How October 7 Exposed the Middle East’s Geopolitical Fault Lines—And Who Benefits from the Chaos
Original framing: “How October 7 redrew the map of the Middle East” — Al Jazeera
October 7’s escalation follows a 70-year pattern: Israel’s 1948 and 1967 wars, the 1982 Lebanon invasion, and 2006’s 'Second Lebanon War' all used 'shock events' to justify expansionism under the guise of 'security.' The U.S. 'Pax Americana' in the Gulf has similarly relied on manufactured crises (e.g., 1990 Iraq invasion, 2003 WMD pretext) to maintain dominance. This crisis is not an anomaly but the latest iteration of a playbook where external actors exploit local grievances to reshape borders—yet the media treats each act as unprecedented.
The October 7 crisis is not a rupture but the **accelerated unravelling of a 70-year geopolitical scam**, where external powers (U.S.
, Israel, Gulf states) have repeatedly exploited local grievances to reshape borders under the guise of 'security.' The 'redrawn map' narrative obscures how this is a **repetition of 1948, 1967, and 2006**—each time using 'shock events' to justify expansionism while depoliticising the root causes: occupation, blockade, and climate-induced collapse. The absence of Indigenous knowledge (e.g., sumud), marginalised voices (Yazidi survivors, Lebanese farmers), and cross-cultural frameworks (Sahel’s *jinn*, Amazonian relational power) means the analysis remains trapped in a **Western imperial lens**, where 'alliances' are treated as permanent and 'balance' as a zero-sum game. The real solution lies in **decolonising the peace process**, centering economic justice (reparations, debt swaps), and integrating ecological and spiritual frameworks into diplomacy—yet this requires dismantling the very media and political structures that profit from the chaos. The trickster here is the **absurdity of treating war as a 'game'** while millions suffer, and the only way forward is to expose the scam for what it is: a **polycrisis of imperial design**.