Arab propaganda has always parroted the mantra that the Zionists, in conjunction with the United States, are trying to splinter and divide Arab states in order to take control of Middle Eastern treasures, and today, too, we can see opinion pieces in the Arab press accusing Israel of this conspiracy. In an ironic twist of fate, however, in recent years the Arabs have triggered their own fragmentation, which one can assume will eventually result in some of these states being divided and new entities emerging in our region. The Middle East is on the verge of looking very different, and it will look different for a long time to come. One of the consequences of the Arab Spring is that it exacerbated the schism in Arab society, expanded the rift between religious and secular, between nationalists and traditionalists, and certainly between Sunnis and Shiites. The struggles that have arisen from the ongoing conflicts in several states will ultimately -- according to estimates from experts in the Arab world and the discernible mood among Arab bloggers and media pundits -- lead to their division. Although it goes without saying, these are merely projections. We already know, however, that the Middle East has become a fascinating riddle, whereby trying to guess what will happen to it is fascinating on its own. Let's begin with Egypt: The overthrow of former President Mohammed Morsi led to a totalitarian government and power struggles between the Muslim Brotherhood and the establishment, underscored by the continuous trampling of minorities there, such as the Copts (Christians), innocent bystanders paying the price of racism and hatred. Based on the current picture, it appears that big changes will occur in Egypt. Today, with the encouragement of the Egyptian establishment, a process of negative migration is taking place, a transfer in every sense, of ethnic Egyptian descendants from the Sinai Peninsula into Egypt proper. In Sinai there is no semblance of a sovereign state, only military zones. Two entities hold sway there: The Sinai Province and supporters of Ansar Beit al-Maqdis. Egypt has apparently given up on the idea of Sinai being used for the Palestinians. The Copts will undergo a transfer to the Matrouh area in the country's northwest, where many Christians are already buying up lands. Libya, too, will likely be partitioned, into three entities: The supporters of the Feb. 17 revolution, who fought former dictator Moammar Gadhafi, will control the west; the east will be controlled by Gen. Khalifa Haftar, who is fighting the radical Islamists; and the dozens of Bedouin tribes will control the south, where a tribal country will be formed. Lebanon is essentially partitioned already, as well as paralyzed. The Iranians, with Hezbollah's support, are not allowing a Maronite Christian to be elected president and win the people's consensus. The way things are trending, the south will belong to Hezbollah; the Druze, will control their own lives in the mountainous region, which they have done now for hundreds of years; the Christians will hold the swathe of territory stretching from east of Beirut to Tripoli; while Tripoli and many parts of the capital Beirut will be controlled by the Sunnis. In Syria, the Alawites and their Shiite supporters will establish their state along the Tartus coastal plain; the Sunnis will receive and make a state in the Aleppo region; and in the north in the Qamishli region a Kurdish entity will arise, which will link politically and geographically to the republic of Kurdistan. Following the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime and the American withdrawal from Iraq, the power struggle between the Sunnis and Shiites, backed by Iran, erupted in full force. As stated, in the north of the country, in the Kurdistan region -- Irbil -- the Kurdish state will be established. In the south, in the Basra region, a Shiite state will be formed; while the Sunnis will receive the capital Baghdad, Mosul and Fallujah. The countries that have already been partitioned, either long ago or recently, are Sudan and Yemen. In Sudan's south, the Republic of South Sudan was formed with the city of Juba as its capital; the north remains in the hands of Omar al-Bashir; and there is now talk of a third state being established in the Darfur region. Yemen had been partitioned for decades but was reunified in 1990. Today, after the failed revolution there, the Iranian-backed Houthis have exploited the political void to create a Shiite Yemeni entity in the country's south. As for the Sunnis, they will remain in the north, close to their neighbor Saudi Arabia, which supported the Yemeni government's fight against the Houthis. This is not how we imagined the Middle East would look 20 years ago. The reality of the situations illustrates how stability is a foreign concept to the Middle East, and that no one knows how events will unfold. Dr. Edy Cohen is a research fellow at Bar-Ilan University.
The partitioning of the Middle East
מערכת ישראל היום
מערכת "ישראל היום“ מפיקה ומעדכנת תכנים חדשותיים, מבזקים ופרשנויות לאורך כל שעות היממה. התוכן נערך בקפדנות, נבדק עובדתית ומוגש לציבור מתוך האמונה שהקוראים ראויים לעיתונות טובה יותר - אמינה, אובייקטיבית ועניינית.
