“Gaza War May Deal Death Blow to World Order”

Rym Momtaz is a consulting researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a British think tank. He specializes in the Levant and Europe and works on French foreign and security policy, European security and the Mediterranean region. He co-directs research on strategic competition in the Eastern Mediterranean. Its latest study, published in 2023 on the IISS website, focuses on “Turbulence in the Eastern Mediterranean: Geopolitics, Security and Power Dynamics.”

The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 arose in which international geopolitical context?

The terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023, took place as US-mediated talks on default between Israel and Saudi Arabia were moving forward. Almost everyone – Arabs, Israelis, Westerners – said yes Current status Let’s continue, we should not worry about the Palestinian issue, we should continue with the regional normalization with the Gulf countries. This approach was initiated by the Trump administration with the Abraham Covenant, which expires in 2020, and the Biden administration is working to consolidate it by securing an Israeli-Saudi deal. At the same time, the Israeli government, led by a coalition that included far-right settler political representation, continued unimpeded a substantial expansion of colonialism in the West Bank, despite being prohibited by international law.

The shock wave of the October 7 attack was felt around the world. What does that say about a world deeply shaken by various major global crises, especially the war in Ukraine?

The post-war international order that allowed Europe to rebuild itself was strongly weakened by the double, almost simultaneous shock of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, on the one hand, and the Israeli attack on October 7. followed by Gaza on the other side. This weakness is the main goal of actors like Russia and Iran: to destroy the order that created the West’s unparalleled economic, political and cultural power. However, the threat against this order reminds us of the importance of respecting international law everywhere and by everyone, while the international system based on established rules has not yet fully recovered from the US invasion of Iraq.

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