For many in the Global South, the West’s contrasting reactions to Ukraine and Gaza conflicts mark a fitting requiem to the rules-based international order.
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Black Swans, Nassim Nicholas Taleb says in his classic 2007 book, are highly improbable events that have a high impact and where we cover our shock by concocting post facto explanations. Applied to his native West Asia, the last fifteen months have seen the appearance of more than one black swan and the high impact of each is still working its way through the region’s fault lines.
The massive terrorist attack launched by Hamas on October 7, 2023, was a Black Swan event that initially cracked the legend of Israel’s invincibility. The heavy loss of life and abduction of 251 citizens inflicted a collective sense of trauma on the Jewish state, accompanied by a reckoning that retribution alone could restore its sense of security. That retribution has led to over 45,000 dead Palestinians in Gaza, some 70% of them women and children. And yet, the bloodlust continues. Every day, day after day. Social media posts by Israeli soldiers, politicians and news anchors gloating over the orgy of death and destruction point to a stunning loss of humanity in a people whose own sense of history should have made them more sensitive to the sheer injustice of collective punishment.
The massive terrorist attack launched by Hamas on October 7, 2023, was a Black Swan event that initially cracked the legend of Israel’s invincibility.
On the Arab street, October 7 was seen as a possible game changer, an end to a debilitating status quo, and a hope that the Iran-led Axis of Resistance would seize the opportunity and that Hizbollah and Hamas would inflict enough damage on Israel to bring it to the negotiating table. They clearly hadn’t anticipated Israel’s willingness to use overwhelming and completely disproportionate force in the densely populated civilian areas of Gaza, nor its targeted assassination of key leaders of Hamas, Hizbollah and even of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, nor the impotence of the international community to enforce a ceasefire. The killing of Ismail Haniyeh in an Iranian safehouse in Tehran, of Hassan Nasrallah in a basement in Beirut and the simultaneous detonation of thousands of pagers used by Hizbollah cadres were mini Black Swans in their own right. Fear of Israel’s defense and intelligence capabilities was restored and the lack of a damaging response from Iran dashed any wishful thinking that October 7 might lead to a Palestinian state.
Israel’s pursuit of retribution has been accompanied by a cavalier disregard of international humanitarian law. Judges at the International Criminal Court have issued arrest warrants against Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes including starvation, murder, deliberate targeting of civilians and persecution. The International Court of Justice has also held Israel’s continued occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem to be completely illegal. Israeli’s strident defiance of these rulings has been matched by the Biden Administration’s staunch defense of its principal ally in West Asia even as Trump 2.0 threatens sanctions against these international organizations for their temerity in citing the rule of law. For many in the Global South, the West’s contrasting reactions to Ukraine and Gaza mark a fitting requiem to the rules-based international order.
To Israel’s north, Hizbollah often acted as a state within a state and the fading of its dark shadow opens the possibility of Lebanon becoming a more normal state, something that its beleaguered citizens have yearned for decades.
The improbable evisceration of Hizbollah and diminution of Iran’s bluster has also had a high impact in Israel’s immediate neighbourhood. To Israel’s north, Hizbollah often acted as a state within a state and the fading of its dark shadow opens the possibility of Lebanon becoming a more normal state, something that its beleaguered citizens have yearned for decades. And in Syria, the sudden weakening of Hizbollah and Iran created an equally improbable opportunity for Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) to move out of its stronghold in Idlib province, take the cities of Aleppo, Hama, Homs and Damascus in barely a week and topple the hated Assad dynasty that had ruled Syria with an iron fist for over five decades. The euphoria over the unexpected flight of Bashar Assad to Moscow amongst ordinary Syrians, however, is tempered by the unsavoury antecedents of Ahmed Al Sharaa, aka Abu Mohammed Al Jolani. The HTS leader was closely affiliated with Al Qaeda and there are legitimate questions about the extent to which his jihadi tendencies were merely a youthful indiscretion. To be fair, he has hardly put a foot wrong during the three weeks or so since he assumed power. Schools, government offices and markets are functioning with a remarkable sense of normalcy and HTS has gone out of its way to reassure Syria’s sizeable Christian, Alawite and Druze minorities that their religious rights and personal freedoms will be respected. After a brutal civil war that lasted for over a decade, the current transition period will be crucial to get the country back on its feet and will need the active support of both the international community and of regional powers.
But this might be a tall order because Turkey, which backed HTS, is triumphantly flexing its muscle while Iran is ruing the demise of a regime that provided both a strategic alignment and a land bridge to Tehran’s Hizbollah partners in Lebanon. Russia, which had steadfastly stood with the Assad regime during the civil war, was forced to abandon its protégé on account of its own preoccupation with Ukraine. The departure of Assad now places a question mark on Russia’s naval base in Tartus and its Airforce base near Latakia. Despite his customary swagger at his yearend press conference, President Putin finds himself in the uncomfortable position of having to negotiate with Turkey over the fate of its strategic foothold in the Mediterranean.
Leaders of the extreme right-wing factions within the Netanyahu government now speak of beachfront homes in Gaza and annexation of the West Bank and Syria’s Golan Heights within a Greater Israel while Netanyahu promises that after Syria, he will bring about a regime change in Iran.
Which brings us back to Israel and the Palestinians. Under Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israel has won the war but hasn’t shown any capacity for winning the peace. There isn’t even a peace plan on the table, nor a roadmap for Gaza once (if) Israel withdraws its troops. If anything, the military successes in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran have fed into hubris and a sense of impunity. Leaders of the extreme right-wing factions within the Netanyahu government now speak of beachfront homes in Gaza and annexation of the West Bank and Syria’s Golan Heights within a Greater Israel while Netanyahu promises that after Syria, he will bring about a regime change in Iran.
The black swans of 2024 have clearly reshuffled the geopolitical map of West Asia and produced some unexpected winners and losers. The Trump presidency could be another Black Swan just over the horizon. But don’t concoct another false narrative to write off Iran and don’t forget the Palestinians. Both will remain critical for peace and stability in the region.
This commentary originally appeared in The Tribune.
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