A stand in the Damascas market selling mugs with the faces of Bashar al-Assad, Hassan Nasrallah and Vladimir Putin. (Credit: AFP archive photo)
And then, all of a sudden, everything accelerated. It all seemed so fragile, all the walls cracked and anything was possible. The Oct. 7 seismic attack shook the entire region. Despite its power, the shockwave was not instantaneous. But the more the weeks went by, the stronger the waves became, and the more we realized just how aptly named al-Aqsa Flood Operation was.For months, Oct.7 represented a symbolic — but not strategic — rupture for the Middle East. There was no revival of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Nor was there any reassessment of the warm (United Arab Emirates, Morocco) or cold (Egypt, Jordan) peace agreements with Israel. The main strategic issue was the survival or otherwise of Hamas in the Palestinian enclave, and the diplomatic isolation Tel Aviv was prepared to endure to achieve its ends. Then, on April 13,...
And then, all of a sudden, everything accelerated. It all seemed so fragile, all the walls cracked and anything was possible. The Oct. 7 seismic attack shook the entire region. Despite its power, the shockwave was not instantaneous. But the more the weeks went by, the stronger the waves became, and the more we realized just how aptly named al-Aqsa Flood Operation was.For months, Oct.7 represented a symbolic — but not strategic — rupture for the Middle East. There was no revival of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Nor was there any reassessment of the warm (United Arab Emirates, Morocco) or cold (Egypt, Jordan) peace agreements with Israel. The main strategic issue was the survival or otherwise of Hamas in the Palestinian enclave, and the diplomatic isolation Tel Aviv was prepared to endure to achieve its ends. Then, on April...