Neither Syria Nor Gaza Is the Last Site of Genocide in the Region

Neither Syria Nor Gaza Is the Last Site of Genocide in the Region

At the heart of this scene rises the question of “Israeli supremacy,” where overwhelming force is used to compensate for structural fragility. Asymmetric wars—including drones, cyberspace, missiles, and weapons of mass destruction—become the language of the coming decade in the region.

When chaos settles in, it puts on a helmet and goes to war!

The war in Gaza is not an isolated event, but a sign of a new phase of conflict in the Middle East—a phase governed less by traditional wars between regular armies than by unequal deterrent tools, open fronts between states and their arms, and an international law that is eroding before our eyes.

At the heart of this scene rises the question of “Israeli supremacy,” where overwhelming force is used to compensate for structural fragility. Asymmetric wars—including drones, cyberspace, missiles, and weapons of mass destruction—become the language of the coming decade in the world’s most fragile region.

In the regional “finger-biting” game, it is not only the type of weapon that has changed, but the nature of the game itself; the question is no longer who possesses the strongest weapon, but who can endure pain more. Instead of deterrence serving as a tool to guarantee peace and stability, it has, in practice, become a source of instability.

In an era of asymmetric wars, and with the declining cost of inflicting the greatest possible damage, large-scale confrontations between armies recede, while some states in the region engage in a systematic destruction of the structure of the national state.

From Beirut to Damascus, Amman, Sana’a, Jerusalem, and Tehran—and even Moscow as well—deterrence is no longer a simple equation between two capitals, but a complex network of exchanged messages, historical wagers, and existential threats—open like communicating vessels among all arenas and proxies. Deterrence is no longer the containment of aggression; it has turned into an illusion of lost security, becoming an existential danger to its صاحب and to regional peace.

The region has become like a black hole feeding on an international and regional strategic environment that steadily deteriorates. International treaties that for decades regulated the spread of weapons—especially nuclear weapons—are now losing their effect. They are followed by successive withdrawals by major powers from Cold War-era understandings meant to limit the dangers of mass destruction; then withdrawal from the nuclear agreement with Iran; the return of several states to conducting nuclear tests; and, moreover, mutual threats to use such weapons to decide conventional conflicts such as Ukraine.

On top of that, Israeli supremacy has come to confirm the depth of the security and strategic chaos in a fragile region called the Middle East, and the absence of any effective framework to guarantee its regional security.

As the region turns into communicating vessels, every strategic, political, and legal vacuum is filled by the logic of zero-sum solutions. Arenas open onto a broad conflict that does not stop at the Iranian nuclear file, but reaches what remains of the mechanisms of stability.

Thus, rules of prohibition turn into exceptions, and double standards take root—deepening the sense, among multiple parties, of injustice and existential threat.

For weaker states, or those economically and politically besieged, options become limited. While building advanced conventional armies takes no less than twenty-five years—amid a frantic race and exhausted budgets—ignoring threats becomes, for some forces, a form of political folly and an uncertain historical gamble. Nontraditional deterrent tools then become a “shortcut” to the logic of deterrence and power: tools to deter adversaries, and a strategy to wrest international recognition of an actor’s weight and status.

In what appears, on the surface, a calculated risk, the states of the region and international powers—from Israel to Iran, Turkey, Russia, and the United States—play this game. In practice, however, it carries high probabilities of conflict spiraling out of control, especially when domestic messages mix with external signals, and when the boundaries of deterrence overlap with the boundaries of gamble.

Added to this chaotic picture is the front of cross-border cyber wars. Alongside missiles and drones, this front quietly buds, yet it is poised to be even more damaging and painful.

This is not merely about the rise of cyberattacks on sensitive infrastructure, nuclear facilities, and energy and communications networks, but about imminent disasters carried out with tools of artificial intelligence and cyber intrusions—without firing a single shot. This weapon offers attackers the advantage of deniability and the disruption of the adversary: is what appears an alert, a deterrent message, or a verified operation?! Thus, attack is achieved “under the table,” without crossing the traditional threshold for declaring war, and the states of the region—near and far—enter a state of constant anxiety and an open race to restore deterrence balance and build new red lines.

In this scene, risks become incalculable. With the erosion of the national state in many countries, and the partial or complete failure of its security and political institutions, social spaces arise outside state control—filled by militias that acquire a de facto local legitimacy and seek external support that provides more advanced military capabilities. These groups enter the equations of regional deterrence by proxy or through partnership. The concept of sovereignty erodes, and the lines of contact between regular wars and proxy wars blur, making any localized confrontation liable to quickly turn into an open regional crisis.

There are many disaster scenarios. First, we are witnessing escalation and gradual mobilization today. Despite the reckless illusion promoted by Trump, states and armed groups continue their desperate search to restore their nontraditional deterrence, and intermittent clashes continue in parallel according to the imperatives of mutual deterrence messages. All of this unfolds in the absence of stable rules of engagement, making small events capable of dragging us, step by step, toward a wide explosion—intended or unintended.

Second, there is a less likely but more dangerous scenario: when the brandishing of force reaches the point of breaking the game’s fragility, and a state or group feels an existential-threat moment—either “now or never.” Mere approach to this threshold is enough to unleash a frantic race toward the abyss.

As for the United States, it still operates under the illusion of containing events through “conditional” containment. But alas—this containment does not treat the structural flaw in the regional security system; rather, it gambles on leaving contradictions to grow beneath the ash.

A flood of condemnations, and hollow state decisions, do not avert the danger of mass destruction from the region. What is required is to reforge the region’s security equation from its foundations: through collective-security mechanisms, controlling the arms race, strengthening the role of international institutions, and linking any clear regional arrangements to a comprehensive concept of disarmament of weapons of mass destruction that is not limited to a single file or one state.

In the context of this unrestrained regional conflict, the question of annihilation and genocide does not remain confined to Gaza or the West Bank. The question becomes: who will be next after Gaza? Meanwhile, in the shadows, the arms race continues and suicidal sentiments grow—within a Middle East submerged, up to its head, in a profound existential crisis.