Azmi Bishara: We are witnessing an attempt to reshape the region to suit Israel

The Director-General of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies has warned that the Arab region is undergoing an attempt to be reshaped according to Israel's designs. He likened the current situation to the period when (the late Iraqi president) Saddam Hussein’s army entered Kuwait in 1990, stating that while the plans were American back then, today they are Israeli.

In an interview on Al-Araby TV from Lusail, Qatar, on Monday evening, marking the one-year anniversary of the events of October 7 and the subsequent genocide in Gaza, Bishara remarked that Palestinians are facing what resembles a new Nakba.

He positioned the war on Lebanon within the context of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's feeling that he has a free hand and can achieve all his objectives. He also stressed that there is no sincere intention for Palestinian reconciliation, just folklore and deception.

As for his views on the upcoming U.S. presidential elections scheduled for November 5, Bishara rejected the claim that there is no real difference between the candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

He did not rule out the possibility that Harris and her team might approach issues in the Arab region in a more favourable manner than the administration of President Joe Biden has.

Before and after October 7

Before analyzing the October 7 operation militarily and politically, Bishara described it as a pivotal event that divided time into "before" and "after," both in terms of its impact on Israel and the Palestinians.

He noted the precedents set by the response to October 7, where the full-scale war did not provoke the world despite the magnitude and nature of the crimes committed, which have become normalized, such as the destruction of entire neighbourhoods to kill a single resistance fighter. Another distinguishing aspect of the Gaza war, according to Bishara, was that it was the first war without foreign, non-Arab journalists.

These reporters turned every Israeli victim of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation into a heroic tale, a personal story, while the entire population of Gaza suffered without any journalists covering the war on the ground, as Bishara noted.

The background to the October 7 operation

Bishara pointed out that in 2023 alone, before October 7, Israel killed more Palestinians than it had from 2000 to 2023.

He also outlined factors such as the Judaisation and spatial-temporal division of Al-Aqsa Mosque, the expansion of settlements, the changes in the treatment of prisoners since Itamar Ben-Gvir became a minister, the Abraham Accords, and the "Deal of the Century" under Donald Trump, as well as the tightening of the siege on Gaza.

On this latter point, Bishara reminded us that the current Hamas leadership had a pragmatic stance on accepting a Palestinian state, but Israel's response was to continue squeezing Gaza.

In his evaluation of the October 7 operation, the author of The Flood: The War on Palestine in Gaza expressed confidence that Hamas leaders did not anticipate the operation’s outcome for several reasons, including that "no one could have predicted this kind of unprecedented, irrational crime, and therefore, it was impossible to foresee."

In his view, Hamas did not fully calculate the immediate results of the operation, "because it went beyond what its planners expected," referring to the military collapse of the Israeli army and police in front of the attackers.

Bishara further noted that the Palestinian militants made a mistake by entering towns (in the Gaza envelope) and kidnapping civilians, "which could have been controlled by focusing only on military camps and soldiers. Once they realized they had civilians, they should have released them immediately to gain the moral and political upper hand

Israel’s response and the dynamics of occupation

At this point, Bishara posed a counter-question regarding the operation's outcome: why didn’t Israel, as the colonizer, anticipate that the colonized would respond in this way after all it had done? He explained that those who planned the October 7 operation miscalculated when they carried out an offensive operation and declared a war that was already lost, stating that "Resistance movements, after the Arab peace agreements with Israel and the Arabs’ withdrawal from the confrontation arena, became movements for self-defense, not movements to liberate Palestine," a logic that was disrupted by the Al-Aqsa Flood operation.

Given the scale of Israeli crimes committed against Palestinians, Bishara warned that "it is unacceptable to downplay the suffering of the Palestinian people and speak of victory while we are being exterminated."

In response to a question about Israel's tribal vengeance mentality, Bishara observed that this pattern is ongoing. The Israelis aim to reverse the image of humiliation they experienced on October 7 by punishing civilians, hoping to distance them from the idea of resistance and incite society against anyone who resists. Bishara described this as Israel’s attempt to conduct "psychological programming of the masses."

Lebanon front: Netanyahu moves from one phase to the next

On the war on Lebanon, Bishara stated that Netanyahu and his extremist coalition transitioned from one phase to another during the war on Gaza and then Lebanon, due to Arab impotence and the international complicity. They started with specific objectives and expanded them into premeditated plans, such as expanding settlements in the West Bank, weakening the Palestinian Authority, and now the war on Lebanon and the gradual expansion of the ground invasion into the country.

Iran could possibly be next, according to Bishara. He noted that Netanyahu and his team "found that there was no significant international cost, and by July 2024, they began to feel that it was possible to transfer some forces from Gaza to Lebanon and expand their operations in the West Bank. This stemmed from Netanyahu’s belief that he had a free hand and could carry out what he had previously planned."

Bishara pointed out that the idea of launching a full-scale war on Lebanon had existed since October 8 within Israel’s political and military leadership. He also reminded us that the evacuation of northern settlements was a precautionary step to prevent them from facing a similar infiltration to what occurred in the Gaza envelope settlements, even though Hezbollah had not targeted them with rockets.

Bishara expressed confidence that Hezbollah and Iran did not want war, but that this conflict is part of an old Israeli plan to eliminate Hezbollah and restore Israel's intelligence dominance. Bishara argued that Hezbollah "made a grave mistake by entering Syria as a transnational sectarian movement and committing crimes there, which contributed to exposing it to Israeli infiltration."

He further remarked that the Israelis might have exaggerated Hezbollah's strength, or perhaps Hezbollah itself overestimated its capabilities. According to the author of The Sect, Sectarianism, and Imagined Sects, Hezbollah officials did not recognize in time that "Israel was waging a war, not just a process of attrition and skirmishes."

Bishara concluded that Hamas and Hezbollah are now fighting for their own survival, not Israel’s, despite what Israeli propaganda suggests.

In his military assessment of the ground invasion, Bishara noted that if the resistance groups in southern Lebanon are not hierarchically linked to the leaders who were targeted and assassinated, they may be able to hold out for a long time. He also briefly addressed the internal Lebanese political situation, stating that the attempt to impose a president at this stage "would appear to be an exploitation of the war, which must first stop before anything else."

Bishara warned that if Israel emerges victorious and achieves its goals, it will not only defeat Iran but also all Arabs. He expressed confidence that the current situation can be changed by negotiating with Iran on terms favourable to the Arab world, just as Egyptian leaders could have halted the war on Gaza by sitting down with Hamas and presenting their demands in exchange for supporting them against the war.

Bishara explained that Israel was well aware that Hezbollah would not go to war with Israel unless Iran was also engaged in an Israeli conflict. This means that if Hezbollah suffers a severe Israeli blow, Iran will be exposed to danger, especially given the divisions among Iranian officials—some seeking to open up and leave behind the path of confrontation, while others favour the war path.

Palestinian unity

On the issue of Palestinian division, Bishara stated that preserving the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) "could have provided a framework for national unity." He described the current situation as "extremely dangerous because those who marginalized the PLO and focused on the Authority, only to lose control in Gaza, do not realize that the current war targets the entire Palestinian people and will eventually affect them."

From Bishara’s perspective, Israel "does not even want the Palestinian Authority in its current form; it wants it to function merely as local municipalities." He concluded that there are no genuine intentions for reconciliation, only fake folklore.

He emphasized that the possible framework for restoring some form of Palestinian unity lies in attempting to rebuild the PLO to bring together Palestinians both inside and outside the country, as marginalizing it has been "a crime, the result of which is that an entire generation does not know the organization, while the Authority believes it is the only entity capable of governing Gaza, even if that means unifying the Fatah movement with expelled elements and trying to convince Hamas to acquiesce."

However, Bishara predicted that Israel would only accept direct, comprehensive security control over Gaza and reminded us that Israel seeks Arab participation in this scheme.

In contrast, if the liberation movement were unified, Israel would have to deal with the reality. Bishara concluded his comments on the relationship between Palestinian division and the war on Gaza by noting that if Palestinians emerge from October 7 divided, Arab normalization with Israel will continue without any conditions, such as linking it to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Between Harris and Trump: A significant difference

The final part of the interview on Al-Araby TV with Bishara focused on the upcoming U.S. presidential elections scheduled for next month. Bishara stressed that anyone involved in politics should recognize the differences between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, who is already planning the expulsion of Palestinians and the targeting of Iranian nuclear reactors. Trump had even slurred Joe Biden as 'a Palestinian' and measures everything in terms of financial profit, treating Gaza as a real estate development project, perhaps.

Regarding Harris and her team, Bishara did not rule out the possibility that they (if the Democratic candidate wins) would be more open to issues in our region, potentially differing from Biden’s policies, which reversed nearly everything Trump’s administration did—except on Palestine.

However, Bishara warned that if our region and its regimes remain as they are, without a clear project or concern for their national interests, and continue to normalize relations with Israel for free in exchange for benefits from America, such as opposing Iran or securing arms deals, then nothing will help us—not an American administration nor protests at Western universities.

Regarding the nature of the relationship between Israel and America, Bishara explained that Israel is not a passive subordinate to America but has active agendas of its own because it is a state with a project. Israel succeeds in its endeavors, and the U.S. supports it.

While Bishara identified one of the key lessons of the Gaza war as Israel's inability to endure without U.S. support, he was confident that the U.S. could command Israel but simply chooses not to, as there is no sufficient justification to do so.

He concluded by noting that Arabs lack effective lobbies and systems that would place conditions on their relations with America, which is why the U.S. does not feel compelled to restrain Israel.