This is the second installment of a two-part series that examines changes that US policymakers and despotic Arab rulers ignore at their own peril.
This two-part series examines changes that US policymakers and despotic Arab governments ignore at their own risk.
This two-part series examines changes that US policymakers and despotic Arab governments ignore at their own risk.
A Horizons essay served as the basis for the television series. Eight months into the conflict, Part 1 examined the situation in the region overall as well as Hamas’s position in Gaza.
The possible effects of the war in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt are the main topic of today’s Part 2.
It should go without saying that many people in the Greater Middle East are affected by the Palestinian challenge.
The incapacity or unwillingness of Israel and the international community to assist Palestinians in securing their rights, coupled with their perception that they are not treated with the same respect and dignity as others, is indicative of a regional movement for recognition and dignity.
BBC journalist Lina Sinjab, who visited her native Syria this year for the first time in almost ten years, observed that the country “is sinking into poverty, and many ordinary people are desperate.”
They declare, “There is no light at the end of the tunnel.” In many locations, a high-class lifestyle reminiscent of the poshest neighborhoods of London or Paris persists, while it has become commonplace to witness families sleeping on the streets and others taking food out of trash cans.
In northwest Syria, impoverished conditions drive thousands of children to labor instead of attending school.
Over 43% of children in Syria do not attend school, creating the threat of a generation being left behind.
In 2016, eleven-year-old Ahmad Amro and his ten-member family left Aleppo.
Since then, they have lived in a tent in the rural areas of northwest Syria’s Idlib, a province devastated by war and an earthquake in 2023 with an unemployment rate of 88.74%.
Ahmad imagines himself going to school dressed in uniform. Rather, by assisting their father sell tulips, he and his older brother Abdo—who has never attended school—struggle to make ends meet.
In the Greater Middle East, children like Ahmad and Abdo seem to be staring down at a bottomless pit of hopelessness and misery.
The question is not if, but rather when and how simmering frustration and rage will explode.
All of the Middle East’s radical movements are being sparked by the Gaza war.
Middle East expert Joshua Landis tweeted, “Its recruitment potential against the US and Israel is enormous & will have repercussions for decades.”
Mr. Landis pointed out that Osama Bin Laden observed US-built F-16 fighter aircraft carpet bomb Beirut during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which is when he initially had the idea for the Al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.
For the time being, there may be more bluster behind the prospect of new protests and militancy than substance.
In April, Iraqi insurgents with Iranian support announced that they were ready to arm 12,000 Islamic Resistance fighters in Jordan, creating a new front against Israel.
An official from Kataib Hezbollah security, Abu Ali al-Askari, said the offer was motivated by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s opinion that guns were all Jordanian militants needed.
Despite growing public outrage over the Gaza war, a few border incidents, and signs that Iran and Hamas, Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, were trying to take advantage of the outrage and, in some cases, smuggle weapons from Jordan into the West Bank, there is no testimony of an Islamic fighting force in strictly regulated Jordan.
The Islamic Action Front, a branch of the Brotherhood in Jordan, is hoping that growing pro-Hamas demonstrations in the country will benefit it in the country’s general elections later this year, given the country’s 22% unemployment rate.
Prior to this, Kataib Hezbollah declared that it would cooperate with Saudi Arabian and Bahraini allies to allow terrorists to launch attacks at “any point in West Asia where the Americans exist.”
Jordan, a close friend of the United States and recipient of financial and economic support from the US as well as a peace accord with Israel, balances the needs of its majority Palestinian people.
The tension on the tightrope has escalated because of Jordan’s involvement in the April shootdown of a flurry of Iranian drones and missiles fired toward Israel.
The imam of the Medina Grand Mosque, Salah Al Budair, expressed concern for the Gulf by pleading with God during Ramadan to keep Muslim nations safe “from revolutions and protests.”
Rich Gulf states are not immune to the undercurrents in the area; rather, they may be in a better position to calm their citizens.
The rapid societal transformation that has alarmed some conservatives and those who fear they may be left behind has prompted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to work toward strengthening Saudi nationalism.
Although the Vision is widely supported, there are worries about how quickly things are changing and the idea that elite interests have been overemphasized thus far, according to Mark C.
Thompson, a social scientist based in Saudi Arabia who recently converted to Islam and has been following the development of Saudi youth attitudes toward Bin Salman’s Vision 2030 economic diversification and development plan for a long time.
Mr. Thompson pointed out that despite changes after 1930, the importance of Saudi Arabia’s two main identity narratives—Islam and family—has only gradually altered.
The risk is that Vision-related improvements may be feeble in the face of far more powerful traditional beliefs; as a result, the swift social changes may go just as fast because they haven’t established a stronghold within Saudi communities.
The social scientist issued a warning, pointing out that the majority of foreign observers of Saudi Arabia based their findings and analysis on conversations with the Saudi elite, who stand to lose the most from a failure of societal reform.
According to a Saudi consultant with a Western education, most Saudis “would not be greatly affected” if the entertainment industry disappeared, as reported by Mr. Thompson.
Since Mr. Bin Salman’s changes predominantly benefit Saudi elites, ordinary Saudis, who are primarily concerned with jobs, healthcare, cheap housing, and the cost of living, typically only gain somewhat from them.
They would need to possess the connections and wasta, or clout, that the elite had in order to gain more.
Mr. Bin Salman faces the possibility that the measures may exacerbate the already massive income disparity in the kingdom, further erode public support for his agenda, and call into question the integrity of the crown prince’s anti-corruption effort.
Furthermore, employees of small and medium-sized businesses feel that they are frequently left out of vision-related projects, with large, well-known family businesses being given preference.
As a result, when young Saudis move from the regions to the cities, they become drivers rather than executives due to their lower family and educational backgrounds.
Even though they are one-man regimes, the presidents of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are, to differing degrees, attuned to public opinion.
“I am aware that the Saudi government, led by Mohammed bin Salman, has worked very hard to conduct its own public opinion surveys. They give it some thought.
They know exactly which direction the winds are blowing on the street. They basically take that to heart when they get to doing or not doing things.
They will sort of make an executive judgment on some matters.
The late David Pollock, a Middle East expert who until recently managed the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s polling in the area, stated, “On this one, we’re going to ignore it; on the other one, we’re going to…try to curry favor with the public in some unexpected way.”
The challenge facing leaders such as Messrs. Bin Salman and Bin Zayed is that the foundations of their authority may be questioned if they are unable to provide the public with goods and services that provide economic opportunities.
The authority of religious establishments is also undermined by social reforms that are necessary to support development.
Young people’s mistrust of political elites and religious organizations has been exacerbated by growing despotism that treats academics and clergy like puppets of the ruler.
The lifting of the ban on women driving, the introduction of Western-style entertainment, the relaxation of gender segregation laws, the dismantling of the kingdom’s religious police, the introduction of greater professional opportunities for women, and the degree of genuine religious pluralism in the United Arab Emirates are all considered by rulers such as the Saudi Crown Prince to be only the beginning of addressing the aspirations of the youth.
Similarly, Egypt, a country that consistently manages to stave off economic collapse with emergency foreign cash infusions, has outlawed public demonstrations and criticism of its relations with Israel.
Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, the former commander who is now the president of Egypt, is concerned that, as has historically occurred, pro-Palestinian protests may escalate into internal unrest.
Despite official accusations of Israel’s Gaza war conduct, Saudi authorities, determined to control public sentiment, have clamped down on expressions of solidarity, including the waving of Palestinian flags, the donning of keffiyehs, T-shirts with Palestine printed on them, and the filled-head scarf representing Palestinian identity.
Bans were put in place following a gathering of pro-Palestinian protestors.
Bread, freedom, social justice! was once again chanted in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, a symbol of the 2011 popular Arab upheavals that overthrew four governments, including Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak.
Prominent Egyptian journalist, photographer, activist, and writer of a weekly newsletter, Hossam el-Hamalawy, said, “The Palestinian cause has always been a politicizing factor for Egyptian youth across generations.”
In actuality, the Palestinian cause served as many Egyptian political activists’ entry point into politics, regardless of whether they were part of previous rallies or spearheaded the revolution in 2011.
The second Palestinian intifada began a decade prior, and the 2011 Egyptian uprising was essentially the culmination of that process.
The likelihood of something happening increases with the length of this war (in Gaza). El-Hamalawy went on.
The war’s end may bring the public’s temper down and ease their immediate rage, but the underlying causes of unrest—such as the desire for dignity—remain unchanged.
The fault lines have solidified, which is far worse. The toughest regimes the region has seen since its diverse elements gained independence are found in the Middle East and North Africa.
The Gulf states take great care to make sure that other nations in the area stifle opposition in any form as well.
Hardened Israeli views toward the Palestinians mimic Arab crackdowns on dissent, despite a global cry for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would establish an independent Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state.
Israel used to be prepared to go through the rituals of a peace process, but it has since shifted from de facto recognition of Palestinian rights to open denial.
Speaking in 1956 at the funeral of an Israeli farmer who had been brutally killed by Palestinian militants, the renowned former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was brutally honest. “Let’s not hold the murderers accountable.
They have been sitting in the Gaza refugee camps for eight years while we, in front of their eyes, have turned the villages and fields where they and their fathers once lived into our estate, Dayan stated.
Seven decades later, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterrez stated that the October 7 strike on Israel by Hamas did not occur “in a vacuum,” citing Israel’s control of Palestinian areas since 1967.
Dayan’s remarks set the stage for this assertion. They also serve as a backdrop for the flagrant disregard for both their own and other people’s lives that was demonstrated by Hamas’s brutality and targeting of civilians on October 7, as well as by Israel’s unrelenting destruction of Gaza at great human cost and its failure to give the release of Hamas hostages top priority.
An Arab human rights activist stated: “Gaza represents the height of the Middle East’s contempt for human life and dignity.
It’s a tremendous and unprecedented display of disdain. Disregard is what keeps dictatorship in place in the area.
Even though it’s hard to say for sure when, where, or how an explosion will occur, it will ultimately be caused by contempt.