On Monday, while IDF troops were clearing the last Hamas terrorists from Israeli communities near the Gaza border, Benjamin Netanyahu promised that ‘we are going to change the Middle East’. Only two Israeli prime ministers have spoken like that before. One was Menachem Begin when he waged war on the PLO in Lebanon in 1982. The other was Yitzhak Rabin when he made peace with the PLO in 1993. Neither fully succeeded, but both reshaped the regional balance.
What Netanyahu understands is that the regional balance is shifting once again. It has moved away from the West vs East bipolar order of the Cold War and on from the brief American unipolar moment that followed. The emerging order is multipolar. After decades of American exception, history is onshoring onto the Eurasian landmass and the Middle East is completing its transition from postcolonial weakness to independent sphere.
The Middle East has long been a chessboard of mutual loathing.
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