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The Fertile Crescent, the cradle of Middle Eastern and global civilization, is currently undergoing structural shifts whose repercussions are difficult to gauge in a world where everything moves in several directions at breakneck speed.
This is a piece of territory undergoing upheaval on every front: from the tip of the Arabian Gulf to Iraq, to the northwest toward the slopes of the Anatolian highlands, to the south along the western edge of the Syrian Desert and the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, and ending at the Sinai Peninsula.
In Iraq, doubts hover over the integrity and effectiveness of the upcoming parliamentary elections, which will be under the watchful eye of Iran.
In Syria, there is a similar electoral experiment, but it lacks participants and it remains riddled with fears and anxieties. In Lebanon, the old-new struggle is resurfacing: “legitimate arms” versus “the arms of the resistance.”
This is a region caught in a race between state-building and the disintegration of political entities and components
Eyad Abu Shakra
And in Palestine, of course, questions — written in blood, destruction and tears — keep piling up.
In short, this is a region caught in a race between collapse and resilience; between state-building and the disintegration of political entities and components; between pragmatic approaches to ensuring the bare minimum needed for coexistence and the destructive impact of domestic and external identities.
When it was least expected, a descent into the abyss was averted. Hamas, perhaps with Arab backing, removed the fuse lit by US President Donald Trump’s threat that he would turn Gaza into “hell” unless the movement accepted his “plan,” with all its shortcomings and favoritism.
In truth, any reasonable person, regardless of their view of Hamas or the idea of normalization with Israel, knows from experience that Washington cannot be a neutral mediator between Israel and any Arab actor.
This is a striking scene, be it in the US or the Arab world. One might even say it is confusing and dangerous for other regions as well
Eyad Abu Shakra
This time, however, certain factors — dreams of a Nobel Peace Prize and hunger for more lucrative deals — loosened the Israeli far right’s hold on Trump.
At least for now, the “electoral-financial base” that carried Trump to the White House twice has encouraged the president to “break free” of the stranglehold that pro-Israeli right-wing influence has had over his presidency.
It has become clear that some of the hard-liners within the white Christian right reject the notion of “Judeo-Christian values” and openly defy its advocates. This is evident within financial, media and political circles in the US, where the most prominent Israeli lobbies and the forces and figures connected to them have a seat.
These lobbies, forces and figures have lost confidence in their old, familiar approach to vying for influence. They have gone beyond using money to promote their interests and pushing blunt media campaigns, adding cyber blockades, information control and “data dominance.”
Today, we see these forces dominate cutting-edge artificial intelligence industries, along with data harvesting, storage and deployment. Much of this information is transferred to the intelligence agencies that fund and partner with them. From their perspective, reckless missteps are no longer tolerable in an age of cyber-surveillance and AI’s alarming advances.
Indeed, social media is awash with stories and reports about the ambitions of hard-line right-wing billionaires Peter Thiel and Alex Karp and their data security company, Palantir. As we know, the billionaire Larry Ellison has just acquired TikTok, adding it to his media empire that already includes Paramount and CBS. Meanwhile, we are seeing a torrent of reports about massive investment giants like BlackRock and Blackstone, whose enormous portfolios and sprawling networks are difficult to fathom.
Former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who served under Bill Clinton, posted a brief list on his X account, raising the alarm: “The richest man on Earth owns X. The second richest man on Earth is about to be a major owner of TikTok. The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post. See the problem here?”
And in another striking note on financial concentration and inequality, Reich posted: “The 400 richest Americans are now worth a record $6.6 trillion. The entire bottom 50 percent of America is worth just $4.2 trillion.”
As for the firebrands of the white Christian right (like the media personality Tucker Carlson, activist Nick Fuentes and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene), they never miss an opportunity to attack Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
There is no doubt, then, that this is a striking scene, be it in the US or the Arab world. One might even say it is a confusing and dangerous moment for other regions of the globe as well.
Europe is hardly free of its racism and anti-Russian anxieties. Asia is uneasy about the fallout of potential Sino-Indian rivalry. And, inevitably, every region of Africa and Latin America is vulnerable in the face of the technological, economic and political shifts of the future.
Our world today, as it appears to me, has become unrestrained. The brakes are broken and we are moving toward a world without principles, values or norms.
- Eyad Abu Shakra is managing editor of Asharq Al-Awsat, where this article was originally published. X: @eyad1949