Israel won that war and at least 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from the new Israel and became refugees in surrounding and other countries. That enforced diaspora, including their descendants, now approximately 6 million registered refugees plus a further 2.5 million unregistered.

Of the Palestinians who remained in Israel, and their descendants, approximately 2 million live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, with a further 2.3 million in Gaza. Some Palestinians in the West Bank have Israeli citizenship while the majority have residency papers. Although many areas are officially designated as under administration by the independent Palestinian Authority, , the entire West Bank is under Israeli military law.

Israel also won subsequent wars declared by a variety of Arab neighbors, in 1956, 1967 and 1973. Territorial gains for Israel included: part of Golan Heights (from Syria), part of Sinai (from Egypt, returned in a peace accord), Gaza (from Egypt, relinquished to autonomous Palestinian administration in another peace accord), and the West Bank and East Jerusalem (from Jordan).

In September 2024, the UN General Assembly a resolution condemning Israel’s continued occupation of Palestine and demanding it cease and desist. However, given Israel’s notorious decades-old contempt for the United Nations, and its ultimate rejection of all previous resolutions and internationally brokered attempts to secure Palestinian rights and nationhood (examples include the 1947 UN Resolution 181 (II), the 1993 and 1995 , and the ), it is highly unlikely that Israel will comply.

Over two decades, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never been more than equivocal about a two-state solution. Since 2015, he has rejected the idea and since 2023 has outright rejected any possibility of Palestinian statehood at all. By June 2024, despite Israel’s best efforts to deny Palestinians any claim to statehood, 146 out of the 193 nations of the UN had recognized Palestine as an independent state.

Intermittent Israeli military attacks and temporary occupation of large parts of Lebanon have also occurred on numerous occasions over decades. Many feared that the latest, from October 1 to November 26, 2024, ostensibly to eradicate Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel, was also a “dry run” for an indefinite annexation of the southern half, if not the whole, of Lebanon.

Israel’s response to Hamas terror attack of October 7, 2023

Hamas’s savage cross-border terror attack from inside Gaza on Israeli settlements on October 7, 2023 inevitably provoked a justifiable Israeli military response. Israel sought to capture or kill the perpetrators, and then to eliminate the terrorist organization. Varying official estimates from different sources that at least 1,139 were killed by the October 7 attack, plus some 3,400 wounded and 251 (75% Israelis) captured and taken into Gaza. Of those and held as hostages, many have been confirmed dead, 105 were released by negotiation, and 2 were released by Israeli special forces, leaving 97 plus 4 others from earlier Hamas abductions currently still in captivity.Ěý

Israel’s steadfast rejection over decades of a two-state solution, coupled with its demonstrable disregard for mass civilian casualties in its war on Gaza since October 7, 2023, has perplexed and infuriated long-standing allies of Israel. The gross disproportionality of the Gazan casualty numbers and the fanatical destruction of almost all infrastructure belie Israel’s stated objectives and strongly suggest a deliberate mass punishment of the population, contrary to the laws of war. Israel rejects this evaluation.

However, the initial “search and destroy” Israeli mission to eradicate an estimated 30,000 armed Hamas operatives quickly turned into what looked like an indiscriminate assault against the entire population, using sophisticated weaponry and brutal tactics to destroy entire neighborhoods and life sustainability. That relentless daily assault has gone on for over a year, with no sign that the Israelis intend to stop. By mid-November 2024, over 43,000 Gazans ( some 11,500 women and 16,800 children) had been killed, according to their identity and death certificates held by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, plus at least 10,000 missing, presumed dead under rubble, and over 103,000 wounded. The UN Human Rights report of November 2024 that 70% of deaths have been women and children.

Over the past 12 months, the Israelis have been of systematically blocking food, medical and other humanitarian supplies, carrying out targeted daily bombardment of hospitals, schools, residential areas, food depots and refugee camps (including so-called “safe places” designated by the Israelis themselves), and conducting repetitive enforced mass displacements of the population throughout Gaza. By the end of May 2024, the UN officially estimated that 1.7 million (or 75%) of the Gazan population had been internally displaced. That estimate had to 1.9 million (or 90% of the population) by early September 2024.Ěý

In late October 2024, UN and WHO chiefs that “the entire population of north Gaza” was now at serious risk of death from starvation, privation and lack of health care, and castigated Israel’s “blatant disregard for basic humanity and the laws of war.” In May 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s recent in Gaza was not genocidal (proto rather than actually achieved so far), but did state, quoting the Genocide Convention, that Israel “must immediately halt its military offensive” and warned against harming civilians. The International Criminal Court (ICC) followed this by seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity. These cast Israel’s political leaders and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as culpable villains. The arrest warrants were issued on November 21, 2024.

The Nation-State Law and land grabs

There are multiple well-documented of violent attacks and against Palestinians and other (for example, Armenians) in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem by so-called “Israeli .” These reflect the apparent determination of Netanyahu’s government and the judiciary to sanctify de facto ethnic cleansing and accelerate the practical of Israel’s 2018 . The latter stipulates that Israel is a Jewish state in which only Jews have full rights. Article 7 specifically prioritizes Jewish settlements as “a national value” and for which the state will “act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation,” i.e. ethno-religious segregation and usurpation of non-Jewish land as the desirable norm.

By mid-2024, some 380,000 Israeli settlers had already occupied Palestinian land in the and East Jerusalem, with a 500,000 planned for the short term by Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who that Palestinians are a nation or have ever had land rights. Former Israeli generals are a similar plan for a settler takeover of Gaza after the Palestinian population has finally been removed.

More recently, Article 7 intent has been pursued through a new Israeli law the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) from operating inside Israel, including Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel accused UNRWA of being infested with Hamas agents. Apart from removing the majority of international aid that would normally barely keep the Palestinian population fed, medicated and educated, the new law also has the effect of falsely declassifying Palestinians as UN refugees and removing any Israeli judicial recognition of their prior title rights to land the Israelis confiscated.Ěý

Self-defense or neo-imperialism?

There is no question that Israel is surrounded by states that, to varying degrees, are hostile. Some of them also harbor anti-Israeli extremists who have engaged in terrorist attacks, both cross-border and inside Israel. The Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, and the ongoing rocket barrages from Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon into Israel are high-profile examples. Some of these extremists call for the total annihilation of Israel and all Jews. The majority of neighboring Arab and Muslim states have, however, opted for a more “tolerated difference” approach whereby a modus vivendi has emerged, such as Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, UAE, Dubai, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and even Lebanon. Others, such as Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen, have not.

In such a historically hostile and turbulent context, Israel has created an extensive, sophisticated and multi-faceted “fortress” to prevent, deter or neutralize any kind or scale of attack from any source, external or internal. Israel’s population is minuscule compared to hostile states in total and, even if including its full citizen reservist capacity, its numbers of military personnel are dwarfed by theirs. Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that Israel’s weapon systems, firepower, electronic warfare capacity, sophisticated electronic surveillance and intelligence systems, espionage agencies, motivation and training are vastly superior.

With Israel’s small population and modest GDP, all this has only been possible as a result of decades of financial, political and defense systems support from the United States. According to Reuters (September 26, 2024), scheduled US military aid over the next 10 years to Israel comprises $35 billion for essential wartime defense plus a further $52 billion for air defense systems, At an annual average of $8.7 billion, the US aid to Palestinians pales in comparison, at a mere $300 million.

Many independent observers have become increasingly reluctant to accept Israel’s stated justifications for its relentless response to the October 7 massacre. Their Gaza campaign, Lebanon campaign and violent from non-Jews in the West Bank no longer appear to be just about Israel’s “right to exist,” “right to self-defense,” and “right to pursue implacable and murderous enemies.” The daily video footage of mass civilian carnage in the immediate aftermath of Israeli bombardments of all kinds in Gaza contradicts Israeli official denials.

Beyond Israel’s stated military objectives, the elephant in the room now exposed is that the Gaza campaign also appears to be part of an aggressive nationalist territorial expansion project (or land grab), involving cleansing the ground of all opposition (actual and potential), as well as Palestinian population masses and infrastructure. Israel’s apparent ulterior motives in Gaza surface in the following examples:

Extra land and commercial development

Groups of settlers have been setting up along the Israeli side of the Gaza border, waiting for the IDF to confirm that it is safe for them to cross over and mark out their desired settlements. These settlers firmly believe that God, through a proclamation of Abraham, granted all Jews the unchallengeable jus divinum right to exclusively occupy the “whole land” of Israel. They assert that it stretches from the west bank of the River Nile in Egypt to the Euphrates in Iraq, as implied in the Bible (as in Genesis 15:18-21) and other ancient tracts.

A separate style of land grab in Gaza involves Israeli property developers, some of whom appear to have already moved in. Such developers are offering Israelis beachfront, new-build properties on Palestinian land, which employees wearing IDF military reservist apparel are now clearing of war-damaged, abandoned homes. According to one developer’s own , its employees are already erecting these new buildings.

Lawyers point out that all such land grabs are in of international law and may also constitute a war crime. In all such citizen actions, the Israeli perpetrators believe that, in addition to the claim of jus divinum, they can also now rely on Article 7 of the Nation-State Law 2018 to legitimize their conduct.

The Ben Gurion Canal Project

Originating in the 1960s, the Ben Gurion Canal centered on a plan to cut a deep-water canal from the Mediterranean, from Ashkelon near Gaza, into and across Israel and down to the port of Eilat and access to the Red Sea. This canal would thus bypass the Suez Canal and greatly reduce international shipping’s reliance on it. The plan’s bold vision might well have transformed Israel’s economy, but for some 50 years, it remained dormant, primarily because its unilateral implementation and annexation of Palestinian land would doubtless have inflamed the Arab world, rendered the canal vulnerable to Hamas attacks and sabotage, and probably provoked war again.

Over the past 20 years however, with the inexorable rise of militant ultra-Zionist groups in Israel and their increasing influence on government, serious discussion of the Canal Project has restarted. Some right-wing interests in Israel are now advocating that the route of the canal should go directly through central Gaza. The suspicion is that under the current wartime regime of Netanyahu, with several aggressive ultra-Zionists in his Cabinet, the Gaza campaign provides an ideal to clear central Gaza of all Palestinians under the guise of military necessity. This may partly explain the IDF’s extensive scorched earth actions in Gaza.

The “whole land” justification and its scope

Both the Ben Gurion Canal project and the annexation of Gaza for Israel’s economic growth are consistent with the Greater Israel concept and its operationalization as it has evolved over a century or more. Numerous papers and articles on the subject of annexation of Palestinian land, Greater Israel and “the whole land” have appeared over the past twenty years, for example: The Guardian (), the , Migration Policy (), The Week ().

Recent independent research (MEPEI ) notes that the acknowledged founder of Zionism in the 19th century, Theodor Herzl, recorded in his own diaries that Eretz Yisrael included not only the traditional Jewish areas within Palestine but also the Sinai, Egyptian Palestine, and Cyprus, with the totality stretching from “the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates”.

This view is rooted in a dogmatic belief that around 2000 BC, Abraham declared that God had revealed to him that he had granted him and all his descendants the exclusive right to the “whole land” of Israel, as later loosely defined in various verses of the Book of Genesis in the Bible, the Judaic Torah and other related ancient tracts. of the claimed Greater Israel show it encompassing not only the territories cited above, but also approximately 30% of Egypt, most of Iraq, a large area of Saudi Arabia, the whole of Kuwait (1,300 kilometers from Tel Aviv), Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, and parts of southern Turkey.

As noted above, Herzl clearly an extended geographical scope for the “whole land,” once a national Jewish homeland had been secured in Palestine. However, in his overtures to and negotiations with European leaders to seek support, such a subsequent “ultimate phase” appears to have gone unmentioned. The proposed homeland was presented as a benign, multi-ethnic, multi-religious polity with equal rights for all and in which none of the rights of the pre-existing Palestinians would be jeopardized.

Herzl’s colleague Chaim Weizmann very effectively championed the Zionist movement, before and after Herzl’s death in 1904. He successfully persuaded Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary during the onset of the British Mandate, to support the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. The shortĚýBalfour DeclarationĚýcrucially : “It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” Clearly, a coach-and-horses have been driven through that “understanding” long ago.

The erudite paper by Professor Chaim Gans in 2007 on historical rights to the “Land of Israel” between historical rights and sovereignty, rights and “taking account of,” and between the concept and geography of the “whole land.” Others have argued that the “whole land” was always a spiritual concept that was never meant to be interpreted literally in objective, geographical terms.

Gans further notes the self-defining and self-serving nature of ultra-Zionists’ arguments, which are “valid only for those who believe them” and observes that “…they do not make the slightest attempt to provide moral or universally valid arguments, only reinforcing the prejudices of the already persuaded.” He continues that one nation’s extreme quest for self-determination may expunge another’s legitimate quest and may involve a criminal land grab. The jus divinum justification for wholesale repression, land grabs, massacres and expulsions presents as being holy, righteous and praiseworthy. However, many regard it as a primitive expression of assumed a priori ethno-religious superiority and selfish entitlement at the expense of “the others.”

Neo-imperialist motives?

Why is Israel’s Gaza campaign against an enemy that is vastly inferior in all respects (now extended to its Lebanon campaign) so relentless and ruthless over such a long period and over so much foreign territory? Why is their firepower targeted so heavily on the civilian population and civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals, schools, food supplies and utilities? 

The official Israeli justification is military necessity in the face of terror attacks. Yet, far-right Israeli cabinet ministers, such as , , Avigdor Lieberman and Amihai Eliyahu, have been pushing extreme nationalist Zionist justifications and policies way beyond national defense. On January 3, 2023, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich publiclyĚýĚýtheir desire to expel Palestinians from Gaza.ĚýThe Times of IsraelĚý the policies and stance of the ultra-Zionist Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, to which Ben-Gvir and Eliyahu belong, as “neo-fascist.”Ěý

Cabinet Minister Ben-Gvir, leader of the Otzma Yehudit Party, joined other senior far-right politicians from the Religious Zionism Party and the Likud Party at a Preparing to Settle Gaza Conference on October 21, 2024. While there, he that the Palestinian population of Gaza should be “encouraged” to leave Gaza forever. Likud MP May Golan opined that “taking territory” and re-establishing Jewish settlements in Gaza would be a lesson that “the Arabs” would never forget. The conference organizer Daniella Weiss advocated an ethnic cleansing of Gaza since the Palestinians had “lost their right to live” there. Weiss’s Nachala organization claimed so far to have already marshaled 700 settler families prepared to move into Gaza once the Palestinians had been removed.

Eliyahu in an interview on November 5, 2023, that Israel should take back control of Gaza and move in Israeli settlers, a position he has since repeated, and said that the Palestinian population “can go to Ireland or deserts…the monsters in Gaza should find a solution themselves.” Asked if Israel should drop aĚýnuclear bombĚýon Gaza to flatten it and kill all the inhabitants, he , “That is one of the options.” He further stated in January 2024 that the entire Palestinian population of Gaza (not just the Hamas militants) should be to painful retribution as a means to break their morale and destroy any thoughts of independence.

Nations threatened by the Greater Israel plan

Few citizens of the nine sovereign nations (excluding Palestine) are aware of the predatory threat of Israeli annexation. These nations include:

Syria

Although a frontline Arab state that fought Israel in the 1948, 1967 and 1973 wars, Syria has tried to avoid any major confrontation with Israel for some years. Since 2011, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad had been largely preoccupied with a bloody civil war against pro-democracy groups, as well as an Islamic State (ISIS) insurgency from 2013 to 2017. Israel captured two-thirds of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war and it remains an occupied territory that is a de facto annexation by Israel. Since October 2024, Israel has launched a series of air strikes on Syria and reports of the IDF creating a fortified buffer zone within the separation corridor between the Israeli and Syrian-held areas of the Golan Heights.Ěý

The sudden overthrow of the Assad regime in early December 2024 by a variety of Syrian opposition forces, led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, great uncertainty over Syria’s future governance and national security. The interim government has made clear that foreign military forces and their proxies in Syria must leave.Ěý

Russia, Iran and Hezbollah appear to be complying, but the US and Israeli compliance intentions are unclear. Israel has, however, taken the opportunity to pre-emptively much of Syria’s naval fleet and air force assets, and bomb military targets in and around the capital Damascus. IDF forces have also crossed the Golan Heights buffer zone and some 25 kilometers from Damascus to create a “sterile defense zone.” How temporary or limited this incursion will be remains to be seen.

The whole of Syria is marked on the Greater Israel map as being part of Eretz Yisrael.

Lebanon

In addition to its ongoing Gaza campaign, Israel opened up a new war front in Lebanon in October 2024 against Hezbollah. The military tactics employed by Israel during this invasion of Lebanon, including seemingly indiscriminate bombardment of Beirut and other population centers and short notice mass evacuation orders to hundreds of thousands of civilians, all the of their Gaza campaign. Despite a ceasefire agreed on November 26, 2024, is the Israeli seek-and-destroy self-defense operation against terror groups masking a much bigger long-term objective of depopulating much, if not all, of Lebanon so as to facilitate its annexation into Greater Israel? The whole of Lebanon is also marked on the Greater Israel map as being part of Eretz Yisrael.

Cyprus

Since the Republic of Cyprus was formed in 1960, it has had a cordial relationship with Israel. The two countries share common interests in many matters. Israeli tourists and wedding parties are common sights in the southern Greek Cypriot-controlled area where I lived for many years. Greek Cypriot police officers often receive training in Israel. Israeli gamblers frequent the numerous casinos in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).

In the past few years, both the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot areas have also enjoyed an influx of investment by mainland Turks, Russians, Lebanese, Iranians, Gulf Arabs and Israelis. In the Turkish Cypriot northern third of the island, Israeli investors have become predominant, especially large property developers and entrepreneurs attracted by the real estate boom. The TRNC has welcomed foreign direct investment with few restrictions and relaxed anti-money laundering controls. However, such investment has caused property price inflation to such an extent that ordinary Turkish Cypriots can no longer afford to buy even a modest home. Such economic distortion has resulted in the TRNC administration legislation in September 2024 to restrict residential property purchases to TRNC and Turkish citizens only and to one per person.

Turkish Cypriots are also concerned that Israeli investors and landowners are becoming so in the TRNC economy that there is a risk that some of them are, or could become, fifth-columnist agents for the Israeli government against Turkish Cypriot interests. Such concern received added piquancy when, in October 2024, President Erdogan of Turkey (TRNC’s political and financial guarantor) issued a stark warning about Israel’s alleged Greater Israel territorial ambitions against Turkey.

Israeli investment in the Greek Cypriot controlled southern Cyprus has seen involvement of fewer large Israeli property developers and entrepreneurs than in the TRNC area. This may reflect the much tighter EU regulation and anti-money laundering controls in the south. Smaller Israeli operators are in evidence in the south, plus a large number of individuals buying a property for their own use (such as a holiday home). Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack in Israel, the number of individual Israelis and families buying or long-term renting properties in the south has rocketed, presumably as an “insurance” bolt-hole in case things go badly in Israel. Affluent Lebanese have also flooded the Greek Cypriot property market to escape the Israeli military onslaught.

As in the TRNC area, the rapid influx of large numbers of Israelis in 2024 has distorted the property market in the Greek Cypriot south to the extent that ordinary citizens can no longer afford to buy and traditional tourists from northern Europe can no longer easily find holiday properties to rent. However, unlike the TRNC administration, the Republic government in the south has yet to take any action on this.

Although Herzl included Cyprus as a potential Jewish homeland in his original scope of Greater Israel, he later dropped it in favor of Palestine. However, some ultra-Zionists today still regard Cyprus as being part of Eretz Yisrael.

Turkey

Turkey has had good relations with Israel since 1948. However, in recent years, Turkey’s President Erdogan has been increasingly critical of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and his anti-Israel rhetoric has become increasingly harsh. In early October 2024, Erdogan bluntly of Israel’s alleged long-term plan to annex parts of Anatolia into Eretz Yisrael. He also threatened to defend Lebanon militarily should Israel try to annex it. Certainly, any move by Israel to annex or even temporarily occupy north Lebanon or Syria would threaten Turkey’s national security.

It should be noted that Turkey has large and well-equipped armed forces, 8th out of 145 countries in the Global Firepower review, and is the second largest military force in NATO after the US. Erdogan’s anti-Israel rhetoric and accusations have caused much discussion and debate.

Parts of Anatolia in south-eastern Turkey are marked on the Greater Israel map as being part of Eretz Yisrael.

Likely success of Israel’s expansionist plan

In a limited sense, some of the Greater Israel Plan’s objectives have already been achieved. Some territorial gains were made in previous wars, and subsequent imposition of Israeli laws, decrees and policies in the occupied Palestinian territories have dispossessed large numbers of remaining Palestinians. Israel’s military, administrative and armed settler actions against the Palestinian populations of Gaza and the occupied West Bank before and since October 7, 2023, and repeated statements by its government ministers about permanently removing all Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank, are consistent with the Plan and Article 7 of the Nation State Law.

There is, however, a need to consider:

1. The apparent existence of a Greater Israel Plan, which in its various elements is being openly promoted by ultra-Zionist Israeli government ministers and extremists.
2. The practical viability of executing the Plan beyond annexation of currently occupied territories, given Israel’s very small population and therefore inability to field long-term occupation personnel in other territories.
3. The current high level of support (risen from in May 2024 to an estimated 45-60%) among the Israeli population for Netanyahu’s ruthless Gaza and Lebanon campaigns and his hard-line rejection of any ceasefire, two-state solution or other peace deal brokered by the international community, but which may collapse if the government fails to produce its promised concrete, permanent safety results for citizens.
4. Netanyahu’s steadfast and dismissive refusal to listen to US and other allies’ entreaties to agree to a two-state solution for Palestine.
5. Israel’s growing international isolation resulting from its intolerable treatment of the Palestinians and a determination even by friendly nations to make Israel accountable to international laws and standards.
6. Uncertainty over whether the US will continue its unswerving and undiluted financial and military support for Israel.
7. The Netanyahu regime increasingly imposing sanctions against “ordinary” Israeli Jews and news media who dare to challenge its apparent proto-genocide campaign in Gaza, or who call for a two-state solution and peace accord with the Palestinians, such as the attacks on .

It is clear that the current Israeli regime ideologically supports the Greater Israel Plan, and several Cabinet Ministers are actively promoting its execution as far as the occupied Palestinian territories are concerned. Less clear is how Israel views Lebanon and whether its recent bombardment and invasion was limited to a short-term “search and destroy” mission against Hezbollah, or whether it will be later resurrected by more gung-ho IDF and ultra-Zionist leaders as an opportunity for a partial or total permanent annexation of Lebanon into Eretz Yisrael. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail.

Israel may be assumed to conduct desktop “war gaming” exercises covering all its known and likely enemies and even others within the 1,300-kilometer reach from Tel Aviv on the Greater Israel map and beyond, but actual military invasion of the vast majority is highly unlikely. Vast numbers of trained military personnel are required for “boots on the ground” invasions and then occupation, often against much resistance, and Israel’s tiny forces make most invasions not viable. Then there is the problem of supply lines, communications and control over great distances, the environment, and the weather. Napoleon learned the hard way, as did Hitler, in their respective invasions of Russia and retreats from Moscow.

Given Donald Trump’s unconditional support for Israel and his encouraging their uninhibited military aggression against all enemies, his second US presidency heralds an even less restrained Israel. Territorial expansion à la Greater Israel is now more . Even the threat of a war with Iran (beyond the Greater Israel map), led by Israel as Washington’s “local Rottweilers,” may convert to action.

However, it is not feasible for Israel (or any country with only 3 million combatants) to subdue — much less conquer, annex and control — surrounding territories whose antagonistic populations far exceed 150 million (and that’s excluding Iran’s 90 million). Nor can they rely on superior technology and weaponry to close the “strategic gap.” The US has still failed to grasp the latter weakness despite effectively losing in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan to low-tech peasantry. Even if achieved, subjugation of the region, including regime change in Iran, would not and could not impose a Pax Americana/Pax Judaica on the region. It would simply alter the systemic topography of endless power struggles and conflict.

Finally, beware hubris. Most “grand plan” empires emanating from megalomaniacs and extremist zealots fail because these involve narcissistic delusions of grandeur, supreme power, invincibility, glory, and of righteousness, which do not recognize their own limitations and feet of clay.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔšĎ’s editorial policy.

The post The “Greater Israel” Plan Has a Colossal Reach appeared first on 51łÔšĎ.

The agreement is based on the terms of United Nations Security Council , which ended the previous Israeli assault on Lebanon in 2006. The truce will be enforced by 5,000 to 10,000 Lebanese troops and the UN’s 10,000-strong United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon () peacekeeping force, which has operated in that area since 1978 and includes troops from 46 countries.

The truce has broad international support, including from Iran and Gaza’s Hamas leaders. Israel and Hezbollah were apparently glad to take a break from a war that had become counterproductive for them both. Effective resistance prevented Israeli forces from advancing far into Lebanon, and they were inflicting mostly senseless death and destruction on civilians, as in Gaza, but without the genocidal motivation of that campaign.

People all over Lebanon have welcomed the relief from Israeli bombing, the destruction of their towns and neighborhoods and thousands of casualties. In the Lebanese capital of Beirut, people have started returning to their homes.

In the south, the Israeli military has warned residents on both sides of the border not to return yet. It has declared a new (which was not part of the truce agreement) that includes 60 villages north of the border, and has warned that it will attack Lebanese civilians who return to that area. Despite these warnings, thousands of displaced people have been returning to south Lebanon, often to find their homes and villages in ruins.

Many people returning to the south still proudly display the yellow flags of Hezbollah. A flying over the ruins of the Lebanese city of Tyre has the words, “Made in the USA,” written across it. This is a reminder that the Lebanese people know very well who made the bombs that have killed and maimed thousands of them.

The truce’s success seems unlikely

There are already many reports of ceasefire violations. Israel shot and two journalists soon after the truce went into effect. Then two days after the ceasefire began, Israel attacked five towns near the border with tanks, fired artillery across the border and conducted on southern Lebanon. On December 2, as a UN peacekeeper told CNN that Israel had the truce “roughly a hundred times,” Hezbollah finally with mortar fire in the disputed Shebaa Farms area. Israel responded with heavier strikes on two villages, killing 11 people.

An addendum to the truce agreement granted Israel the right to strike at will whenever it believes Hezbollah is violating the truce, giving it what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “complete military freedom of action,” which makes this a precarious and one-sided peace at best.

The prospect for a full withdrawal of both Israeli and Hezbollah forces in 60 days seems slim. Hezbollah has built large weapons stockpiles in the south that it will not want to abandon. Netanyahu himself has warned that the truce “can be short.”

Then there is the danger of confrontation between Hezbollah and the Lebanese military, raising the specter of Lebanon’s bloody civil war, which killed an estimated 150,000 people between 1975 and 1990. 

So violence could flare up into full-scale war again at any time, making it unlikely that many Israelis will return to homes near the border with Lebanon, Israel’s original publicly stated purpose for the war.

The truce was brokered by the United States and France, and signed by the European Union, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. France was a colonial power in Lebanon and still plays a leading role in UNIFIL, yet Israel initially rejected France as a negotiating partner. It seems to have France’s role only when French President Emmanuel Macron’s government agreed not to enforce the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against Netanyahu if he comes to France.

The United Kingdom also signed the original truce proposal on November 25, but doesn’t appear to have signed the final agreement. The UK seems to have withdrawn from the negotiations under US and Israeli pressure because, unlike France, its new Labour government has publicly that it will comply with the ICC arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant. However, it has not explicitly said it would arrest them.

Netanyahu justified the truce to his own people by saying that it will allow Israeli forces to focus on Gaza and Iran, and only die-hard “Security” Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir voted the truce in the Israeli cabinet.

While there were hopes that the truce in Lebanon might set the stage for a ceasefire in Gaza, Israel’s actions on the ground tell a different story. Satellite images show Israel carrying out new mass demolitions of hundreds of buildings in northern Gaza to build a new road or between Gaza City and North Gaza. This may be a new border to separate the northernmost 17% of Gaza from the rest of the Gaza Strip, so Israel can expel its people and prevent them from returning, hand North Gaza over to Israeli settlers and squeeze the desperate, survivors into an even smaller area than before.

Syria complicates the conflict

And for all who had hopes that the ceasefire in Lebanon might lead to a regional de-escalation, those hopes were dashed in Syria when, on the very day of the truce, the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a surprise offensive. HTS was formerly the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front. It itself and severed its formal link to al-Qaeda in 2016 to avoid becoming a prime target in the US war in Syria, but the US still brands it a terrorist group.

By December 1, HTS managed to seize control of Syria’s second largest city, Aleppo, forcing the Syrian Arab Army and its Russian allies onto the defensive. With Russian and Syrian jets bombing rebel-held territory, the surge in fighting has raised the prospect of another violent, destabilizing front reopening in the Middle East.

This may also be a prelude to an escalation of attacks on Syria by Israel, which has already Syria more than 220 times since October 2023, with Israeli airstrikes and artillery bombardments killing at least 296 people.

The new HTS offensive most likely has covert US support, and may impact US President-elect Donald Trump’s reported to withdraw the 900 US troops still based in Syria. It may also impact his nomination of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. Gabbard is a longtime critic of US for al-Qaeda-linked factions in Syria, so the new HTS offensive sets the stage for an explosive confirmation hearing, which may backfire on Syria hawks in Washington if Gabbard is allowed to make her case.

Arab and Muslim state strategies

Elsewhere in the region, Israel’s genocide in Gaza and war on its neighbors have led to widespread anti-Israel and anti-US resistance.

Where the US was once able to buy off Arab rulers with weapons deals and military alliances, the Arab and Muslim world is coalescing around a position that sees Israel’s behavior as unacceptable and Iran as a threatened neighbor rather than an enemy. Unconditional US support for Israel risks permanently downgrading US relations with former allies, from Iraq, Jordan and Egypt to Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Yemen’s Ansar Allah (or Houthi) government has maintained a blockade of the Red Sea, using missiles and drones against Israeli-linked ships heading for the Israeli port of Eilat or the Suez Canal. The Yemenis have a US-led naval task force sent to break the blockade and have shipping through the Suez Canal by at least two-thirds, forcing shipping companies to reroute most ships all the way around Africa. The port of Eilat filed for in July, after only one ship docked there in several months.

Other resistance forces have conducted attacks on US military bases in Iraq, Syria and Jordan, and US forces have retaliated in a low-grade tit-for-tat war. The Iraqi government has strongly condemned U.S. and Israeli attacks on its soil as violations of its sovereignty. Attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria have flared up again in recent months, while Iraqi resistance forces have also launched drone attacks on Israel.

An emergency of the Arab League in Cairo, Egypt on November 26 voted unanimously to support Iraq and condemn Israeli threats. US–Iraqi talks in September drew up a for hundreds of US troops to leave Iraq in 2025 and for all 2,500 to be gone within two years. The US has outmaneuvered previous withdrawal plans, but the days of these very unwelcome US bases must surely be numbered.

Recent of Arab and Muslim states have forged a growing sense of unity around a rejection of US proposals for normalization of relations with Israel and a new solidarity with Palestine and Iran. At a meeting of Islamic nations in Riyadh on November 11, Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin-Salman publicly called the Israeli massacre in Gaza a for the first time.

Arab and Muslim countries know that Trump may act unpredictably and that they need a stable common position to avoid becoming pawns to him or Netanyahu. They recognize that previous divisions left them vulnerable to US and Israeli exploitation, which contributed to the current crisis in Palestine and the risk of a major regional war that now looms over them.

On November 29, Saudi and Western officials told Reuters that Saudi Arabia has on a new military alliance with the US, which would include normalizing relations with Israel. It is opting for a more limited US weapons deal.

The Saudis had hoped for a treaty that included a US commitment to defend them, like treaties with Japan and South Korea. That would require confirmation by the US Senate, which would demand Saudi recognition of Israel in return. But the Saudis can no longer consider recognizing Israel without a viable plan for Palestinian statehood, which Israel rejects.

On the other hand, Saudi relations with Iran are steadily improving since they restored relations 18 months ago with diplomatic help from China and Iraq. At a meeting with new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Qatar on October 3, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal Bin Farhan, “We seek to close the page of differences between the two countries forever and work towards the resolution of our issues and expansion of our relations like two friendly and brotherly states.”

Prince Faisal highlighted the “very sensitive and critical” situation in the region due to Israel’s “aggressions” against Gaza and Lebanon and its attempts to expand the conflict. He said Saudi Arabia trusted Iran’s “wisdom and discernment” in managing the situation to restore calm and peace.

The ball is in Trump’s court

If Saudi Arabia and its neighbors can make peace with Iran, what will the consequences be for Israel’s illegal, genocidal occupation of Palestine, which has been enabled and encouraged by decades of unconditional US military and diplomatic support?

On December 2, Trump on Truth Social that if the hostages were not released by the time of his inauguration, there would be “ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East.” “Those responsible,” he warned, “will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America.”

Trump and many of his acolytes exemplify the Western arrogance and lust for imperial power that lies at the root of this crisis. More threats and more destruction are not the answer. Trump has had good relations with the dictatorial rulers of the Gulf states, with whom he shares much in common. If he is willing to listen, he will realize, as they do, that there is no solution to this crisis without freedom, self-determination and sovereignty in their own land for the people of Palestine. That is the path to peace, if he will take it.

[ edited this piece.]

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However, this is not the first time that a lethal terror group has faced such a threat. The present situation recalls the history of the Black September Organization (BSO), a Palestinian militant organization that caused chaos in Jordan in the 1970s. With Israel’s recent assassinations, history may well repeat itself.

The formation and function of the Black September Organization

A little history is needed to understand where the BSO came from. The Third Arab-Israeli War in 1967 saw hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their homes, fleeing the fighting. Many Palestinians living in the West Bank region fled to Jordan. Israel continued to occupy the West Bank afterwards, leading to Palestinian fedayeen (guerilla fighters; a more literal meaning being “those willing to sacrifice themselves”) setting up a new base in Jordan and launching attacks against Israel from there.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) gained further Arab support when Israel retaliated against the fedayeen strikes. Groups within the organization began calling for the toppling of the Jordanian monarchy. Eventually, after further disagreements and violent confrontations, King Hussein of Jordan decided to go on the offensive. This led to Black September, where the Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF) surrounded cities with significant PLO presence and attacked them. The latter half of September 1970, had the most concentration of fighting in the entire conflict.

In the end, leaders on both sides signed many ceasefires and agreements, but none were upheld in their entirety. The PLO and Palestinian people moved to Syria in droves. However, some fedayeen remained, angered by Jordan’s actions. They continued to fight back, but the JAF eventually drove the last of them out by July, 1971. A small group of men from Fatah, the biggest faction of the PLO at the time, formed the BSO in September, 1970. They rallied around Abu Ali Iyad, a commander who had remained in Jordan after the PLO withdrew. There was only one goal in mind: revenge against King Hussein and the JAF.

The BSO operated very differently to typical militant terrorist organizations of the time. John K. Cooley was a notable journalist of the period, specializing in Islamist terrorism. In his book, Green March, Black September, he stated that, “Black September represented a total break with the old operational and organizational methods of the fedayeen. Its members operated in ‘air-tight’ cells of four or more men and women. Each cell’s members were kept ignorant of other cells. Leadership was exercised from outside by intermediaries and ‘cut-offs’.”

By operating in this manner, every detail of their movements and the members of the organization itself could be kept secret. This drastic change in structure and operation showed a strong intent to succeed in their goals. Everything was on a need-to-know basis, with their leaders hidden. The BSO could easily cut off any cell that failed a mission and disassociate from any actions carried out, as could Fatah. One cell’s failure did not affect the rest. 

The Black September Organization’s attacks

The BSO managed to carry out multiple, successful terrorist attacks across the globe. The most tragic was the 1972 Munich massacre, where the BSO murdered 11 Israeli Olympic athletes and one German police officer. The BSO planned and carried out assassinations, hijackings and bombings over the course of four years, from 1970 to 1973. Apart from the Munich massacre, these operations were covert, like the 1973 letter bombing incident. The BSO sent dozens of letter bombs from Amsterdam to various Israeli diplomatic places around the world. Many were intercepted on the way, but one managed to make its way to Ami Shachori, the agricultural counselor at the Israeli Embassy to the UK. He mistakenly believed it contained seeds he had ordered and the resulting blast fatally wounded him.

The BSO even managed to somewhat fulfill their original goal of revenge. They assassinated Wasfi Tal, the Jordanian prime minister at the time, for his role in the events of Black September. Aside from Jordan, Arab nations widely denounced Tal, as they had supported the Palestinian fedayeen. However, his loyalty to his king and country was rewarded with his popularity among the people. He was elected prime minister three times: in 1962, in 1965 and again in 1970.

Israel’s wrath and the fall of the Black September Organization

After the Munich massacre, Israel’s Mossad launched a long, covert operation to assassinate key members of the BSO, known as “Wrath of God.” Mossad got to work quickly, taking out various senior BSO members and those involved in the Munich massacre specifically. Many of these operations happened between the events of Munich and September 1973. Mossad’s success and ruthlessness likely played a major factor in the PLO decision to shut down the BSO. The exact date is contested, with Israeli historian Benny Morris saying September 1973, and other sources that it was December 1974. Either way, there was only one more attack BSO claimed to have carried out after 1973, which was the Antwerp synagogue bombing in 1981.

Mossad’s actions led to an existential crisis for the BSO. With senior members and leaders out of commission, being either dead or constantly in hiding, running the organization became exceedingly difficult. There were also disagreements internally on how to continue operations and what direction the BSO should go in. Furthermore, Fatah had begun to engage Israel in diplomacy, shifting away from the use of violence to further the Palestinian cause.

The dissolution of the BSO potentially occurred for three reasons. Firstly, the ideological fervor that drove the BSO, and possibly even Fatah, forward in the first place was running out. Secondly, anti-Zionist sentiment was weakening. Thirdly, Fatah and the BSO did not have the necessary resources to maintain an armed struggle.

While the existence of Israel was a thorn in the side of the Arab Middle East, it was clear that Israel would not fall easily. They survived attack after attack, held their ground and even claimed other countries’s territories at times. Israel was there to stay. The Middle Eastern countries were not united in their desires either. They often fought with each other as well, like how the PLO fought with Jordan and how the Lebanese civil war broke out. Terrorist attacks outside of the region surely didn’t please other countries as well, whose opinions may have changed from such events, leading to less interest in the Arab struggle.

Within the PLO, there were, and still are, many factions and opinions. General sentiment leaned away from continuing the armed struggle. It ate up their funds and only had limited success. It was not achieving what they had hoped. Given that the Palestinian people had no guaranteed home and no land to call their own anymore, resources were always limited. Mossad’s offensive operations against the BSO were also burning through Fatah’s and the BSO’s resources, as well as personnel. The BSO was practically backed into a corner.

Israel’s actions weren’t without its dissenters and mistakes however. While ruthless, the operations were more about revenge than trying to stop terrorism. Israeli author and journalist Aaron J. Klein quoted a Mossad senior intelligence source, saying, “Our blood was boiling. When there was information implicating someone, we didn’t inspect it with a magnifying glass.” Given that the BSO was shut down within a year or two of the Munich massacre, it shows Mossad’s effectiveness. But in terms of stopping terrorism entirely, it was a complete failure.

As Fatah falls, Hamas rises

In December 1974, PLO chairman and Fatah leader Yasser Arafat called for his followers to cease violence outside of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 242 and 338 in 1967 and 1973 respectively, which shows that the PLO had managed to bring the Palestinian plight to the attention of the West. Attacks continued through the 1970s, but once the Lebanese Civil War began in 1975, the PLO’s attention shifted. Given that they mostly operated out of southern Lebanon at the time, it’s no wonder. 

In time, those Resolutions led to the Oslo Accords, a pair of agreements signed by Israel and the PLO, in an attempt to bring about a long-lasting peace. One of the most important outcomes of the Accords was the creation of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), which is an elected body of representatives for the Palestinian people, allowing them some level of self-governance.

Unfortunately, this did not create the desired effect. A large number of Palestinian people and organizations vehemently opposed the Accords, with various terrorist attacks occurring afterwards in retaliation. Even some Israelis weren’t happy about it. A far-right Israeli extremist carried out an assassination on the Israeli prime minister at the time, Yitzhak Rabin, who was the one to sign the Accords.

In 1996, Palestine held its first general elections. Fatah dominated these elections, with their leader Arafat becoming President with 89.82% of the vote. He was incredibly popular at the time and the Palestinian people believed he would lead them to peace. However, the negotiations between Palestine and Israel never led to a true peace agreement. As the years went on, the Palestinian people grew weary. Their struggle was never ending and unchanging.

During this time, Hamas, the only other potential rival to Fatah, began to grow in popularity. Hamas had never agreed to the Oslo Accords and still continued to bombard Israel with attacks in any way they could. Disagreements between Fatah and Hamas caused continuous postponements of the elections. The passing of Arafat in 2004 left Fatah without its charismatic leader. Finally, in January 2006, Palestinian elections were held. Hamas won a majority of the seats, to the shock of the world. Most Western countries expected a re-election of Fatah. Hamas now controlled 74 of the 132 seats in the PNA. The two factions’s disagreements escalated, and they were unable to form a government that held together for the sake of the Palestinian people.

It only took until June 2007 for the tensions to come to a head. In the Gaza Strip, Hamas-affiliated and Fatah-affiliated forces came to blows. After a series of violent clashes, Hamas took full control of the Gaza Strip and that has been the situation up until now. Hamas controlled Gaza and the PNA controlled the West Bank.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched their largest attack ever against Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking around 250 as hostages. Israeli forces mounted an aggressive counter-attack, announcing their intent to eradicate Hamas entirely. Since then, it’s been a war between the two. Allegedly, over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting. Israel has also assassinated many Hamas leaders across the world, including the aforementioned Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar.

Is this a dead end for terror proxies?

Hamas had clearly been preparing for the October 7 attacks for a long time. They built up their forces, their funds and their ammunition. What they didn’t seem prepared for though was the Israeli retaliation. While the war is still ongoing at the time of writing, Hamas is certainly not in a winning position. Their people are suffering and their leaders are dead. If Hamas even survives as an organization once Israel is done, it will be a miracle. But will the idea of armed struggle live on?

There are many parallels between Hamas and the BSO. Both were born of strong ideals and strong condemnation of their enemies. Their enemies retaliated ruthlessly as well. The BSO was shut down and Hamas looks to be on the same path. Hamas is not the only terror proxy fighting against Israel. Hezbollah, from their territories in southern Lebanon, have been firing missiles into Israel. The Houthis in Yemen have been attacking sea routes in the waters around their territory, ones that would reach the south Israeli port of Eilat, in an attempt to curb their supplies. Whether their Iranian backers incited them or if they all did this of their own accord is up for debate, but the results are the same. Israel brought their might down upon their adversaries.

As an outsider looking in, it may seem futile to repeat the same actions as those who came before, when the results are always the same. Maybe they believe it will be different with them or maybe they simply have no choice. There is a constant struggle between the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. However, there is no change without action. The Palestinian people believe that they cannot continue without doing something. The deadlock must be broken.

Despite this drive, armed struggle has only proven, time and again, to be ineffective. The only area which it succeeds is bringing their cause to the attention of the globe. This never lasts in the long run though. In the end, nothing changes. There are only two options left: to drop the idea of armed struggle, perhaps taking the diplomatic route as Fatah has, or find a solution with Israel to put an end to things once and for all. Hamas has already shown signs of changing course. They have talks periodically with Fatah since July, with the latest being in Cairo in October 2024, hoping to resolve their differences. When the US general election results announced Donald Trump as the victor, Hamas quickly a statement saying that they were “ready for a ceasefire.”

Proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah are in a standoff with Israel over the Palestinian issue, but it’s clear that their current methods are unsuccessful. Like the BSO and other proxies before them, Israel is pushing these organizations into existential crises. History may repeat itself and we will see this endless cycle repeat once more.

[ edited this piece.]

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Over last four months, the two authors have lived in a state of war even outside the war itself. We see our respective diaspora communities, Jewish and Arab, becoming more and more entrenched in separation, hatred and fear. We are two women choosing another way, and that is to dialogue. We do not know where our dialogue will get us or anyone else, if anywhere, but we understand that not doing so will guarantee more destruction through the othering of each other. We refuse to participate in this hopeless dynamic. 

Ultimately, our hope and goal is to speak in one voice. 

We are daughters of the land. Long ago, the Jewish matriarch Sarah, for reasons we will never know entirely, our shared patriarch, Abraham, to cast out Hagar and her son Ishmael. Ishmael, Abraham’s son by Hagar, became the father of the Arabs; Isaac, Abraham’s son by Sarah, became the father of the Jews. We don’t know why there was not room for two boys — Isaac and Ishmael — born of two women, or why they both couldn’t live together in the land that God promised their father, Abraham. What we do know is, because of that decision, our peoples are enduring the repercussions of those actions. Ishmael and Hagar were cast out. Later, the descendants of Isaac, for different reasons, left the land of Canaan too. After very different journeys, we have all returned.Ěý

We have connected and committed to each other as daughters of Abraham. We acknowledge that we are two members of a dysfunctional extended family whose discord is deadly. In spite of this, we opened our hearts and intentionally sought to foster connection. Something greater than us brought us together and we believe it to be good.

One of us is a daughter of Palestine, the youngest of eight daughters. Her parents immigrated to America from a small village in the West Bank, called Deir Debwan, four miles east of Ramallah. Although her parents were in America, they held tight to their Palestinian culture and Muslim faith. Nada’s identity is deeply rooted in her Palestinian heritage, and she dreams of a peaceful, prosperous, free Palestine. 

One of us is a daughter of Israel, the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, and the proud wife of a former IDF Captain. She is Jewish, American, and Israeli. For her, every centimeter of Israel is steeped with her history and heritage, and her heart always yearns for Zion.

The two of us are deeply connected to this holy and tragic land.

Learning to speak together

We are both mothers. We are bringing up another generation of Palestinian and Israeli children in the diaspora. We feel the obligation — no — the choiceless choice to support our respective peoples who are suffering, dying both physical and spiritual deaths.

To the daughters of Palestine: Nobody is coming to save us — especially not the men who we allowed to lead and who contributed and continue to perpetuate this violence. Our leadership has failed. So it is our turn. We were born for such a time as this. We owe it to our ancestors and the future generations — not despite the fact that we are privileged to be safe in our first-world countries, but because we are safe. Our people in Palestine are in survival mode. We are not. We can move toward reconciliation. We can talk — no, listen — to each other. We can intentionally reach out to the daughters of Israel just for the purpose of listening. We can hear their cries. 

To the daughters of Israel: Once again we are mostly alone, with very few willing to acknowledge us as human beings, deserving of security and self-determination. The more we try to assert and insist on our right to exist, the more enemies we seem to make. Since October 7,Ěý we’ve learned that the most powerful leaders and spokespeople for international human rights and justice, and the most erudite, elite institutions of the world turn a blind eye or concur that the of our sisters’ bodies was reasonable, justified and deserved. After all, we are the people who, generation after generation, the world believes that the panacea for all that ails humankind is to clean and rid it of the Jews. We are in survival mode. To come out of this alive, we need the daughters of Palestine. We can no longer pretend that we can do this alone.

The most difficult part of this work is overcoming the feeling that we are betraying our people who need our voices to amplify their cries to the other side. It feels disloyal to utter the failures of our own people who contributed and continue to contribute to our own suffering, yet it is necessary.Ěý

This is not easy. It is easier to stay in our echo chambers, yelling for people to hear our cries and get angry when they don’t. It feels weak to stop our yelling and start listening. It is challenging to rise above emotion and use our intellect to think through the historical, spiritual and political issues. It is emotionally messy — there is always an overwhelming cloud of grief, making every ounce of effort given to anyone or anything utterly exhausting. Opening up is always a risk — you could get hurt. But that hurt is not as agonizing and damaging as the loneliness and anger that naturally result from disconnection and division. 

We discovered that we didn’t get hurt when we had a vulnerable conversation with each other. In fact, we felt healed, seen, affirmed, valued, and lifted up. We became empowered and, above all else, not hopeless. But just the two of us — it isn’t enough.

Our words are a plea to you: daughters of Palestine and daughters of Israel. We share in the loss of our humanity. Let’s try to reclaim it together.

[ edited this piece.]

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So were the differences that raised questions about efforts in recent years to sustainably reduce regional tensions without resolving fundamental disputes and conflicts.

The joint summit of the Arab League and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which includes all Arab states, was dominated by obligatory calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, unrestricted provision of humanitarian aid, the release by Hamas of 240 mostly civilian hostages and a resolution of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, as well as condemnation of Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war.

Hypocritically, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who waged a decade-long Russian- and Iranian-backed war against rebels opposed to his regime in much the same way that Israel attacked Gaza, attended the Riyadh summit.

Arab states al-Assad to the Arab fold as part of their effort to reduce regional tensions and ensure they don’t spin out of control. The Arab League suspended Syria in 2011 at the beginning of the civil war.

In his address to the summit, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi made clear that the Chinese-mediated restoration earlier this year of diplomatic relations between the Islamic republic and Saudi Arabia as part of the regional deescalation effort had done nothing to change policies that are at the root of many regional issues.

To be sure, most Islamic and Arab leaders will have taken heart from aisi’s support of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and his expressed desire to prevent the war from expanding regionally.

But that is where the sighs of relief may have stopped.

Much of Raisi’s speech emphasized what countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) worry most about and highlighted fundamental policy differences.

Raisi celebrated Hamas and Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, non-state actors viewed in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi as Iranian proxies designed to interfere in Arab domestic affairs.

“We kiss the hands of Hamas for its resistance against Israel,” Raisi said.

In addition, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, despite being shocked by the indiscriminate and relentless Israeli bombing of Gaza, do not want Hamas, a group they view as affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, to survive the war.

Hamas’ brutal October 7 attack, in which at least , mostly civilian, Israelis were wantonly slaughtered, raised the specter of other militant groups — foremost Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthis — learning from the Palestinians’ ability to breach Israeli defenses.

Moreover, Raisi was out of step with much of the Arab world by calling for a Palestinian state from “the river to the sea” that would replace the State of Israel rather than a two-state resolution, involving an independent Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state.

Notwithstanding Raisi’s remarks, the summit’s majority view with the final communique calling for a two-state solution.

Israel calls for diplomatic breaks with Israel

Raisi put Arab and Muslim-majority states that have recognized Israel on the spot by calling on them to break off their diplomatic relations. Of the five Arab states that have formal relations with Israel, only Jordan has withdrawn its ambassador and asked Israel not to return its envoy to Amman.

Raisi also called for an economic and commercial boycott of Israel.

Iranian officials, backed by Libya, Algeria and Lebanon, demanded in preliminary talks in advance of the summit that Arab states close their airspace to Israel, halt the transfer of weapons from US bases in the region to Israel and stop oil exports to Israel, according to diplomatic sources.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who spoke immediately before Raisi, did not include Iran’s positions in his remarks. However, Turkish steps come closest to addressing the Iranian leader’s demands.

Turkey has its ambassador to Israel and, earlier this week, energy talks with the Jewish state.

Raisi had barely spoken when Beirut-based Hamas Political Bureau member Osama Hamdan echoed his words in an Al Jazeera interview.

“We are talking about actions, we don’t need speeches,” Hamdan said.

At the same time, Hamdan echoed a broader sentiment in the Arab and Muslim world, adding, “if [Arab and Muslim leaders] act, I am sure there will be a response from the United States. Any action will have impact.”

What Hamdan suggested was that by speaking out forcefully and taking some sort of action, no matter how minor, Arab and Muslim leaders could move the needle in Washington, which has so far supported Israel’s right to wage war against Hamas — even if US officials increasingly criticize the human cost of Israel’s campaign.

That didn’t prevent the differences from forcing the Arab and Muslim leaders to issue a statement that echoed the leaders’ obligatory demands but contained no suggestion of how they could be achieved.

Arab leaders weigh diverse considerations

At a news conference after the summit, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan to give the statement some heft by asserting that, without concerted international action to reign in Israel, the world’s international security architecture, including the United Nations Security Council, would need to be reformed.

All eyes in the coming days will be on the Council’s next meeting slated to discuss yet another draft resolution initiated by Malta and the UAE. The draft is believed to on the plight of children that reportedly account for half of all casualties in Gaza.

Another focal point is US President Joe Biden’s on Monday with his Indonesian counterpart, Joko Widodo. Widodo traveled from the Riyadh summit to Washington in advance of this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco.

For Arab and Muslim leaders, increasingly squeezed between mounting public anger at the Israeli assault, limited options and a struggle to prevent Gaza from shifting the paradigm on which they have built their survival strategies, pushing the US to forcefully call a halt to Israel’s indiscriminate bombing, ensuring access to humanitarian personnel and goods and achieving a release of hostages are a sine qua non.

Ironically, Israel’s relentless military campaign, including the stepped-up of hospitals, may achieve what Arab and Muslim leaders can’t as and officials, amid widespread protests, increasingly take Israel publicly to task.

In the latest shift, French President Emmanuel Macron the BBC on Saturday: “De facto — today, civilians are bombed — de facto. These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed. So, there is no reason for that and no legitimacy. So we do urge Israel to stop.”
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A crisis, as we know, provides both dangers and opportunities. To refer to Israel’s situation after October 7 as a “crisis” is to belittle a reality that the English language is unable to express. We talk here about a collective national trauma that Israel and the Jewish people have not experienced since the Holocaust.

Those who know something about Israel can appreciate the significance of the comparison made between the massacre of October 7 and the slaughter of six million Jews in the Holocaust. It is not about the numbers. It is about the very fact that the very state responsible for preventing massacres of Jews failed to do so on its own territory. This fact alone makes it clear that the current war will become a turning point.

The implosion of Netanyahu’s plans

The turning point has to do with the handling of the Palestinian question and Israel’s overall situation in the Middle East. For more than 13 out of the past 15 years, Israel has had the same prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu made very clear that he had two big missions; One was to show that resolving the Palestinian issue was not the key to peace between Israel and the Arab world; the second was, that Iran was the existential danger, not only to Israel, but also to the moderate Sunni Muslim Arab countries.

In Netanyahu’s mind, these two were intertwined. Go after Iran and on the basis of the old rule, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” try to expand Israel’s reach in the Middle East beyond Egypt and Jordan. Once that is achieved, the Palestinian question would be finally demoted to a local problem between Israel and 5 million disaffected Arabs, something that will be resolved “somehow,” while Israel and the Arab states deal with the Iranians together.

The attainment of all that depended on maintaining security relations with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and keeping Hamas in control of Gaza. Yes — although Netanyahu liked to present himself as Mr. Security, he worked diligently to keep Hamas in power in Gaza. The explanation he gave to his own supporters was that Hamas in Gaza meant no Palestinian state. At the same time, he told the moderate Arab states of the Gulf as well as Morocco and Sudan that, in the absence of any full-fledged Israeli–Palestinian conflict, they have no problem uniting with Israel against Iran.

All of the above seemed logical, achievable and plausible. Then came the Abraham Accords, which seemed to give the seal over all of it. Alas, it did not last. October 7 happened, and ever since then it has seemed that the pendulum is about to swing back to the pre-Abraham Accords, perhaps even all the way to the pre-Camp David Accords situation. The Palestinian question is not going to disappear, Iran is not isolated and the entire Netanyahu strategy is collapsing like a house of cards. And with that, we come to the big Israeli dilemma.

How can Israel fight Hamas without blowing up its international situation?

Israel considers Hamas to be the reincarnation of Nazism. They are right. Hamas’s actions and ideology are Nazi-type; they are genocidal with a Jihadist envelope.

This leaves Israel no choice. When you are an Israeli leader, then the comparison to Nazis leaves you with only one possible course of action — go to the very end and make sure that Hamas is no more. That is what the Israeli leadership has been saying. This is where 2023 is not 1942. The Jews are not going to be slaughtered without a battle; in fact, they are strong enough to finish off the modern-day Nazis — not all the Palestinians, but one murderous faction. Hamas are Nazis in all but their capabilities.

Israel can do the job, and the photos coming out of Gaza say it so vividly. But can Israel really pull it off, considering the potential prices to pay? The longer the war goes on, the more kidnapped Israelis, among them babies and the elderly, will die. Beyond this, the war has become a public relations disaster with piles of Palestinian bodies in the streets, rising global antisemitism, receding diplomatic support, a rift with the US and above all the reversal of the Israeli–Arab normalization process. Suspension or complete rupture of relations with a few of the Arab states may result, a major victory for Iran. This is now the dilemma of Israel.

Israel can go all the way. Hamas never anticipated, never expected the firepower of the Israeli Defense Forces when unleashed as ferociously as now. They misread the internal situation in Israel prior to October 7, the strength of Jewish nationalism and of Israeli civic society. They are paying a huge and mounting price for it. Israel, however, needs to decide. Do they take all the above risks and lose a lot in the short term? Or do they have the stamina to sustain the immediate losses in order to gain for the longer term?

Here is what Israel can win in the longer term — the respect and support of none other than all the Arab participants of the Abraham Accords. Why? Because all these countries are afraid of a Hamas victory, or a perceived Hamas victory, which will be an Iranian victory. They know it could undermine their own domestic stability. If Israel does not finish the job against Hamas, Middle East stability will be jeopardized, very likely irreversibly. If Israel can present a real victory, the forces of instability will be defeated, hopefully for some time to come.

Israel should do everything it can to minimize civilian casualties as much as operationally possible, but do what it takes to defeat the enemies of stability and peace.

Does Netanyahu have it in him as the last great effort of his career? A big question, but he is no longer the all-mighty Netanyahu of the past. There are others in his emergency cabinet, in the Israeli Defense Forces and above all in the Israeli public who want this campaign to be the decisive one.

Easier said and done, and easy for me to say from the relative comfort of Columbia, South Carolina. There is nothing comfortable, though, writing about war — but October 7 is a transformative event, and so are its implications.

[ edited this piece.]

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As it was for Jews born in America after the massacre in Europe, Andrea’s childhood must have been disturbed by the tales of the maniacal bloodletting. And disturbed further by other occasional malignancies; those signs along certain American beaches in the 1950s come to mind: “No Jews or dogs allowed.” It set their story apart from the rest of us Goys whose nightmares were limited to those offered up by the Brothers Grimm.

I grew up in and around New York. I went to school with girls like Andrea as they emerged after World War II into the American mainstream. I rode the subways of New York with them as a teenager and would spot the tattoos from the death camps on their kin’s forearms and instantaneously connect them to the photos in my mind of the Auschwitz gas chambers. I imagined what must have turned in her young mind; that six million of her type had been exterminated like some pathogen and virtually no one had made a protest.

So there we were: just after Cast Lead had concluded in 2009, the two of us, humanitarian workers now, walking 20 meters behind a Palestinian mother and her two girls as we left Gaza.

You see, one gets dropped off by one’s Palestinian friend about a half-mile before a fortress wall and you trudge toward its gray terrible eminence through the rubble and trash left by Israeli bulldozers as they had assured unencumbered fields of fire. You feel quite helpless making that walk towards the massive wall, finally getting channeled into a tunnel of hydraulic turnstiles and led through it by a network of intercoms issuing remote commands, always impatient commands of “stop, go, no, leave your coat, leave your bag, no, alone, do it again.” With a camera continuously capturing you, each grimace and frustration.

Then, maybe, you go through the last hydraulics and into a hatch at the base of that wall and are now exposed to the floodlights and the pens — plexiglas holding pens with green and red lights indicating if you can proceed from one pen to the next. Sort of like a maze on the floor of this hi-tech cement cavern. Then, far up towards the ceiling you see them for the first time: profiles of the clerks who control the place, who peer down on the movements in the pens, and on the conveyors alongside which like a giant clockworks having now carried away your personal belongings for other unseen searches. And then, finally, from the pens you proceed into the whir of the 360-degree full-body scan, flashed up in all its originality onto screens before those same clerks.

I suspect that it was not this alone which broke Andrea; it was rather the company we kept with that Palestinian mother and her girls throughout the process, their childhood being disturbed forever, just like hers.

What sticks in my mind to this day is that after the process, out in the parking lot while I was getting into the driver’s seat, I had heard Andrea still outside the car off by the fender, as discreetly as she could, retching.

Almost no Westerners go to Gaza. One has to move heaven and earth to acquire the necessary permissions from the Israelis, mostly limited to humanitarian types like myself and selected journalists — meaning the local narratives of what’s going on in this pen are easily ignored or twisted by those who wish.

I had been going to Gaza, on and off, for three decades, and Andrea’s reaction, Jewish or not, was normal. Few can stomach that Jews could construct and manage such a confinement for humans. It is, as one observer recently described, “an open air prison.” No exit. Not by land, sea or air, and with just enough calories and medicines allowed in to prevent famine and disease. And calculated very finely, I should add.

If Israel is more than soil, more than “clear, hold and build” on that soil acquired in 1948, if it is also a homeland in commemoration for all those who have suffered since Christians first proclaimed they had killed Christ, Gaza is a blasphemy and stains the Jewish story. And if not Gaza, then watch the arrogance of a 19-year-old Israeli soldier at a West Bank checkpoint as he strip-searches Grandpa in front his grandchildren. Watch — just above the barrier on the ridge of a West Bank hill — the beautiful arc of a settler’s dive into the crystalline water of a swimming pool as the Palestinian farmers in the valley below grieve for no water in their wells. I believe that this can destroy Israel before missiles from Palestine can.

The Arab duplicity

Also gleaned from those many years of living in the Arab world, I can say unequivocally that most Arab states and citizens don’t give a damn about Palestinians and their “open air prison.” They too pen them up on a regular basis. For any self-serving autocrat, they are trouble. As vanguards, on posters everywhere, they often own the liberation narrative. But in person, they are stigmatized by the dead hand of dictators as far too clarion for their own good. At their core, Palestinians disrupt the status quo.

As Israeli tanks churned into south Lebanon in June 1982, I was on that border and had watched Lebanese Shi’as wave their “Star of David” flags with great excitement as the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) entered Tyre, pleased to no end that the Palestinians seemingly had been erased from their land. Later that year, I was in Tunisia when Habib Bourguiba put on a grand show of welcoming the Palestinian warriors as they disembarked at the port of Bizerte. It was meant to be a victory festival as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) passed by. School kids were brought out to shout and clap, the PLO marching, head high, right through town and finally to a parking lot secured by Tunisian troops who relieved them of their arms and trucked them far away into the deserts of central Tunisia, effectively neutering them.

Across the Levant, in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq, Palestinians are contained, constricted and often penned. Make no mistake, Arab nations abuse them and use them. They have always been a convenient cause cĂŠlèbre “to quell domestic strife with foreign war.” If Israel had not existed, it would have had to be created as a part of the foundation for Arab autocracy, which from Casablanca to Damascus stole their citizens’ freedoms and allowed precious little to put in their stomachs.

“Jew Crusader”

That said, while the autocrats are duplicitous about Palestinians per se, their “street” — before and after Tahrir — does care about “occupation,” does care about Arabs as “subservient.” Does care that within the Western narrative, beginning with Sykes-Picot when the French and British cartographers divvied up the Middle East without much thought; and then, for their immediate pleasure right up to Pax Americana, sustained and abetted the array of monarchs and emirs who sit majestically on the world’s hydrocarbons and, critically,Ěý are reviled far more by the Arab street than Jews.

Symbols count. American tanks so near to Mecca incite. Britain and the US as steadfast allies of a twentieth-century national implant in Arabia, swallowing swaths of what Arabs hold to be their land and humiliating them each and every time words come to blows, count. Especially for a people desperately trying to find an identity that is not defined equally as “terrorist” or as so backward that the whole region, other than oil, could sink below the surface and the global stock indices would barely budge.

I recall sitting in my office in Diwaniyah in south-central Iraq during the spring of 2004 amidst my national staff, when the Jaysh al-Mahdi burst in, eyes glazed and very agitated and anxious to do some killing. I was sure I was a goner. Particularly because they had declared the oath to my face that precedes killing: “Jew Crusader.” These were street rabble with no inkling of Palestine. But this was the hook that Muqtada al-Sadr had in them; this epitaph that zealots employ across the Arab world just before they pull the trigger.Ěý

Jew Crusader. There it is in a nutshell. Convenient for autocrats but also, unprompted, an incitement that can get the street to its feet, quite indifferent as to whatever the hell Palestinians are suffering. That is what swells the ranks of the Arab warriors, notwithstanding that most of the nations that bore them are fabrications of European cartographers themselves. Israel is Western. It is European- and American-sourced, adapted to its tragic historical circumstances, and it has swallowed up a large share of Arab soil and humiliated the Arab effort to constrain them. “Jew Crusader” was and is the Arab link between Israel and the Crusades, the seizure of property by foreigners along with the expectation that Israel will follow the same trail as the Crusaders.

Tahrir 2010

This was — according to all I heard as I made my way through the great press of the swirling crowds streaming into the square on that warm February day — about an Egyptian, a Tunisian, a Syrian “not being afraid any longer.” Part of that was removing the dead hand of the autocrats, one by one, and acting upon those “rights” issues that these citizens will no longer forsake. The other part was about removing the dominance of those great Anglo-Saxon tribes from the choices before them. And noting that Israel, along with the Gulf states, represents the greatest existing current affront to that resolve.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi (American-educated at the University of Southern California) was born out of this Tahrir. He presided over a country in shambles, over a street which for any re-found dignity must care far more about a family putting food on the table than what Hamas was doing in Gaza. But it was also now a street that would no longer accept the West as preeminent in its destiny. Morsi was on a tightrope. He was brought to eminence out of the awakening and that was about dignity reclaimed; about dealing with Egypt in despair, tourism defunct and the army unfaithful. He knew that Gaza should not stoke the street. Rather, it will be jobs and opportunities. And the last thing he wanted was for an un-careful militancy in Gaza to wag the Egyptian tail just at the moment he presumed to lead the Arabs out of the wilderness they have suffered since Sykes-Picot. Tahrir’s youth since the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia have shown themselves across the whole Arab landscape willing to die fighting against anything promising less.

Of course, as we all know now, Morsi did not survive the aftermath of his ascension and soon was imprisoned by a version of the “status quo ante.”

Hamas: on the razor’s edge

Back to Gaza. Yes, cover your ears. Hamas is indeed part “American creation” come back to bite us. Back in the mid-1980s, I was part of a team of relief workers which managed huge welfare programs in Gaza, funded by the US State Department. Hamas was clearly the preferred partner for us and the State Department because of their credibility at the community level as opposed to a corrupt and feckless Fatah but also because they challenged the PLO, who were then considered a terrorist organization. Later in 2006, that American investment came full circle. Hamas won a free and fair election, to a large extent because of their community welfare programs.

It was not so much that they won the election; rather, that the redeemed American favorite PLO lost it. Over two years later, when Andrea and I were leaving Gaza in the wake of Cast Lead, Hamas, the once preferred option for American largess and the elected government, was now deemed so untouchable by the US government that an American like me could be shunned for talking to them. This was a conundrum, to say the least, as we sought to store and distribute relief supplies in a sovereign Strip.

In the immediate aftermath of that chapter of hostilities with Israel (Operation Pillar of Defense), Hamas maintained some tenuous bona fides, but remained squeezed nonetheless in a vise between the Salafists who are anxious to pull the trigger for Armageddon and the educated Gazans who would be modern. Hamas remained on this razor’s edge — an organization which often glorified the child martyrs and reviled modernism with one eye looking over its shoulder at Islamic Jihad and the other eye on its need not to sever its ties toĚý “its big brother” Egypt.

Hopefully, as we look over the horizon, Gazans can dilute their militancy but augment its influence with economic investments, some egress through a port and airport and, in general, presenting “a swords to plowshares” alternative; hopefully in tandem with Israel taking what would be a defining risk (with the US at its back) to allow for a viable and independent West Bank-Gaza unity. In times of great tumult, sometimes the heretofore unimaginable can get a foothold, and certainly, since I first arrived on the scene in 1981, this (2023) qualifies as an era of unprecedented tumult.

The diaspora

: 500k strong in Chile, 250k in the United States, 160k in Germany, and so on. Many bemoan the silence of this influential, modern and often wealthy Palestinian diaspora. A colleague of mine from the Lebanese Civil War days recently told me: “If they gave in time and effort — even only 5% of what the Jewish diaspora gives — then the current dialogue of the deaf might be abated.” But most are cowed. Those in the States want to disappear into the American fabric, fearful of ending up on some homeland security’s list of persons inimical to our national security. Reminiscent, perhaps, of the Hollywood blacklists as a new breed of McCarthyism against Arab Americans rears its ugly head.

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The Arab Spring in 2011 was the latest disappointment in a longstanding Arab quest for freedom. Democracy was set back years by the failings of the Muslim Brotherhood and the 2013 military coup in Egypt. The rise and fall of the Islamic State, which took Sunni Islamism to its most extreme and fanatical edge, damaged the wider appeal of political Islam in the region for years to come. These disasters have led to widespread disillusionment with both democracy and political Islam, leaving an ideological vacuum at the heart of the Arab revolution.

However, as Mao Zedong said, a revolution is not a dinner party and so these setbacks should be regarded not so much as a failure but as a false start. Given the continued deterioration in the region’s socioeconomic and political fabric and the grim economic it seems inevitable that sooner or later the Arab Spring is going to return, raising the question when it does, what kind of narrative or ideology will be driving it?

Pan-Arabism Again

Pan-Arabism could be the answer. This ideology envisages different Arab states as one political entity and has been around for a while.  So, the new version of pan-Arabism will be different to that of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s, which led to the 1967 . In this war, Arab states joined hands to take on Israel but came up woefully short. The new 21^st Century model will be an updated one relevant for a globalized, digitalized world.

Can Self-Help Diplomacy Lower Political Heat in the Middle East?

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The Islamic State has already shown how this can be done. It used new leadership techniques, narratives and technology to reinvent . Like the Islamic State, pan-Arabism also seeks to transform society and establish a new transnational Arab identity. Both offer a romantic notion of the future that elicits an emotional rather than a rational response from the people. The Islamic State envisions a world based on a perverse interpretation of Islam that is brutally spartan and exclusionary. Pan-Arabism has the potential to offer a bottom-up, big tent ideology, which could easily absorb other already existing groups.

The Islamic State used the malaise in Arab and Western societies to boost its appeal and used savage violence as theater to achieve its grisly goals. In contrast, pan-Arabism holds out the promise of positive change and . Its appeal lies primarily in the notion of a pan-Arab identity and Arab unity which Arab intellectuals and elites have always found attractive. At its core is the belief in an Arab “super culture” extending across the region from North Africa to the Gulf, albeit with many variances under that umbrella.

One Nation That Cares About Palestine

Pan-Arabism promises to put Palestine at the top of the agenda again. Public opinion surveys have consistently shown that Palestine remains an important issue among ordinary people in the Arab world, even in countries which signed the with Israel. 

Palestine and Israel: A Bloody Saga

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The 2019-2020 , a public opinion survey across the Arab world conducted by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, Qatar found that 88% of all Arabs polled opposed recognition of Israel. Significantly, 81% of respondents supported the idea that the many and varied Arab peoples constitute a single nation. Only 16% agreed with the statement that “the Arab peoples are distinct nations, tied together by only tenuous bonds.”

Beyond the romantic vision of Arab unity, pan-Arabism is remarkably non-ideological about how society should be organized, leaving the door open for other ideas and inputs. This relative pragmatism gives pan-Arabism a protean quality that enables it to be many things to many people. Crucially, it makes pan-Arabism an ideology most opposition groups can rally around, fromintelligentsia and artists to jihadis and the Muslim Brotherhood. This gives the ideology its political potency.

In the 1960s, Arab leaders publicly espoused pan-Arabism because they thought it would help them retain power. In reality, they only paid lip-service to pan-Arabism because adopting it would have put their own positions at risk. Today, Arab leaders still pay pan-Arabism lip service but, at the same time, they invest heavily to counter its appeal.  Leaders use their own narratives as well as  top-down, state-sponsored, hard-edged nationalism to consolidate power as seen recently at events like Saudi Foundation Day, UAE Commemoration Day and Sisi’s pharaonic shenanigans.

During the Arab Spring, people protesting did not demand the boundaries that divided the Arab states to dissolve. In retrospect, it now appears to have been a mistake. Since then, it has become clear that the Arab dictators and the Israeli Occupation of Palestine are interlinked. It is almost impossible to tackle any of them individually without tackling them all simultaneously and collectively. For example, democracy in Egypt was by Israel and the Gulf countries, and Israeli occupation of Palestine continues with Egyptian support. Meanwhile, Gulf autocrats depend on Egypt’s repression of democracy and political Islam to maintain their own domestic power base, and the Egyptian military dictatorship is fueled by Gulf petrodollars. This is the Gordian knot that defeated the Arab Spring revolutions.Ěý Pan-Arabism has the potential to cut this knot, which the Islamic State failed to do.

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The case, which was first exposed by Private Eye in 2016, relates to a UK government deal to provide communications services to the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG), which were delivered by a now defunct unit of Airbus called GPT Special Project Management. The Serious Fraud Office has prosecuted  the case. It claims GPT paid other companies, which were then used to bribe senior Saudi officials, including Prince Miteb bin Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, former head of SANG, in order to secure the contracts.

Opening the defense case at Southwark Crown Court, Barrister Ian Winter QC described the structure of the government-to-government deal, which dates back to the late 1970s, as a “fiddle” that enabled members of the Saudi royal family and the British government to “deny having any knowledge of [the payments] at all”. Winter went on to say: “This indictment does not begin to plumb the depths of what the UK government has been involved in since the late 1970s.”  The case promises not only to cast new light on the depths of UK-Saudi relations, but also to overshadow a much more recent Saudi deal with Airbus struck by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) for the exclusive benefit of himself and his line of the family.

MBS’s Murky Business Empire

Little public information is available about how the Salman clan runs its business empire. MBS is believed to oversee it personally and his full brother Turki and mother Fahda bint Falah bin Sultan al-Hithlayn are also involved. Fahda, who is never seen in public, was restored to Saudi society without comment in 2018 after being by MBS for two years. Turki’s main role is to introduce Western companies to the crown prince and he deliberately keeps in the background.

Outside Saudi Arabia, the family controls three Luxembourg-registered companies—, and —about which very little public information is available. Inside Saudi Arabia, their principal business vehicle is of which Turki bin Salman is the chairman.

Tharawat Holding Company has business interests inside Saudi Arabia in diverse sectors including construction, real estate, health, education, sports development, food and beverage, aquaculture, telecommunications and natural resources management. It is also suspected of having made a fortune out of defense contracts linked to the Yemen war. Before he was kidnapped and returned to Saudi Arabia against his will, a dissident Saudi prince told Arab Digest that, when the war started, Tharawat diversified its foreign partnerships into military materiel and the Salman clan enriched itself immensely via inflated arms contracts arranged by Turki.

“[Salman’s branch] are behind things inside the country and the Saudi public knows about it” said the prince. “MBS operates his business by bringing his special people and he is in control of the Royal Court. The younger brothers are making money, especially Prince Turki bin Salman. He has no official position—just a businessman —but MBS gives his brother some deals. Turki works for them.”

In September 2015, an anonymous grandson of Ibn Saud published a letter calling for the downfall of the Saudi king in which he warned that large sums of money are being embezzled by the inner circle of the royal family. The stated that $160 billion (SAR 600 billion) was taken by the leadership with a further $100 billion (SAR 375 billion) allegedly going directly to MBS and his brothers, Turki, Khaled, Nayif, Bandar, and Rakan.

Power and Wealth to MBS, His Sons and Brothers

The dissident prince also said Turki told him that MBS intends to change the current system of succession in the Saudi Kingdom to one based on primogeniture so that MBS’s own son will inherit the throne after him. “Turki told me we will be like Bahrain and Jordan where MBS will be king and then his son will be his successor’” said the prince.

“When MBS becomes king, he wants to put one of his children as crown prince, he wants it in his family, Salman’s family, so he will appoint his son as crown prince although he is only a little baby. He has one son called Salman. MBS wants to put him on the crown in the same way as the monarchies of Morocco, Bahrain, Jordan, or England do, to keep the throne for his blood. Either MBS will put his son directly as crown prince or he will first appoint one of his brothers and then his son.”

One business deal the Salman clan are known to have been involved in is arranging the financing for a new fleet of Airbus planes for Saudi Arabian Airlines, the flagship carrier of Saudi Arabia. In 2018 The Wall Street Journal published an into how the clan uses businesses connected to the government to make their fortunes. The story explains in detail how, when MBS came to power, he helped re-engineer the original plan.

As per the original plan, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) would have purchased 50 new planes directly from Airbus for Saudi Arabian Airlines. MBS has dumped that deal for a far more complex deal involving a newly established company called International Airfinance Corp (), which manages an Islamic finance fund called ALIF and is part-owned by an Islamic bank based in the Dubai International Financial Centre called Quantum Investment Bank in which Tharawat acquired a 54% stake. MBS’s brother Turki is the chairman of this bank.

Despite concerns raised about the deal—Saudi Arabian Airlines did not solicit bids from any other companies—and the fact that the Serious Fraud Office in London was at that time already investigating an Airbus subsidiary for corruption involving the Saudis, Airbus agreed to invest $100 million in ALIF on the condition that the fund would buy only Airbus planes. On June 23, 2014, Airbus and IAFC held a “signing ceremony” in London to announce the new fund. The IAFC tells us Turki hosted this ceremony.

In 2015, after King Abdullah died, the plan changed yet again into an even more convoluted chain of transactions. Instead of being sold directly to the Saudi government, the jets would now be sold to ALIF, which would in turn rent them to the state-owned Saudi Arabian Airlines, which has subsequently been rebranded as . Note that this convoluted deal helps Tharawat ending up as a beneficiary. As one government official , “at the end it went to Tharawat, who got others to finance it, and made huge profits without risking any of their money.”

On August 5, 2015, the anonymous opposition Saudi Twitter account Mujtahidd tweeted that the list price for 30 A320 and 20 A330-300 Airbus planes was $8 billion (SAR30 billion), but the amount budgeted was $12 billion (SAR 45 billion). The budgeted price is 50% more than the listed price, meaning $4 billion could be going into the pockets of MBS, Turki and their brothers. The original tweet is no longer available as Mujtahidd was hacked a month later and all its tweets were erased. Mujtahidd also wrote that MBS financed the deal with a Saudi government guarantee, on condition that Saudi Arabian Airlines paid Tharawat 150% of the agreed price.

The deal was finalized by MBS during a 2015 visit to France and not long after, at a gathering in a Saudi palace, he took credit for it. MBS claimed that the transaction demonstrated his success in balancing the Saudi state’s financial interests with his family’s interests. MBS said, “I am the mastermind behind this deal.” Depending on what happens next with the Serious Fraud Office’s case now unfolding in Southwark Crown Court, MBS’s cherished deal could yet come unstuck.

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Expert opinion is that this could prove to be the calm before an imminent storm. As et al wrote for Bloomberg on 3 June:

Only Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have enough spare capacity to offset a significant portion of the supply gap created by sanctions on Russia. Much of that will remain untapped even after the July and August production increases, setting up a crucial OPEC+ meeting in two months that could determine whether the US and Europe persuade their Gulf allies to break further from Moscow.

However, the wider context, both economic and political, coupled with the challenges involved in the cartel’s internal dynamics, suggest that Riyadh may prefer to stick to the present course for some time yet.

For starters, and as this shows, the price of crude has been relatively stable for the past month, with the Brent range bound between US$110 and US$120 per barrel or thereabouts. July’s targeted output increase of 648,000 barrels per day (bpd) is unlikely to change this, not least since the June commitment to “redistribute equally” the 216,000 bpd increase above what was previously agreed across all cartel members means that it will probably amount to only 100,000 bpd or so. This likely suits cartel members just fine as the 2021 agreement continues to serve its intended purpose.

Three Economic Considerations

Furthermore, other economic considerations argue in favor of putting off trying to thrash out a new agreement. Consider three pertinent facts.

First, the on Russian oil imports and ban on insurance of tankers carrying Russian oil remains subject to tricky negotiations at the . So it is far from clear how quickly these will come into force and how far-reaching they will be in practice. The impact on EU economies, therefore, is not yet clear. The Economist on June 5 summed up the risks as follows: “Even if the euro area is spared a recession, then, the energy shock will be a drag on growth. The ECB faces an unenviable dilemma. With every increase in inflation on the back of food and energy prices, the European economy is getting weaker.”

Second, in the US, despite a healthy employment rate and high post-pandemic household savings, views — at least from — are even more pessimistic and the looks set to increase the interest rate by at least a further 50 basis points and possibly 75 this month.

Third, as for China, lockdowns are not the only cause of the sharp economic slowdown. Furthermore, the of COVID-related restrictions should not distract from the fact that at the end of June the authorities were still listing one high risk area (in Beijing) and 13 medium-risk ones countrywide. Despite the efforts of the Chinese Communist Party to meet its economic growth targets — not least with an eye to the Party Congress in (probably) November —the involved in avoiding a possible recession are daunting.

At a time when inflation is soaring, these factors present all central bankers, not just the ECB and the Fed, with a to which there are no easy answers. Consequently, plausible scenarios could yet significantly depress demand for oil and, therefore, the price of crude before year-end as by Bank of America makes clear.

Added Realpolitik Considerations

Bridging economics and politics is the G7’s move to put a price cap on Russian oil which some experts believe could push the of crude up rather than down. While much has been made of the technical difficulties this entails, the of winning essential third country agreement are also far from straightforward.

The politics are just as uncertain, with Saudi/US relations front and center. Intense US lobbying was undoubtedly a factor behind the June 2 decision. But even for this modest shift there is a political price for Washington to pay, i.e. US President Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia this month going back on his pre-election to treat the Kingdom as a ‼ő˛š°ůžą˛šłó”. To try to minimize back home, Mr Biden will look to dress this up as peace-making — admittedly with some justification if the recently extended ceasefire in holds. In reality, it has more to do with the oil price and the damage which US inflation is inflicting on the already struggling Democratic Party’s prospects in the midterms. Sadly for Mr Biden, former Clinton Administration Energy Secretary was almost certainly correct that “a president has to try. Unfortunately, there are only bad options. And any alternative options are probably worse than asking the Saudis to increase production.”

As energy expert Helima Croft was quoted as saying in the 3 June edition of the Financial Times, this is “a return to realpolitik” — possibly even to the point where we may yet see agreement on resetting the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action () and limited US rapprochement with .

Riyadh too is indulging in realpolitik. Reports immediately before the June OPEC+ meeting of Russia’s possible expulsion from the group notwithstanding, it clearly makes sense from the Saudis’ perspective to keep OPEC+ together for now at least. Despite last month’s minor deviation, and especially bearing in mind the papering over of the between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, the agreement struck last year is still the framework within which OPEC+ is working and which may prove to be the glue which is holding the cartel together.

The bottom line? We are very unlikely to have a clearer picture when OPEC+ meets August 3. Thus, both politically and economically, Riyadh certainly had nothing to lose and much to gain by stretching the July 2021 deal out as long as possible.

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Netflix’s first original film in Arabic, Perfect Strangers, has become more of a controversy than a hit in regions like Egypt and the Middle East. This is due to its featuring a character that comes out as gay to his friends as they dine together. Although the movie doesn’t show any explicitly homosexual scenes, it has provoked strong reactions against the streaming giant, as some citizens said the movie homosexuality and immorality.

Released last January in 190 countries, Perfect Strangers, set in Beirut, is directed by Lebanese Wissam Smayra and stars actors such as Egypt’s Mona Zaki, Lebanon’s Nadine Labaki and Jordan’s Eyad Nassar. It’s the story of seven close friends who decide to play a game of “true or false” around the dinner table, exposing the intimate secrets that can be found on their cell phones. The friends agree to show every call, text and voice message to one another. The narrative reveals the occasional betrayal among some of the couples, and, at a critical point, one message has the effect of outing one of the friends as gay.

If it wasn’t for the Arabic language spoken by the actors and some Arab food served at dinner, ‘Perfect Strangers’ would look like a Hollywood movie. The plot, with its twists and turns and the dialogue, follows the classic model that the US studios have used for decades. The cinematography and art direction evoke the studio productions shot in L.A. in the 1950s. The characters are all good-looking and embrace modern western “values.” The women drink, are sexually nonchalant (one even takes off her underwear under the table) and are not shy about  revealing their infidelity. While the men check for porn on the internet and talk about money and profit.

With all these Hollywood stereotypes, one might think that the film could harness some of the soft power of the American film industry and seduce Arab viewers with a piece of entertainment of the kind that has charmed audiences even in China and Russia, places where homosexuality is also a taboo. The soft power of Hollywood films, playing on its ability to seduce rather than coerce, has opened many doors for the United States in the world. For instance, in the 20^th century, served as a tool convincing neutral countries to support US foreign policy against the Soviet Union. 

In the 21^st century, during a political and diplomatic crisis between Iran and the US, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences chose the then First Lady Michelle Obama to reveal the winner of Best Picture of 2013, Argo, Ben Affleck’s movie about six Americans who escape the 1979 Embassy takeover. Because the movie had an enormous appeal to Middle East audiences, theIranian military sought to congratulate Mrs. Obama for revealing the “real nature” of the award, based on political, not artistic criteria. In other words, Iranians realized how the most famous cinema award was used as a soft power tool by the US government.

Perfect Strangers may be less seductive and displays poorer production values than ‘Argo’. But in Arab countries, it’s far more controversial, if only because it evokes cultural taboos that may be too strong to break even by Hollywood’s tried and tested soft power prowess. When I watched the movie, I immediately questioned some gay friends living in countries like Egypt, Turkey, and Lebanon. Some of them have spent years in very secret homosexual relations with other men and women. What I’ve heard from them is that the Netflix production caused more pain than relief, since they had to act as if they were as ashamed and offended as their furious relatives with the availability of the movie in their culture. It’s a well-known fact that homosexuality is so strong a taboo that their families haven’t a clue about their son’s and daughter’s sexual orientation. This means they feel very comfortable freely attacking it and accusing the Western world of exporting cultural products that “stimulate those behaviors.”

For decades, Hollywood productions have been successful in Arab countries, but most of the time, the key to success was their ability to adapt the content and it into languages like Farsi, to insert local jokes and avoid cultural taboos. But Netflix’s strategy was risky and clever at the same time. Its first Arab movie was a co-production by Dubai-based Front Row Filmed Entertainment, Egypt’s Film Clinic and Lebanon’s Empire Entertainment. Shot in Lebanon with Arab actors, it didn’t go through local censors and was labeled as a non-family audience film only for the region. 

Thanks to this strategy, it was screened in many countries in the region, unlike Marvel’s ‘Eternals’ and Steven Spielberg’s ‘West Side Story’, banned respectively for having the first gay superhero and, the second, for having a transgender character. And despite (or because of) the controversy, Perfect Strangers has ratings for number of views in the Middle East, with a famous Egyptian actress like Elham Shahin going public to defend the movie, saying “there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it”, while, a member of Egypt’s House of Representatives, asserted that Netflix should be banned from Egypt. But the controversy itself might have paid handsome dividends, since the movie sat at the top of the region’s streaming chart for February. Here’s yet another consequence of Netflix’s strategy in the region. According to the Egyptian film critic and programmer,, no other entertainment conglomerate has ever shaken upsocial politics and posed such a threat to patriarchy, though it must be said that artistic freedom – another conquest attributable to Hollywood’s soft power – is still far from being a reality in the Arab world.

This isn’t the first time that cinema has been used in Egypt as a soft power to seduce the public to accept more liberal and modern values. With a more discreet and subtly artistic attempt, award-winning Egyptian director Youssef Chahine has in the past circumvented government censorship with films exploiting the themes of sex, homosexuality, drugs and political criticism. In movies like Return of the Prodigal Son (1978) and (1989), women with masculine traits and men with mortal hatred of their own repressed desires were ways the director found to evoke homosexuality. The filmmaker, who won awards in western festivals such as Cannes and Berlin with his art films designed for smaller audiences, attempted to undermine antigay culture in his country but proved unsuccessful. Perhaps this time, decades later and with a much bigger budget, Netflix can achieve a better result in the quest to make other people’s sexuality a perfectly acceptable characteristic among imperfect strangers.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔšĎ’s editorial policy.

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The rivalry between Iran and the Arab world is nothing new. The turned the previously friendly ties between Iranians and Arabs into a situation of regional competition and proxy conflicts. The most bitter moment came in the 1980s with the , which claimed over a million lives.

There have been points in recent history when Iran held amicable relations with Arab countries, especially under the presidencies of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami. The presidency of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the moment that Iranian-Arab ties hit an all-time low and that post-1979 rivalries turned into outright hostility.

In 2016, a group of religious extremists and ransacked the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Tehran and the Saudi Consulate in Mashhad. Soon after, Saudi Arabia and cut diplomatic relations with Iran. In 2009, Morocco ties with Iran over claims that the Iranians were spreading Shia ideology in the Sunni kingdom and undermining the national security of the country.

Today, Iran and Saudi Arabia are involved in a proxy war in Yemen, while Tehran’s role in countries such as Syria, Lebanon and Palestine is heavily criticized by the international community. Both Arab leaders and Western observers say Iran is on a quest to export its Islamic Revolution across the Middle East.

In this edition of The Interview, 51łÔšĎ talks to Nader Hashemi, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver, about Iran’s complex relations with the Arab world.

The transcript has been edited for clarity.

Kourosh Ziabari: Do you think the rivalry between Iran and the Arab world, especially Saudi Arabia, has historical explanations?

Nader Hashemi: Yes, but the rivalry between Iran and the Arab world has its roots in modern history. In other words, the “ancient sectarian hatred” thesis that is widely believed in the West is a form of intellectual laziness that explains very little about Saudi-Iran relations today. Sadly, President Barack Obama was a key proponent of this argument. Danny Postel and I debunk this thesis in some detail in our book, .

The Saudi-Iran rivalry begins after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Before then, Iran and Saudi Arabia were both pro-Western monarchies who had good relations and shared a similar worldview in terms of perceived threats and sources of instability in the Middle East. The civil war in Yemen in the early 1960s is a perfect example to cite in this regard. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia were on the same side of this war supporting the Zaydi Shia Mutawakkilite kingdom [North Yemen] against the republican forces backed by Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt.

At this moment, sectarianism was not factor in the politics of the Middle East. The key fault lines were ideology, regime type, namely monarchy vs. republic and Cold War alliances. All of this changed after 1979, when the Saudis and their allies sought to diminish the power and appeal of the Iranian Revolution by playing the sectarianism card.

Ziabari: In popular culture, Iranians and Arabs continue to insult each other in a racist way. There are Iranians who refer to Arabs as “locust eaters” or “lizard eaters” and refer to them as “tazis.” In return, there are Arabs who call Iranians majus, fire-worshipers, infidels and “ajam.” Has this rhetoric been challenged by daily people-to-people relations between the two sides?

Hashemi: To my knowledge, there is very little challenge to this form of mutual defamation and crass bigotry. One problem is there is very little interaction and connection between Iranians and Arabs. While language is a problem, the bigger problem is the landscape of political authoritarianism that dominates the region. This prevents Iranians and Arabs from freely meeting and mixing, and it creates an environment where mutual defamation and demonization can flourish.

Ruling regimes have little interest or incentive in challenging defamation, bigotry and prejudice. They exert little effort to combat these trends. I would argue, given deep regional rivalries among the ruling elites of the Middle East, not the people, authoritarian regimes benefit from these tensions as a way of directing attention from their own internal failures and crises of legitimacy onto outside groups that allegedly seek to dominate them.

In popular culture, the defamation of Iranians by Arabs, and vice versa, can be understood in historic and comparative terms. German-French relations involved similar problems that had historical roots, produced lots of bloodshed and two world wars. This gradually changed but, critically, change was only possible in the context of democracy, where people were free to debate, travel, critique and to challenge stereotypes and prejudice in the public sphere.

Finally, I would add that what is needed is a process of engendering a culture of mutual respect backed by state resources. This takes time, commitment and patience. It also requires moral leadership to confront chauvinistic forms of nationalism. There is nothing inevitable or natural about Arab-Iranian tensions; they can be mitigated and resolved. At the end of the day, Iranians and Arabs have a lot more in common than the differences that separate them.

Ziabari: Do you see discrimination against the Arab minority of Iran in the southern provinces in the context of the broader conflicts between Iran and the Arab world? Are Iran’s Arabs being kept at a disadvantage because the government in Tehran is not happy about them being empowered?

Hashemi: I see this problem in the context of political authoritarianism in Iran. It is first and foremost a structural problem rooted in the nature and distribution of power within Iran’s political system. In this context, minority groups are not free to protest, lobby and publicly demonstrate for their rights. Elections are not free and fair. The central government, and the ruling elites that control it, is not incentivized to fully respond to citizens’ demands; if it was, this problem could be ameliorated over time.

You do raise an important point in your question about how regional rivalries overlap with this problem. I think governments that are hostile to the Islamic Republic see an opportunity to exploit the legitimate grievances of Iran’s Arab minority to destabilize Iran and to score propaganda points. It is a mirror image reflection of a policy that Tehran has utilized to expand its influence in the Middle East. In other words, to seek out opportunities, where there are local grievances, to insert itself to weaken regional rivals and advance its national interests. Iran’s role in Yemen today is a perfect illustration of this policy.

Ziabari: Do the governments of Iran and Arab countries in the Persian Gulf foment anti-Arab and anti-Iranian sentiments for political gains?

Hashemi: Yes they do, but this activity is implicit not explicit. In other words, there is no official policy that one can directly point to. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) allies do not regularly target Iranian ethnicity; rather, the target is primarily Tehran’s regional behavior. These countries, especially Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, also foment and promote sectarianism, which often overlaps with ethnic defamation. This is a strategy of regime survival that is deliberately adopted by authoritarian regimes for reasons that we explain in our book.

These observations also apply to policies of the Islamic Republic. I would argue that Iran is more sensitive on this matter, for reasons of self-interest, in the sense that since the 1979 revolution, Tehran has sought to project its soft power throughout a region that is mostly Sunni Arab. Officially promoting anti-Arab sentiments or sectarianism would be self-defeating for the regime. Iran’s regional policies, however, do inadvertently contribute to sectarianism, especially in Syria and Iraq. By supporting repressive regimes and Shia militias that engage in sectarian killings, Tehran is rightly blamed for its political, military and financial support for these actors.

Ziabari: Is it realistic to lay the blame for current tensions between Iran and the Arab world at Iran’s door because it’s believed to be interfering in the internal affairs of Arab countries and getting involved in issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Hashemi: There is a lot a blame to go around and it cannot all be laid at the doorstep of Iran. As we are seeing right now, Saudi Arabia, especially under Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, is a huge part of the problem. Both sides of this regional rivalry are guilty of destabilizing the region. I do not believe that blanket statements and gratuitous generalizations help us here. We need to make distinctions.

In Syria, Iran is directly responsible for involvement in and contributing to war crimes and crimes against humanity on a colossal scale that have killed half a million people and created over 5 million refugees. In Yemen, Saudi Arabia is guilty of war crimes and the starvation of the Yemeni people. The aid organization Save the Children recently reported that 85,000 children under the age of 5 had died in Yemen during the last three years. They note that this was a conservative estimate. Saudi Arabia bears direct moral and legal responsibility for this situation.

Ziabari: There were points in the modern history of Iran, namely the presidencies of Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, when Iran and the Arab world had almost steady and robust relations. Why did this change and instead give rise to hostility and animosity?

Hashemi: You are absolutely correct to draw attention to the fact that, not long ago, Iran and Saudi Arabia had relatively amicable relations. This highlights the fact that current tensions are a function of contemporary politics and not of “ancient sectarian differences.”

After the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988 and the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, Iran’s revolutionary aspirations were drawn inward and the regime’s focus was on economic reconstruction. The election of pragmatic and reformists presidents in Iran during the 1990s led to a reduction of regional tensions and the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. In 1997, at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation meeting in Tehran, Riyadh sent a high-level delegation — crown prince and foreign minister. Rafsanjani and Khatami made reciprocal visits to Saudi Arabia during this period. Animosity toward Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, who in 1990 invaded Kuwait, helped bring the two sides together.

Everything changed in 2003. The key event was the American invasion and occupation of Iraq, followed by the rise of Shia political parties with close ties to Iran. This event changed the regional balance of power in the Middle East. The Saudis started to panic.

A related development was the rise and growing prestige of Hezbollah in Lebanon — in the Sunni Arab world. Near this time, Hezbollah had expelled Israel from southern Lebanon, resulting in its growing popularity among Sunni Arabs. The contrast between Hassan Nasrallah’s defiant speeches — which played on themes of anti-imperialism, anti-Zionism and support for Palestinian rights — and the corrupt and compliant pro-Western dictators that ruled the Arab world was stark. As a result of these developments, warnings of the “Shia crescent” taking over the region began to be heard in various Arab capitals.

The actual fear from Saudi Arabia and its allies was not Iranian or Shia occupation of the Arab world. Rather it was the spread and legitimation of political Islam throughout the region that sought to bring about political change that would challenge the Western-backed Arab authoritarian status quo. Due to these developments, after 2003, relations between Iran, Saudi Arabia and its allies steadily deteriorated. The 2011 Arab Spring uprisings damaged these relationships further.

Ziabari: Will things change for the better between Iran and the Arab world if Tehran takes steps such as stopping its sponsorship of groups like Lebanon’s Hezbollah or Palestine’s Hamas, retreating from Syria and halting its role in Yemen?

Hashemi: If Iran were to adopt these policies, then I think it would certainly help reduce regional tensions. The problem with your suggestion is that the probability of Iran reversing its regional foreign policy along these lines is close to zero. In the case of Hezbollah and Syria, Iran views its investment and intervention in Lebanon and Syria as vital to its national security and deterrence doctrine against Israel and the US. It is for this reason that Iran is so invested in supporting these actors and is not likely to reverse course.

Furthermore, the rise of Mohammad bin Salman has made a reduction in tensions next to impossible. If Iran were to adopt the changes you suggest, it would have a little impact on those tensions. Recall that in 2018 on his trip to the US, Mohammad bin Salman repeatedly compared Iran to Nazi Germany and described Iran’s supreme leader as being “worse than” Adolf Hitler. Rhetoric like this suggests that only regime change in Iran would satisfy the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia.

Ziabari: There were two points in recent years when the Moroccan government severed bilateral relations with Iran. How do you see the ups and downs of Iran’s relations with Morocco as a major Muslim nation and emerging power in the Arab world?

Hashemi: This is really a bizarre story. There is little substantial evidence that Iran has invested any significant resources in Morocco or that there is a substantial Shia presence that might explain these tensions. My evaluation is the following: There are problems from below in society and from the top at the state that explain this development.

At the societal level, the spread of ultraconservative Salafi Islam is a factor. Theologically, this version of Islam has deep Wahhabi roots and, as a result, it is decidedly anti-Shia in orientation. Anti-Shia paranoia is a key part of the Salafi-Wahhabi worldview. At the level of the state, Morocco benefits politically from standing up to Iran and claiming it has neutralized an Iranian threat. Saudi Arabia and the UAE welcome rhetoric like this as it lines up with their own threat perceptions. The Israeli right as well as Republicans and neoconservatives in Washington, DC, share a similar view. By presenting itself as a frontline state confronting the “Shia crescent,” Morocco hopes to derive economic and security benefits and guarantees from its allies.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔšĎ’s editorial policy.

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In the ever evolving complexity of relationships in the Middle East, Al Jazeera published in March 2018 with Middle East scholar Sean Yom that focuses on the changing role of the Arab League. Not so long ago, the league represented a salient example of regional organization, which was nevertheless fraught with ambiguity from the start. Yom identifies the historical factors that have seriously compromised its initial ambitions.

In particular Yom describes, the “intra-League rivalries and disagreements, buttressed by the fact that a good number of these countries are struggling with internal sovereignty or unity since the Arab Spring.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:Ěý

Sovereignty:

The ability of a nation to maintain its identity and its government’s authority within its borders when confronted with other nations whose sense of their own sovereignty somehow extends well beyond their borders

Contextual note

Yom puts his finger on the central problem that has handicapped not just Arab nations, but nearly every former colony of the European powers: “These are post-colonial countries that have to act, behave and project like long-standing sovereign states.”

The word “sovereign” suggests not just the formal capacity to pass and enforce the laws of the nation’s government, but also the presence of a complex set of reflexes, values and assumptions about the world connected to a shared awareness of the naturally evolving cultural reality of its people: its traditions, its language — or languages and dialects — and its environment.

In some cases, because of the way boundaries were arbitrarily drawn, establishing that shared understanding proves impossible and, in some cases, sows the seeds for civil war or permanent mutiny. In others, the artificial nature of the newly-created national institutions betray an incompatibility with traditional culture. And more often than not, both sources of permanent dysfunction are at play.

Yom effectively describes what we might call the postcolonial hyperreality of colonized peoples, contrasting with the more professionally staged and orchestrated hyperreality of neo-colonial powers. The formerly colonized, as he mentions, are required “to act, behave and project like long-standing sovereign states.”

In other words, it’s a scripted play. What they do is nothing more than acting, surface effect, simulation, designed to please neo-colonial profiteers, who were perfectly aware that it would appear as a form of pantomime. Their sovereignty exists in appearance only, as they respond to the force represented by three types of constraint: the geopolitics of their powerful allies (especially western allies, but China is also a prominent player in the game today); international bodies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization; and the major private actors in global markets, especially in banking and commodities.

This configuration of forces and influences means that attempts at regional organizational will always be challenged. The recent ordeals of the European Union — certainly the most successful and consequential attempt at regional organization — testify to the degree of difficulty.

Historical note

Yom hints at the ambiguous role — alternating between control and abject failure — that the United States has played in the history of the Arab League and its recent decline. He mentions “the 2000s, when the region was under the definitive shadow of American hegemony and the rules of the game were clear.”

American interference inspired a desire for and a feeling of unity among Arab nations. But when conditions changed and the US showed signs of both decline and diminished interest in subduing the Arab world after George W. Bush inaugurated a heroic period of waging wars that seemed intended to justify Samuel Huntington’s “,” opposition to the American Satan no longer enabled Arabs to feel united.

“As American hegemony has faded since then, due to a resurgent Iran, the Arab Spring, and increasingly Asia-oriented foreign policy in Washington, the League has not filled the regional void with a renewed sense of unity and purpose,” Yom says.

When asked to explain why the Arab League still exists even after failing to achieve any of its initial promises, Yom offers us a final insight on the underlying meaning of the driving force behind international organizations. He cites “a romantic notion among Arab intellectuals and elites that regional unity is attainable, that Arabness can still be a force for change.”

This is a cultural phenomenon whose force we shouldn’t underestimate in an age of purely pragmatic and opportunistic reasoning. Romantic notions may not influence short-term political and geopolitical change, but they can influence long-term change. Whether we are speaking of the European Union, the Arab League or the African Union, a certain romantic belief or hope plays a role in their evolution.

As we look at ongoing changes in Europe, the Arab world, Africa and South Asia, we should bear this in mind. It may not help us forecast how power in each region will be organized in 10 years’ time, but it will help us to understand historical shifts that take place over a much longer period. And that is something politicians with a concern for the perception of their role in history would be wise to pay attention to.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]Ěý

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔšĎ’s editorial policy.

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“When I watch a movie and the bad guy’s not an Arab, I’m relieved,” Dr. Jack Shaheen admitted to his audience at Los Angeles’ Levantine Cultural Center during a Ěýin late December. He grinned, and the audience chuckled a bit, but sadly, his sentiment was sincere.

For over 40 years, Dr. Shaheen has studied the image of Arabs in American media. In 2001, he completed a review of more than a thousand films dating from 1896 to 2000 that had Arab or Muslim characters and found that over 90 percentĚýportrayed the characters in a negative light. Based on his study, Dr. Shaheen authored Ěýand narrated a Ěýby the same name.

Dr. Shaheen’s most recent book, , uses images from his collection of thousands of movies, television shows, and printed materials to document portrayals of Arabs and Muslims in American popular culture. A traveling exhibit based on the book is on display at the Ěýin Atlanta until February 2.
In his research, Dr. Shaheen has found the same stereotypes repeated since the early days of Hollywood — the belly dancer, the terrorist, the dangerous but incompetent Arab, the lecherous sheikh, the submissive woman.

Think for example of the scene in Back to the Future in which Libyan terrorists try to attack the protagonist but ineptly fail to get their gun or their van working. Or, remember the original lyrics for the opening song in Disney’s Aladdin: “I come from a land…where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face. It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.”
*Dr. Shaheen at the Levantine Cultural Center, December 2012
Individually, these examples may not appear so sinister. Someone has to be the “bad guy” in the movie, or the comic relief. Why not use an Arab character?
Unfortunately, Arabs have historically and overwhelmingly been cast in such roles, and rarely have they been pictured as the “good guys” or even neutral characters. Dr. Shaheen remarked during his talk at the Levantine Center that the problem is in the balance of positive and negative portrayals. In response to a question about the acceptability of using Arabs as villains, he commented, “When you start portraying Arabs as you portray others, no better, no worse, then fine.”
According to Dr. Shaheen, the constant repetition of negative images of Arabs, even in fictional movies or television shows, has a tendency to desensitize the public and entrench harmful stereotypes. This trend is especially concerning considering the prevalence of media and entertainment in our digital age. “A child today will spend at least nine years of his or her life absorbed with media images,” Dr. Shaheen explained.

In fact, it wasĚýDr. Shaheen’sĚýchildren who first opened his eyes to the negative images of Arabs in media. They came home one day with a weekly reader from school that depicted Palestinians as terrorists, and they asked worriedly if their mother’s Palestinian roots meant that they themselves were Palestinian. Together, Dr. Shaheen, who has Lebanese roots, and his children came up with a solution: his son called himself “Lebastinian American” and his daughter, “Palenese American.” It was a lighthearted approach to a serious issue.

Dr. Shaheen’s experience with his children spurred him to begin researching the Arab image in popular culture. However, he initially received little support for his work and faced significant resistance. Many of his research proposals were rejected by his university, with some members of the review panel calling his work “Arab propaganda.” After writing his first article on the subject, Dr. Shaheen received 40 or 50 rejection letters over the course of three years before finally getting the piece published.

Fortunately, Dr. Shaheen has witnessed a growing awareness about the misrepresentation of Arabs in American media. A larger body of scholarly work has begun to address the issue of negative Arab stereotypes, and more university courses have incorporated it into their curriculums. Additionally, up-and-coming Arab-American actors and independent filmmakers are entering the entertainment business and challenging the stereotypes.

*Ěýdocumentary, Media Education Foundation

In recent years, Dr. Shaheen has seen these changes reflected in the film industry. One of his latest favorite movies isĚýThe Visitor, in which the protagonist must face issues of identity and immigration when his life intersects with that of an Arab illegally living in the United States. Other films whose evenhanded or positive portrayals of Arabs Dr. Shaheen appreciates includeĚýAmreeka,ĚýCairo Time,ĚýSalmon Fishing in the Yemen,ĚýSyriana, andĚýThree Kings.

Dr. Shaheen emphasized that it is the responsibility of Arab and Muslim Americans to bolster this trend by taking an active role in challenging stereotypes. In his talk at the Levantine Center, he explained that “presence is paramount” in changing the Arab image. “The scholars alone can’t do it,” he said. Others must make their voices heard in the political system and in the media.

Himself a consultant on a number of films, among themĚýSyrianaĚýandĚýThree Kings, Dr. Shaheen urges Arab-Americans to get involved and help improve the accuracy of film and television projects, or even pitch their own projects to the studios. “Most people in the industry, they’re not out to vilify anyone for a buck,” he explained. They simply need someone to assist and to challenge them.

Ultimately, Dr. Shaheen hopes for one movie that will act as a breakthrough for Arabs in the American entertainment industry. “I think what you need is a major blockbuster film that will really rattle the cages,” he explained. In the meantime, he plans to sit back and watch the younger generation carry his battle forward.

At the Levantine Center, Dr. Shaheen ended his talk as he closes every speaking engagement, with a poem by Arab-American activist Alex Odeh: “LiesĚýareĚýlikeĚýstill ashes. When the wind of truth blows, they areĚýdispersed like dust and disappear.” He encouraged his audience to spread their stories about and perspectives on Arabs and Muslims and to promote a more accurate public image.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔšĎ’s editorial policy.

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For better or worse, the public discourse in Israel has recently focused exclusively on the nuclearization of Iran. However, precisely in light of the upheavals in the Arab world, it is now worth reexamining the relevance of the Arab Peace Initiative, which surfaced in Beirut in 2002 and was reaffirmed at subsequent Arab summits, most recently six months ago in Baghdad.

The earthquake that shook the region, from the Maghreb to Yemen, from Libya through Egypt to Syria, obligates Israel to study the arena carefully while proceeding judiciously and waiting for the dust to settle. At the same time, the dangers of the past contain challenges and opportunities for the future. Perhaps the Arab Peace Initiative can now afford Israel an opportunity to consolidate its Zionist vision of the secure, legitimate, democratic nation-state of the Jewish people.

Many have reacted to the upheavals in the Arab world by hypothesizing what would have happened to Israel had it accepted the peace initiative and then encountered the current chaos. It is true that the Arab initiative is an Arab interest, and otherwise would not have been proposed in the first place. However, had Israel and the international community been open to a dialogue based on the initiative at that time, it is not inconceivable that Israel’s situation today would have been more secure and stable. Had Israel reacted to the Arab initiative and expressed willingness to enter into preliminary talks about the outlines proposed by the Arabs, the country’s international standing might well have changed for the better.

Calculated Risk

There is no doubt that the Arab initiative as it now stands includes political and security risks to Israel. These should not be taken lightly and therefore any response must be measured, balanced, and controlled. In addition, in an era of uncertainty in the Arab world, an agreement signed by one regime is liable to be abrogated by the next. However, since Israel cannot accept the terms of the initiative in their entirety, once a dialogue begins, negotiations may follow in which Israel acts to minimize the risks.

Indeed, in the past, the Arab League and prominent Arab statesmen were prepared to discuss changes – in both directions – to the initiative. For example, in 2004 King Faisal announced that the Arabs would have to be prepared to amend the initiative; at the summit in March 2005, Jordan worked to persuade other Arab League members to insert changes into the formulation as to exclude the mention of Jerusalem and the refugees’ right of return; Iran publicized the proposed changes and denounced them; in 2008, King Abdullah of Jordan noted that the initiative was not a directive dictated to Israel; and in May 2009, moderate Arab leaders were reportedly prepared to respond favorably to the American request to discuss changes to the initiative.

Furthermore, among the changes considered over the years by the members of the Arab League (though in practice not made) were some serious, sensitive issues, such as agreement that refugees return only to the area of the Palestinian state or be rehabilitated in their host countries; the division of Jerusalem and raising the UN flag over the Old City and holy sites; and re-sequencing of the traditional process toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement whereby normalization would occur first, and only at a later stage to be followed by the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Finally, the text itself speaks of a solution agreed upon by both sides, thereby connoting that its contents are not dictated terms.

From the Arab World

Recently, Munib Al-Masri, a prominent Palestinian businessman, published an open letter to Mahmoud Abbas about the need to renew the initiative. According to him, the fact that the Palestinians are no longer on the international agenda makes it easier for Israel to establish facts on the ground. Among the Arab leaders who support the renewal of the initiative even now are King Abdullah II of Jordan as well as the Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir.

At the same time, voices in the Arab public occasionally question the good such a renewal would do in light of Israel’s official stance ignoring it. The Arab peace initiative committee convened not long ago in the presence of Abbas, and the initiative was not even mentioned in the meeting's concluding document. Abu Ala recently published a long essay in which he called for the reexamination of the Arab initiative on the occasion of its tenth anniversary.

Islamic fundamentalist circles express even more extreme opposition. In a recent essay, Hamas leader Dr. Sallah al-Bardawil asserted that reviving the peace initiative represents an evasion of the duty to resist the occupation, and in August Sheikh Alazahar Ahmad al- Tayb called for an emergency meeting of Muslim nations in Mecca to withdraw the Arab peace initiative once and for all, which “met such a shabby welcome” on Israel’s part.

With Whom Does One Talk?

Should Israel agree to consider the Arab Peace Initiative, dialogue must begin with the party that formulated the original initiative – the Arab League. Were Israel to positively relate to the initiative, this would likely boost the League on the Arab, Islamic, and global levels, yet strengthening the League in its current format is not necessarily against Israel’s interests. A second potential interlocutor is the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), an umbrella for 57 states. In 2003, the OIC – with the exception of Iran, the convention host – adopted the Arab initiative. Finally, of course, talks must take place with the Palestinians themselves.

Each of these parties has reason to continue to embrace the Arab Peace Initiative especially now, with such reasons including the Sunni-Shiite conflict, the lack of internal political stability in Arab nations, the Arab League’s need to bolster its standing, Islam’s need to navigate its legitimate route to the international community, and the desperate economic situation in many Arab and Muslim nations. These parties would all benefit from Israel taking a constructive view of the initiative, even without formally accepting it.

Benefits to Israel

By relating to the initiative as a basis or framework for negotiations between Israel and the Arab world, Israel will provide the United States with a considerable political asset and help the latter rebuild its image in the Middle East and Arab world.

Moreover, relating positively to the initiative, which is Sunni in origin, would strengthen that camp in its struggle against the Shiites over who bears the standard of Islam, and could possibly even assist in constructing a Sunni-Israeli-Western axis against Iran, Hizbollah, and other Shiite elements in the Muslim world. As has recently been demonstrated, Islamists do not shy away from diplomacy and are no strangers to realpolitik. It is not inconceivable that room could be made for Turkey to participate in such a move, thereby affording Israel an opportunity to start rebuilding relations with it.

Israel will likely be able to bolster its status in the West as a neighbor with the leverage needed to attain appropriate recognition by Islam. To a great extent, the authors of the Arab initiative represent Islam, and therefore Israel is likely to earn recognition, both within the Islamic leadership and within the public represented by that leadership.

Precisely now, in light of developments in the Arab world and the relative fluidity inherent in every revolution, the possibility of influence is greater and the price Israel will eventually have to pay to reach its national goals and attain peace with the Arab world may be lower.

The Arab Peace Initiative will not survive indefinitely. The threats issued by Arab sources that this time they will rescind the initiative after having reauthorized it time and again over the last decade are more serious than in the past. This too is a factor Israel must consider.

Caution, judiciousness, dispassion, and insistence on critical interests are required of Israel at this time, but so is courage. It may be that choosing the route of negotiating in principle on the basis of the Arab Peace Initiative with an Arab world undergoing turmoil and bloodshed will prove to be a sensible strategy also – though not only – given the Iranian threat.

*[A version of this article was originally published by ].

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