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Implications of the Israel-Palestine conflict for Bangladesh
Michael Kugelman
is director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC.
The Israel-Hamas war, now in its third week, broke out at a time when global geopolitics were already caught amid multiple black swans – a term famously coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb referring to wholly unseen events with massive ripple effects.
Due to the prevailing conflict in the Middle East of recent decades, this new war is not a total shock. But it is still difficult to grapple with Israel’s massive intelligence failure, the horrific scale of Hamas’ terrorism on October 7, the uncompromisingly brutal Israeli retaliation and, above all, the immense human toll.
Many countries will be affected, even if indirectly, by the war. There will be economic implications, especially global oil price spikes and impacts on energy trade. There will be security implications, from terrorism threats to public unrest sparked by large protests.
The jury is still out on the conflict’s geopolitical impacts, but so far this much is true: Washington – and many of its allies and partners – won’t be advantaged by a long war. The conflict has upended a new US vision of the Middle East, which revolves around a region that becomes a locus for trade, connectivity, and infrastructure development with deeper links to Europe and South Asia. Washington wants to operationalise that vision by stitching together new integrative mechanisms – from the India-Israel-UAE-US quad to the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor.
These initiatives require stability and cooperation to succeed. The war delivers a tragic reminder that both remain elusive.
It has diverted Washington’s attention away from the Indo-Pacific and prompted the Biden administration to strengthen its force posture in the Mideast. This shift may rekindle longstanding doubts in many Indo-Pacific capitals about Washington’s true commitment to a rebalanced region – and risks undermining recent progress towards the implementation of a US Indo-Pacific strategy.
On the other hand, with Washington and many of its European and Asian allies focused laser-like on the conflict, Moscow and Beijing will have opportunities to test a distracted Washington in Ukraine, or in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, respectively. Meanwhile, Iran benefits because the war ends any immediate chances of new normalisation agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbours linked to the Abraham Accords, which Tehran has long rejected.
US competitors can further exploit the rage that has erupted against the nation in the Middle East and beyond regarding Washington’s firm backing of Israel’s pursuit of war, despite Israel’s brutal tactics against Palestinian civilians. They can point to this as another egregious case of the US failing to uphold its oft-stated intention to champion moral causes abroad.
All this said, the war has generated far more solidarity among Western capitals than has been the case with their reactions to the provocations of Russia or China. Many of them still depend on energy imports from Moscow and broader trade with Beijing.
The fact that India has embraced the West’s position helps the West. New Delhi will further strengthen a relationship with Israel, which has been expanding for years, especially during Narendra Modi’s regime.
Elsewhere in the Global South (and, to be sure, among large portions of the public in the West), reactions to the war have focused more on the plight of the Palestinians, the need for a cease-fire, and the imperative of a Palestinian state. These reactions are driven by various factors, depending on the country, such as a preference to side with the perceived strongest moral position; a lack of formal ties with Israel; deep historical links to the Palestinians, especially through the Non-Aligned Movement; and, in the Global South’s many nonaligned capitals, a desire to avoid taking a position espoused by many within the Western alliance system.
Consequently, the war could deepen policy divides not only between the West and the Muslim world, but also between the West and the Global South. The latter schism is already considerable, due to triggers ranging from climate change mitigation financing to patent rights for pharmaceuticals.
Where does this all leave Bangladesh? Dhaka has emphasised the need for an “urgent ceasefire” and co-sponsored an ultimately unsuccessful UN Security Council resolution calling for an end to hostilities. Like so many countries, Bangladesh gains little from a long war, especially because of the deleterious economic implications – and these will become even more serious if it expands into a regional conflict. Bangladesh relies heavily on oil from the Gulf, and the Middle East is a key destination for its textile exports. The country’s central bank data from earlier this year showed that two thirds of Bangladesh out-migration was to the Middle East, and that the Gulf region accounted for, by far, the largest source of remittances to Bangladesh.
Another ominous development for Dhaka is that the war is intensifying great power rivalry. Russia and China have thrown their support behind the Palestinians (even though both still have cordial relations with Israel). This will also bring them closer to Iran – another US rival. Washington and New Delhi are seemingly lining up on one side of the conflict, and Beijing and Moscow on the other. This new fault line means geopolitical competition will grow even fiercer, exacerbating Bangladesh’s challenge of balancing its relations with all four countries.
With Washington focused intently on the war, and also facing allegations of moral hypocrisy for failing to object to Israel’s brutalities – some experts calling them war crimes – against Palestinians, Dhaka might have hoped it would get a respite from the Biden administration’s relentless pressure campaign on rights and democracy in Bangladesh. But it wasn’t meant to be. Last week, a senior US official, Afreen Akhter, visited Dhaka and reiterated longstanding US messaging about the importance of free and fair elections.
Clearly, even amid the war and so much global churn, some things have remained the same. That includes Washington’s ongoing efforts to make Bangladesh a core focus of its values-based foreign policy.