The geopolitics of occupation: Israel’s project to fragment the region and destroy collective security in the Middle East

 

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  by Peter Rodgers

As we approach the third decade of the 21st century, the Middle East is facing a deeper and more existential challenge than ever before: a silent yet deliberate project aimed at engineering the region’s geopolitics to establish Israel’s absolute hegemony. This project is not limited to the occupation of Gaza, the Golan Heights, or southern Lebanon; its ultimate goal is to create a geography that is occupied, destabilised, and fragmented throughout the region—a landscape in which no independent power, other than Israel, can act effectively or exist meaningfully. From the partitioning of Syria and the total destruction of Gaza to the continuous threats against Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, all signs point to a new architecture in which the Jewish state functions as the sole regional enforcer and the only actor exempt from international law.

Following the failure of US military projects in Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington has increasingly shifted its policy toward delegating regional management to Israel. Today, US foreign policy in the Middle East revolves around one key principle: ensuring Israel’s unquestioned supremacy over any other force in the region.

This supremacy is not only military and intelligence-based but also geopolitical. In this framework, Israel becomes the West’s main representative in West Asia, and countries in the region—whether adversarial or in normalisation processes—are compelled to submit to this imposed order. A RAND Corporation analysis on Israel’s future role in regional security architecture explicitly discusses “Israel’s central role in containing independent regional actors.” This “containment” is manifested through the structural destabilization of countries like Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and even Turkey.

Israel’s threatening shadow over the region: From Gaza and Lebanon to Iran and Turkey

Syria: A laboratory for partition

The Syrian civil war, fueled by international and regional powers, has ultimately led to the emergence of multiple conflicting entities within one country: Areas under Kurdish control, backed by the US; Regions under Turkish influence; The capital and coastal areas under central government control; And southern Syria, including the Golan, under Israeli military and security occupation.

The formal annexation of the Golan Heights—recognised by the Trump administration in 2019—was, in effect, the first official step in Israel’s project to absorb Syrian territory. The ultimate goal of this partitioning is to weaken Syria’s territorial integrity and deprive the Resistance Axis of strategic depth. This project continues today through Israel’s repeated airstrikes on Syrian airports, energy infrastructure, and military bases.

Israel has exploited the war in Gaza to aggressively implement a new phase of forced displacement targeting the next generation of Palestinians. The destruction of over 70 per cent of Gaza, the collapse of its health and education systems, and the forced transfer of hundreds of thousands to the south are all components of a “modern ethnic cleansing.” Human rights analyses of Israel’s forced displacement campaigns suggest these actions may constitute war crimes. Yet Israel, protected by international immunity, continues unabated with unprecedented boldness. What is happening in Gaza is, in essence, a more advanced version of the 1948 Nakba—a “second Nakba” aimed not only at removing the inhabitants but also at erasing the territorial memory of Palestine.

Southern Lebanon, after Gaza and Syria, is the third piece in Israel’s geopolitical puzzle. The ongoing bombardment of the south, threats of ground invasion, and targeted assassinations of resistance leaders all indicate Israel’s determination to eliminate Hezbollah’s defensive depth along the northern border. Meanwhile, Iraq is on the path toward becoming yet another gray zone. Ethno-sectarian divisions, frequent attacks on Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) bases, and the gradual infiltration of Mossad into the Kurdistan Region all suggest efforts to replicate the Syrian scenario in Iraq.

Unless powerful regional states such as Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia develop a collective security initiative, each may eventually face the following scenarios:

• Iran risks a full-scale war with Israel, alongside the activation of ethnic fault lines and extreme pressure on its border regions;
• Turkey could face increased pan-Kurdish separatist movements in its southeast and soft partitioning of its Kurdish regions;
• Saudi Arabia, which sought stability through the Abraham Accords, may find itself unprotected against threats from Yemen, Israel, or internal unrest following shifts in US policy.

In the absence of a shared defense framework, these countries—standing alone—will remain vulnerable to the ongoing destabilisation project and eventual territorial erosion.

The Abraham Accords, designed by the Trump administration to normalize relations between Arab countries and Israel, have effectively become a tool to legitimize Israeli aggression. Contrary to the appearance of promoting peace, this agreement was designed not for peace but to divide the ranks of Islamic countries. It is essentially a one-sided dictate rather than a bilateral or multilateral agreement, aimed at recognizing and normalizing the policy of territorial occupation. The passive stance of Arab governments toward Israeli crimes in Gaza is one of the consequences of this security dependence on Tel Aviv. However, in the long term, this dependence will lead to the weakening of national sovereignty and increased domestic dissatisfaction within Arab countries.

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The solution to Israel’s geopolitical occupation project lies neither in aggressive militarism nor in strategic appeasement. Rather, it demands a redefinition of collective regional security. The Middle East cannot survive without independent political-security institutions and intelligence cooperation among sovereign states. In this context, forming a tripartite or quadrilateral alliance among independent regional countries could be a first step toward restoring the balance of power and preventing territorial collapse.

• Such an alliance must be based on respect for national sovereignty;
• It must reject foreign interventionist policies;
• And above all, it must place the Palestinian issue at the heart of regional policymaking, recognizing it as the linchpin of the occupation project.

Israel’s plan to create a fragmented, stateless, and resistance-free Middle East is no longer a theoretical hypothesis. What is happening today in Gaza, the Golan, southern Lebanon, and on Iran’s borders are practical implementations of this plan.

The only effective response is the creation of an independent regional security order—based on convergence, collective defense, and a renewed principle of “equal security for all nations.” Without this, the Middle East must brace itself for decades of instability, eroded national borders, and the rise of a singular, unaccountable aggressor that will strike wherever it pleases, without consequence.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

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