Not long ago, the Middle East was embroiled in a Cold War between two blocs. On one side stood the alliance of states supported by the US, including Israel and the so-called “moderate” Arab countries of Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf states, on the other, the “Axis of Resistance” consisting of Iran and its allies like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, and the Assad regime in Syria. During his first term as president, Donald Trump pushed for normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states, the so-called Abraham Accords, in a bid to strengthen the Israeli alliance against Iran. Under his successor Joe Biden, there was speculation that an agreement with Saudi Arabia could follow.
René Wildangel is a historian of West Asia. He has worked for a number of organizations including Amnesty International and the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Israel’s New Regional Hegemony
These speculations were put to rest by the brutal attack launched by Hamas on 7 October and the subsequent destructive military operation in Gaza — indeed, some observers even considered preventing the conclusion of this agreement to have been the attack’s main goal. Since that day, the situation in the region has changed fundamentally. While the Israeli military conducts one of the most destructive military operations since the end of World War II in Gaza, particularly in terms of civilian casualties, it has dealt decisive blows to its archenemies, killing almost the entire Hamas leadership along with thousands of its fighters. Clashes with Hezbollah also took out numerous commanding officers, while the Israelis demonstrated their intelligence superiority with the “pager attack”, ultimately even killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the escalation in autumn 2024.
The Assad regime was overthrown by Islamist rebels from Idlib in December 2024. Assad’s fall meant the end of an important Iranian ally, and was at least indirectly a result of the extensive decimation of the Axis of Resistance and the weakening of Hezbollah, which had long served as an important pillar of the Assad regime. Since then, Israel has sought to prevent the emergence of a strong central state in Syria through regular military interventions. Then, the Israeli Air Force attacked Iran directly and humiliated its declared archenemy militarily in 12 days, launching air strikes at will and bombing army facilities and nuclear installations.
The Israeli government’s mantra is clear: we reserve the right to attack hostile states and non-state actors in the region at any time. By the same token, anyone who attacks Israel can expect massive retaliation, with little attention paid to civilian casualties or the lives of political leaders. The deterrent appears to be working: during the Israeli attack on Iran, Iran’s most important ally, Hezbollah, did not fire a single rocket at Israel.
All major human rights organizations and leading genocide researchers now classify Israel’s warfare as genocide.
All of this only became possible because the US under Trump supports Israel’s actions in the region — at least for now, that is, as sudden changes of heart are never out of the question with Trump, especially since US support for Israel’s attack on Iranian nuclear facilities in the form of air strikes led to mounting dissatisfaction in the isolationist wing of Trump’s camp.
Western criticism of the attack on Iran, widely regarded as an illegal war of aggression by experts in international law, remained muted. This confirmed how weak legal norms have already become in the age of Trumpism. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz even described the recent attacks on Iran as “dirty work” that Israel was doing “for all of us”. This statement expresses contempt for Iranian civilian victims and Iranian civil society, whose years-long fight for freedom constitutes the real “dirty work”, while also revealing a disregard for the principles of international law. The idea that these developments could lead to a positive outlook in the region is dangerous. Even if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu currently likes to talk about “peace between us and the entire Middle East” — as he did most recently during his visit to the White House, when he bizarrely proposed nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize — the reality is quite obviously completely different.
Peace through Strength, but without Palestinians
The idea of a “New Middle East”, as described in a book by former Israeli Defence Minister Shimon Peres in 1993, is fundamentally a beautiful utopia: a region in which equal states cooperate with one another and armed militias and religious fanaticism are a thing of the past. Indeed, there were real opportunities for such a prospect: more than 20 years ago, the Arab League adopted its own vision for the realization of the two-state solution, promising full normalization of relations with Israel following the establishment of a Palestinian state. Taking this path would have offered a real chance for a peaceful reconfiguration of the region.
But Netanyahu and Trump pursued a completely different goal during Trump’s first term in office: namely, one that would allow Israel to cooperate economically and militarily with the states in the region — and above all with the US allies in the Persian Gulf — without acknowledging the Palestinian claim to self-determination. Trump showed what the future could hold for the Palestinians in his “Deal of the Century”, which promised far-reaching Israeli annexations and would have made a viable Palestinian state impossible. The vision now being propagated, “peace through strength, but without Palestinians”, builds on these plans — except that Netanyahu, thanks to Israel’s newfound hegemony in the region, is firmly convinced that he no longer needs to make any concessions whatsoever.
This vision is having a broad impact within the Israeli establishment. Under the banner of “Abraham’s Shield”, a “coalition for regional security” is putting forward a new order. According to this vision, Israel’s “historic military successes” should now translate into political initiative. Essentially, this means a rapid expansion of the Abraham Accords, especially with Saudi Arabia, and the isolation of Iran. Meanwhile, the initiators, including dozens of former intelligence chiefs, army officers, and ministers, are deliberately putting the Palestinian question on the back burner. They say that there is currently “no possibility of creating a Palestinian state”, but that they want to work with the US and regional partners to achieve a “gradual separation” from the Palestinians.
It is not entirely clear what exactly this would mean, but Israeli unilateralism is nothing new. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once made going it alone the core of his policy. When the hardliner pushed through the withdrawal of settlers and soldiers from Gaza, many saw it as an opportunity: Israel acted alone, but with unilateral withdrawals it could take concrete steps towards a two-state solution.
Nevertheless, these hopes were quickly dashed. The unilateral strategy was by no means aimed at separating from the Palestinians and ending the occupation, but rather at accelerating the settlement policy and land grab in the West Bank and, by isolating Gaza, securing Israeli sovereignty over demographic developments in the rest of the territory and permanently denying Palestinian freedom of movement. The core element was the construction of the “separation wall”, which claimed almost 10 percent of the West Bank for Israel and was ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004.
By supplying arms to Israel and engaging in unrestricted economic cooperation, the EU has condoned Israel’s actions and thus severely damaged its own credibility.
In the wake of the 7 October massacre and harsh domestic criticism of Israel’s security failures, Netanyahu also wants to boost his own popularity and satisfy his ultra-right coalition partners with demonstrations of power in the region. That said, conclusively preventing any Palestinian state is also one of his core political goals.
Never since 1967 have facts been created on the ground so rapidly and with such brutality: 2 million people in Gaza are being fought with unhinged violence and the systematic use of hunger as a weapon of war. All major human rights organizations and leading genocide researchers now classify Israel’s warfare as genocide. Israeli government representatives speak openly about concentrating the population in a huge camp in the south and fantasize about expulsion, which they label “voluntary departure”. The cleansing of entire village communities is progressing in the West Bank, where murderous settler violence and home demolitions the order of the day. For the Israeli Right, these mark milestones on the path to permanently altering the demographic composition of the population in their favour and realizing their vision of Jewish supremacy and land appropriation throughout the territory between the Jordan River and the sea.
Europe’s Responsibility
If Netanyahu’s vision of regional realignment becomes reality, the consequences will be fatal — and not only for the Palestinians. Netanyahu claims to be acting in self-defence and protecting Israeli security interests. Yet it is at best questionable whether continued occupation, military dominance, ongoing bombardments, and targeted killings can secure these interests in the long term. Regional conflicts tend to be exacerbated by constant military intervention, which often encompasses serious violations of international law or war crimes. In an environment marked by failing states, the emergence of new terrorist networks and the strengthening of militant resistance will be a logical consequence.
This is particularly true in Gaza, but also in the West Bank, where a traumatized and disenfranchised generation is coming of age. It is true of Iran, where a beleaguered regime is now even more determined to build a nuclear bomb, as well as Syria, where Israel has intervened militarily for months and most recently endangered the transitional government and the fragile process of restructuring with air strikes on government buildings in Damascus. Israel’s interference from outside is also not helping the severely threatened Druze minority, which it claims to protect — if a new civil war breaks out, all minorities and the civilian population in Syria will once again be the ones to suffer.
Amidst all this, the EU, which currently lacks any strategy for a consistent regional policy, remains silent. During the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, Iran, and most recently Syria, it merely stood by and watched instead of drawing red lines: whether on the fundamental issue of a war of aggression prohibited by the UN Charter, the mass killing of civilians in the Gaza Strip, the attacks on residential areas in Lebanon, the targeted killing of non-combatants such as nuclear scientists in Iran, or, most recently, the air strikes on Damascus. On the contrary, by supplying arms to Israel and engaging in unrestricted economic cooperation, the EU has condoned Israel’s actions and thus severely damaged its own credibility. Those who remain silent about Israel’s ongoing attacks in the region, which violate international law, will have trouble criticizing authoritarian states such as Russia, China, or Turkey for their own military aggression elsewhere.
Never has the political vacuum and the need for diplomacy been greater. In March of this year, the Arab states agreed on a roadmap in Cairo: a permanent ceasefire, reconstruction, political prospects for the formation of a Palestinian state, and normalization with Israel. This represents a clear political horizon that the EU — and German foreign policy in particular — must actively support.
The German government defines Israeli security as German “national interest”, but Netanyahu’s extremist agenda thwarts that very security. Nevertheless, Germany initially refused to even join the call by 25 states for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Diplomatic leverage is available to counter Israel’s unilateralism and rejection of the two-state solution, such as the recently discussed suspension of the EU Association Agreement with Israel. An internal EU report on the subject clearly identifies a long list of war crimes.
The European Union must urge all states in the region to return to legal norms and to rely on diplomacy instead of unilateral military intervention. Otherwise, further conflicts threaten to erupt in the region and beyond.
Translated by Loren Balhorn.
