Mid-East order lost, says Israeli air chief

“THE old order of the Middle East has gone, ” says the commander in chief until recently of the Israeli air force.

Major General Ido Nehushtan, who until recently was commander of Israel’s air force, has been telling counterparts in Australia that “the old order of the Middle East has gone”.

The post-1916 lines and borders, when the region was divided into areas of influence for Britain, France and some lesser powers, were falling apart, he said. “This is not just another change, but a fundamental change. The old struggle between Israel and Palestinians is no longer at the centre,” said the guest of the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne.

“In our region, each country is undergoing a process of change in its own way.”

The Arab Spring had turned, he said, into a succession of long winters, even though it began in December 2010 as “an authentic wave that caught in the Middle East like a fire”.

The result, he said, was four big forces in the region: the old bloc of monarchist countries such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan; the Shia countries led by Iran; the regimes that had emerged from the Arab Spring, including in ­Tunisia, Libya and Yemen; and the new player — global jihad, “more like a wind”.

No one saw these changes coming, he said, not even the ­national intelligence agencies. “We don’t yet know what the new region looks like, except that the big winner so far is ­political Islam, which is driven by ideology.”

The weakening of governments had caused multiple side-effects, General Nehushtan said. “This includes the creation of unstable frontier zones. The Sinai, which is also one of the most beautiful places on Earth, is now one. It is heavily infiltrated by global jihad terrorists.”

As for Iran, if it went nuclear, it might not be the last, General Nehushtan said. “Other countries would be petrified and might follow. And the nuclear culture, with its negative impact, isn’t about using the bomb, it’s about ­possessing it.”

One of Israel’s main challenges was to fight terrorism, “and that is very tricky. No city in Israel has avoided being hit by rockets. We raise children and grandchildren with warnings to go to shelters. It’s not a pleasant way to live.”