The year is drawing to a close with the Western camp in a worse state than when it began. The gulf between words and action when it comes to Ukraine, which the West claims is a priority without following this up accordingly, is at the heart of the issue.

But its unwavering support of Israel's most radical administration to date, in the wake of the brutal killing of Israeli citizens by Hamas on October 7, has also significantly diminished its credibility. Those involved will struggle to regain trust after turning a blind eye to the indiscriminate bombing of innocent Palestinian civilians under the guise of eliminating the Islamist movement.

While it’s important to question the variable geometry principles of the Western camp, we must also ensure that it doesn’t turn into a systematic approach. Specifically, it cannot be allowed to mask a genuine Arab breakdown, a silence that is becoming all the more embarrassing as it continues. The only benefit of this is to confirm the pointlessness of the Arab League, which has transformed into a League of Nations that has neglected to anticipate its demise.

Once a dominant regional force, Egypt now finds itself weakened and unable to exert its influence on neighboring countries such as Libya and Sudan. Syria, like other once stable nations, has been unable to recover after a decade of civil war.

Design flaw

The Arabian Peninsula solidified its position as the new hub of the Arab world with the historic diplomatic milestone of 2020: the Abraham Accords. This groundbreaking agreement normalized diplomatic ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Bahrain and, later, Morocco. The establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which is the final and most important action, has been put on hold due to the war between Israel and Hamas.

The design flaw in these normalizations was brought to light in the violence of the last few months, which has revealed the neglect of the Palestinian question, always a central issue for the Arab world. The peace initiative launched by Saudi regent Abdullah Ben Abdel Aziz Al Saud in 2002 offered Israel, which has never responded to it with anything other than contempt, comprehensive normalization with the countries of the region in exchange for the creation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders of Gaza and the West Bank.

The two most influential leaders of the Arabian peninsula, Emirati Mohammed Ben Zayed and Saudi Mohammed Ben Salman, have successfully demonstrated their ability to adapt to the world's new imbalances through dialogue with the West, Beijing and Moscow. This was abundantly clear through the pomp and circumstance surrounding Vladimir Putin's visit to their countries in early December. Faced with the ongoing destruction of Gaza, the inaction of these two new members of the BRICS alliance, an element of the Global South that is willingly opposed to the Western camp, is all the more incomprehensible.

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