DaysofPal — Egyptian political analyst and academic Dr. Taqaddum Al-Khatib said that the Israeli occupation’s genocidal war on Gaza has fundamentally altered power dynamics in the Middle East, arguing that Israel has lost its ability to independently impose a new regional order and has instead become a strategic liability dependent on continuous external protection.
Al-Khatib emphasized that the confrontation in Gaza is far more than a localized conflict, describing it as a regional struggle with far-reaching global consequences.
He said the Israeli occupation’s prolonged genocidal war against Gaza has exposed the erosion of its so-called “decisive advantage,” noting that Israel is no longer capable of securing a comprehensive military victory without direct political and military support from the United States.
According to Al-Khatib, the war—now entering its third year—was intended by international powers to entrench Israel as the dominant force in the Middle East. However, despite overwhelming military capabilities, Israel has failed to reshape the regional order or enforce lasting dominance.
“Gaza has transformed the Israeli occupation from a regional enforcer into a strategic burden requiring constant protection,” Al-Khatib said, describing the shift as a profound strategic turning point.
He explained that Israel’s traditional reliance on short, decisive wars collapsed during the Gaza conflict, which exposed its inability to secure a rapid victory. Instead, Israel has been drawn into simultaneous confrontations with Palestinian resistance groups, Yemen’s Ansar Allah movement, Hezbollah, and other non-state actors—collectively exhausting its military capacity over more than two years.
Since the outbreak of the war in October 2023, Israel has operated across multiple fronts, including Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iran, without achieving decisive outcomes. Al-Khatib pointed to Israel’s failure—alongside the United States—to eliminate Hamas in Gaza or neutralize Hezbollah in Lebanon as clear evidence that none of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declared objectives have been fulfilled.
He also noted that Israel has been unable to recover its captives through military force, with releases occurring only through negotiations and prisoner exchanges conducted on resistance terms.
While Netanyahu announced goals such as dismantling Hamas politically and militarily, retrieving captives, and reshaping Gaza’s security landscape, Al-Khatib said these aims remain unmet. “The genocide may have changed form, but it has not ended,” he said, citing ongoing assassinations of resistance figures that have failed to resolve the conflict.
Al-Khatib further highlighted a decline in Jewish immigration to Israel, linking it to the country’s transformation into an unstable, conflict-ridden entity. Official Israeli figures from 2025 show a noticeable drop in immigration compared to 2024, reflecting deeper demographic, political, and security anxieties.
He described the region as entering a phase of extreme instability, arguing that Israel’s long-standing military superiority has eroded, leaving the Middle East without fixed or reliable power balances.
Although he acknowledged that the resistance did not achieve victory in conventional military terms, Al-Khatib argued that it succeeded in shattering Israel’s image of invincibility. Gaza, he said, demonstrated that Israel lacks absolute sovereignty and can be drawn into prolonged strategic uncertainty, destabilizing both regional and global calculations.
He sharply criticized unprecedented Arab abandonment in the face of Gaza’s devastation, contrasting it with widespread popular solidarity across Europe and the United States. According to Al-Khatib, the war exposed the contradictions of Western rhetoric on democracy, liberalism, and human rights, triggering a significant shift in global public awareness.
Al-Khatib also said the Gaza war disrupted several regional projects and exposed a long-running strategy of fragmentation designed to secure Israeli dominance through the collapse of Arab states. He argued that this approach only succeeded after several Arab countries were reduced to failed states, allowing Israel to expand its influence and normalization efforts, often with backing from what he described as “functional states.”
He identified Turkey, Egypt, and Iran as the only regional actors capable of curbing Israeli expansion. While Egypt, he said, is constrained by its political system, it still retains strategic leverage—particularly in the Red Sea—to obstruct Israeli ambitions. Iran, he added, is weakened by sanctions and internal pressures, while Turkey, despite economic challenges, maintains the ability to project influence in the Red Sea and East Africa.
Al-Khatib concluded that the Red Sea has become the central arena of the region’s strategic struggle, warning of intensified Israeli efforts to establish a foothold there through security arrangements and fragile proxy entities. He cautioned against Israeli involvement in Somaliland, Sudan, and other areas, arguing that U.S. backing seeks to secure Israeli dominance while marginalizing Egypt’s regional role and weakening its position on the Palestinian issue.
He warned that Israel aims not only to militarize the Red Sea, but also to neutralize any effective Arab political presence there, concluding that continued Arab absence remains the primary factor enabling Israeli and U.S. strategic agendas in the region.
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