Pax Israeliana for the Middle East

"The agreement inaugurated the era of Franco-British tutelage, under the maxim of divide and rule, pitting Arab tribes against each other after seducing them with promises of nation-states. Today, the new Trump-Netanyahu tandem has replaced the rules and guidelines of those diplomats with missiles and drones to reshape the Middle East."

"Israel has bombed seven neighboring countries: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Qatar and Yemen, in addition to Gaza, and occupied new territories in the first two. This cartographic upheaval also has a political dimension that aspires to establish a new paradigm in the region."

"It puts an end to the era of Western tutelage—first Franco-British and then American—with the withdrawal of U.S. troops, and opens another where a Pax Israeliana is being imposed, with the Jewish state as the new regional hegemonic power."

The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 divided the Ottoman Empire between British and French spheres of influence, establishing a colonial order that persisted for over a century. This framework has been challenged twice: first by Israel's creation in 1948, and second by ISIS's 2014 border erasure between Syria and Iraq. Currently, Israel's military campaigns across seven neighboring countries over 29 months represent a third challenge to this order. Israel's bombing and territorial occupation of Lebanon and Syria, combined with U.S. troop withdrawal, signal a shift from Western tutelage to Israeli regional hegemony. This emerging Pax Israeliana represents a new paradigm of military-dominated supremacy, replacing Cold War dynamics with multipolar competition where the United States resists its declining global position.

Read at english.elpais.com