Israel and Palestine: three new factors in the latest crisis

Yet another armed crisis has broken out between Israel and Palestine. Before the ceasefire of 21 May, 228 people had lost their lives in the Gaza Strip, and 12 among the Israeli population. Beyond the tragic cyclical nature of the conflict, the events of these days point to at least three new factors, unprecedented in scale, that are bound to have significant consequences for the trajectory of the Jewish state and of the entire Middle East.

On the surface, the May conflict looks like yet another crisis between the two sides. Every five or seven years Israel is called upon to strike the enemy to reduce its missile arsenal, while Hamas has to attack across the border to bolster its leadership and remind the world of the suffering of the Palestinians.

This time the explosion was triggered by a dispute over property titles in East Jerusalem, in homes belonging to the Arab population but claimed by the Jewish population.

As usual, after a few days of war the belligerents halted hostilities without any upheaval of the status quo. And yet the crisis presents us with three unknown factors.

First, we witnessed the violent revolt of Arab-Israeli citizens, who turned on the institutions of the Jewish state in Lod, in Acre, in East Jerusalem, cities once praised for the coexistence of different communities. Clashes that exposed the vulnerability of Israel, master of its own destiny but worried by the collapse of the home front. A nightmare that could undermine its room for manoeuvre. Because it concerns around a fifth of the population, growing spectacularly, never assimilated, perhaps ready to link up with the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank.

Second, Israel's historic external enemies, the Arab powers of the Gulf, were absent. The signing of the so-called Abraham Accords by Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, with the decisive blessing of Saudi Arabia, signals the dramatic weakness of these actors, forced to rely on the United States, and therefore on the Jewish state, to survive the current situation. This is the deeper meaning of mutual recognition with Israel (open collaboration with the Netanyahu government, in the case of the Saudis): giving up the Palestinian cause to strengthen their own status in the region.

A sign of extreme weakness, which at this stage gives Israel the luxury of navigating the present with relative calm, to the point of being able to focus on medium- and long-term threats, and not only on Iran.

Finally, we need to consider the rise of Turkey, the third unknown factor in the latest Israeli-Palestinian war. For some years now Ankara has extended its influence over Syria, Tripolitania, the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean. So much so that Jerusalem has increased its presence in Greece, precisely to counter Turkey.

And so in recent weeks Recep Erdogan has put himself forward as the sole champion of the Palestinians, ready to accuse the Israelis of every outrage and the Arabs of culpable indifference. He went as far as swearing to avenge the injustices committed by the Jewish state. A shift which, while Tehran negotiates a truce with the United States to ease its economic suffering, heralds the coming clash for hegemony in the Middle East between Ankara and Jerusalem. An issue on which the Americans will soon have to intervene, for the moment content to use Turkey to curb the ambitions of the Iranians and the Russians. New elements in a battle, dormant for now, that will shape the dispute between Israel and Palestine in the near future.

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