra-cautious, there is concern that with or without a deal with the SDF Damascus is bound to go through a significant transformation.
None of the sources who spoke on the issue shared the details of this concern. However, one suggested a possible 'federation situation' that would eventually make Syria subject to conflicting regional influences, not excluding that of Israel which has some close contacts with the SDF.
In Cairo there is also concern about the chances for stability in Lebanon with the failure of the talks between Hizbullah and the government in Beirut to reach a deal on the disarmament of Hizbullah north of the Litani River and the continued Israeli threats against and strikes on the country.
According to a Beirut-based diplomatic source, Hizbullah has demonstrated considerable flexibility in the talks that have been conducted during the past few weeks, especially during the past week 'where it agreed to things that would have been considered red lines before, including being subject to the scrutiny of the Lebanese army.'
However, the source added that in return for the flexibility it has demonstrated on the disarmament question, Hizbullah has insisted that the US should provide clear-cut guarantees to end the Israeli occupation of villages in south Lebanon and to end all Israeli strikes against targets south and north of the Litani River.
'So far, the US has failed to provide such guarantees, and it is possible that these will not come about because Netanyahu has no plans to pull out troops from the five posts where his army is still stationed in the south of the country,' the source said. He added that instead the US has been putting pressure on Hizbullah to agree to disarm without securing the Israeli withdrawal.
In a highly controversial statement this week, Barrack said that if the government of Lebanon failed to manage the Hizbullah disarmament it might face the threat of falling under the reign of the Bilad Al-Sham (the historic Greater Syrian Region).
In Lebanon, there was no appreciation for the explanation Barrack offered of this comment, when he said that he had only meant to praise Syria for its realpolitik choices that released it from US sanctions.
Lebanese commentators argued that Barrack knew very well what he was saying and that he had meant to threaten the Lebanese government. They noted that the remarks of the US envoy had come shortly after his visit to Beirut, where he shared a plan to disarm Hizbullah.
'The fact of the matter is that Syria, under the new regime, has not been responsive to repeated Lebanese demands for a proper demarcation process,' said the Beirut-based diplomatic source.
Meanwhile, in Amman there is growing anxiety about an Israeli plan to dismantle three refugee camps in the West Bank to allow for more territories for Israeli illegal settlement construction and to force the displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank into Jordan.
According to a Middle East-based European diplomat, this issue is not a secret. He said that it is something that the Americans had discussed with the Jordanians. He added that it is also something that the Israelis had discussed with the Jordanians.
'Obviously, for the Jordanian monarchy this is a nightmare,' he said. 'Jordan has been pushing back, but it is not very clear how far it can do so,' he added.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 17 July, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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