The Middle East's New Year Is As Unhappy And Fractured As Ever

(MENAFN- Asia Times) No one, at least no one who paid any attention to the lessons of history, ever thought that peace and stability in the Middle East could be achieved easily. It is, nonetheless, sobering to see so many signs of conflict and fragmentation emerging again just three months after President Donald Trump sealed the belated but welcome ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas over Gaza. The nightmare across the Mediterranean from Europe shows no sign of being replaced by sweeter dreams of reconstruction and peace.

It was perhaps predictable, and in fact widely predicted, that the Palestinian militia of Hamas would fail to abide by the October ceasefire requirement that it should disarm itself. An estimated 400 citizens and soldiers have died in Gaza since the so-called ceasefire was agreed.

No armed group gives up its main source of power easily or willingly, especially when it continues to be under daily fire from the Israeli Defense Force. Miracles were never to be expected, but since the agreement was signed no new provider of security or governing authority has come into being. Bullets and bombs continue to pose a daily danger to life. Israel has again caused outrage by banning 37 NGOs from supplying humanitarian aid in Gaza, claiming they are not obeying new rules Israel has set.

The real disappointment, however, has arisen from the eruption of an open dispute between the rich Arab Gulf states of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over their support for different warring parties in the region's two civil wars, in Yemen and Sudan, both of which have been even deadlier for civilians and soldiers than the war in Gaza. If the re-establishment of law and order in Gaza is ever to succeed, these and other Gulf states will need to be involved.

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On December 30, Saudi forces bombed what Riyadh said was an Emirati shipment of weapons to a separatist group in south Yemen that had recently seized a large area of the country along the Saudi borders. If they are fighting each other in Yemen and are on different sides in Sudan, what hope can there be for Gulf Arab co-operation in the creation and reconstruction of a Palestinian state?

There is perhaps better news from the region's main trouble-maker, Iran. Given the decades of brutal repression by Iran's rulers and the central role played by that regime in provoking and financing conflict in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, the outbreak of popular demonstrations against the government in the capital Tehran and many other cities can be considered as positive. The target of the demonstrations has been economic, in the form of rising inflation and falling living standards, but the implications are highly political.

The Iranian regime has been weakened by the Israeli and American attacks on its nuclear-weapons facilities last June, by clear evidence that it was unable to protect its population or hit back in any meaningful way and by the many defeats suffered by its proxy groups in Gaza, Lebanon and, in particular, Syria. So it has increasingly looked like a regime and a whole political system that is on its way out.

Iran has continued to earn foreign currency by selling weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine. But Iran's own currency has been collapsing and falling prices have hurt its other, highly constrained, source of income, energy. Neither Russia nor China shows any sign of stepping in to help.

Meanwhile Trump marked the New Year by making a new threat of American intervention in Iran, to“rescue” the protesters if the regime tries to repeat the violent crackdown that it used to suppress the previous, larger, spate of demonstrations that took place in 2022. This can be counted as a welcome, if rare, sign of American concern for democracy and human rights. But what his threat really amounts to is unclear.

It is a bleak picture, which a cynic might reasonably say is one that is typical of the Middle East, with everyone fighting everyone else and trusting no one. Outsiders, whether they are Americans, Europeans or, indeed, Chinese or Russians, will know from history and experience that getting too involved can be dangerous.

However the two issues on which outsiders could play a useful role would be in pushing forward the peace and reconstruction plan for Gaza and on restoring peaceful relations between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Those European states that last year chose to give official recognition to a Palestinian State, even in the absence of an agreed territory, citizenry or governing authority, have a clear responsibility now to get involved in thinking and planning for how such a state is to be brought into being. Britain, France, Spain, Ireland and the 12 other EU states that have recognized Palestine all have both an obligation and a motive to accelerate talks at the United Nations and crucially also in the region, with the Arab states and with Turkey, about what needs to be done and how they are willing to help.

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This would not put Europe into the driving seat – for that position is firmly occupied by Trump, even if it is unclear whether he and his team really have a route-map for where to drive. But the Europeans could still play a productive part in pressing the Arabs to settle their differences with one another and in helping them to negotiate a real plan. This would also have the virtue of showing Trump that he cannot simply give Israel whatever it wants.

Nonetheless, the main initiative will have to come from the Trump administration. It has taken ownership of the plan for Gaza and the Trump team boasts of its close ties with the rulers in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Doha and the other Gulf capitals, as well as Turkey. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and his real-estate buddy Steve Witkoff would be more gainfully employed in seeking to restore stability to the Middle East than in their current roles as message-carriers for Vladimir Putin over Ukraine.

Throughout 2025 it was clear that unless Trump was willing to put real pressure on Putin, there was no chance of a peace settlement in Ukraine, and that continues to be the case. But in 2026 combined pressure by Trump and, in a more conventional diplomatic way, persuasion by Europe on the Gulf Arabs, Israel and Hamas has the chance of turning a fragile situation in Palestine into something more durable and equitable. As always the struggle will be an uphill one, but with a gradient that at least can be said to be less steep than the one in Ukraine.

This English version of an article that was originally published in Italilan by La Stampa can be found on Bill Emmott's Global Eye, to which you can subscribe at no charge. The article is republished with permission.

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