The term, “The New Middle East” was used by Shimon Peres in his eponymous book written during the optimistic aftermath of the 1993 Oslo Accords. Peres foresaw a reconstructed Middle East, including Israel, free of past conflicts and experiencing a social and economic revival.

Ely Karmon is senior research scholar at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism and the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), a highly regarded college in Herzliya, Israel. Karmon has a differing view of the future in the region, which he described in a recent Jerusalem Post article: “A devil’s advocate view of the ‘new’ Middle East.” (June 23, 2011)

Karmon wrote: If Islamist movements take power in major Arab states, we could witness the emergence of a Sunni Middle Eastern bloc dominated by Turkey – a strong Muslim revisionist state at the edge of Europe with aspirations to extend its influence toward the West. Indeed, in the aftermath of his comfortable election on June 12, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan boastfully made an Islamist and Ottoman-tinted declaration: “ Believe me, Sarajevo won today as much as Istanbul, Beirut won as much as Izmir, Damascus won as much as Ankara, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, the West Bank, Jerusalem won as much as Diyarbakir.”

According to this scenario, the Sunni bloc led by Turkey will sooner or later challenge the Shi’ite regime in Iran, and will probably try to expand its influence among the Sunni majority in Syria and the Sunni community in Lebanon. [Sunnis make up the vast majority of Muslims and rule most Arab countries. Shiites are the majority in Iran. The two sects have been battling each other since the 7th century.]

Prime Minister Erdogan, head of the AKP party, recently won reelection for his third term as Turkey’s leader. He is leading the change away from the old regime, which ruled Turkey since Kemal Ataturk (the “Father of Turkey”) overturned religious Ottoman leadership after WWI and replaced it with a modern secular republic. The Ottomans had ruled southwest Asia, northeast Africa, and southeast Europe for centuries, including 400 years of rule over Palestine. Non-Arab Turkey, a member of NATO, has looked to the south and east under Erdogan and is striving to regain hegemony over the Arab nations, as a necessary step towards westward expansion.

Turkey’s main rival for hegemony over the Arabs is Iran, another non-Arab country. The ancient Persian Empire controlled all of the Middle East until it was defeated by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE. Persia also briefly ruled Arab areas in more recent times, before the Ottoman conquest.

Karmon wrote: A major victory by the Muslim Brotherhood in the [upcoming]September Egyptian elections could convince it to work for the revival of Egypt’s regional hegemony, to become itself the Islamist leader of the Sunni Arab world, and not accept Turkish patronage and the neo-Ottoman vision of theAKP.

Egypt, the largest Arab country, is another candidate for leadership of the Arabs, further complicating the future of the Middle East. The Muslim Brotherhood has branches in more than 70 countries and will likely pull the strings in Egypt.

Karmon wrote: The U. N. recognition of a Palestinian state could have much broader worldwide consequences. Other minorities in the Middle East and beyond – Kurds in Turkey, Syria, Iran; Balouchis in Iran and Pakistan; peoples of the Caucasus; Tibetans and Uyghurs in China; Kashmiris in India – who have fought for independence or autonomy for decades, and in many cases represent populations much more numerous than the Palestinians, could decide to intensify their struggle.

If Palestine makes major gains in September at the United Nations, permanent Security Council members China and Russia will be agitated about minorities in their respective countries seeking independence. Other countries may also recognize that elevating the status of the Palestinians could encourage disruptions by the minorities in their countries.

Karmon wrote: Turkey’s main security worry is that chaos in northwest Syria could allow Kurdish militants to use the region as a base against it. Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned Kurdish PKK leader, threatened that after June 15, “... either there will be an historic agreement, or an all out war will develop and it will lead to chaos and turmoil. A wholesale people’s war may develop.” If a people’s war develops, it may even result in a civil war. According to a recent analysis by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the vast majority of Iraqi Kurds believe that if the U.S. military presence in Iraq is not extended, “a major Kurdish-Arab conflict will be inevitable.” If relations between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government falter, it claims,” Iraq may devolve into another Arab state at war with its ethnic minorities.”

Independence for the Kurds, 24 million strong in Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq, would be vigorously fought by all four host countries. (There is already an unofficial “Kurdistan” indicated on some maps.) The fight for Kurdish independence is a continuing irritant for the established Middle Eastern countries that host them. In Turkey, since the beginning of the uprising in 1978, 35,000 Kurds have been killed, 4,000 villages have been destroyed, and between 380,000 and 1,000,000 Kurdish villagers have been forcibly evacuated from their homes.

Taking Karmon’s analysis into account, and a similar one by Bar Ilan lecturer Mordecai Kedar, the entire Middle East region could be rent by disputes over independence for minorities, a can of worms that countries will try to avoid.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not the driving force for the “Arab Spring.” As Ely Karmon’s article illustrates, the map of the Middle East could change radically in many Arab countries. Therefore, it’s better not to fixate on what the Palestinians will or will not do, but to concentrate on what Israel’s priorities are.

Stephen Kramer, is the Author of “ Encountering Israel – Geography, History, Culture” Check it out: www.encounteringisrael.com