Had Israel not existed!

What if Israel did not exist? Would the Middle East have been more stable, or would it have possessed the inherent conditions for conflict and war, rendering stability merely relative and intermittent? What might the Middle East have looked like had the Zionist entity not been established in 1948? There is no doubt that the scenarios here are numerous and the possibilities manifold; let us explore them hypothetically.

Perhaps the first assumption is that Palestine would have remained a state with an independent identity, inhabited by a Jewish minority. Jewish immigration to the region is linked to ideological considerations no less significant than political ones, especially after the Second World War. The absence of Israel does not mean that the Jewish question and its connection to the Middle East have ended; rather, it is a journey that traces back historically to the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Pharaonic eras. The concept of the Land of Israel is deeply entrenched in Jewish doctrine and tradition, and Jewish rituals involve prayers for the return of Zion through the various stages of the Jewish diaspora. Jewish settlement throughout history in several areas within Palestine, such as Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias, could have created a national and ideological conflict with Arabs had Israel not been established, transforming the conflict with them into a disguised political form, though in reality, its roots go back to ethnic and ideological ambitions deeply embedded in history.

Had there been no Israel, the wars of 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973 would not have occurred. However, uprisings might have continued within the framework of religious, national, and sectarian conflicts. The existence and establishment of Israel created one of the major axes of conflict in the Middle East, turning the region into a more militarized, volatile, and conflict-ridden area as a result of this presence.

Had there been no Israel, this common enemy would not have served as a catalyst for the emergence of Arab liberation movements, nor for the rise of Arab nationalist and leftist movements. These liberation and national movements trace their roots to before 1948, i.e., before the establishment of Israel, having evolved during the Ottoman era and after the First World War. However, the establishment of Israel shifted these movements from their elite cultural and political activities to projects of mass mobilization and popular awakening. While the idea of Arab nationalism before 1948 was centered on Arab identity and a project to liberate the region from Ottoman influence and dominance, the common enemy after 1948 became a central issue that strengthened the project of Arab unity. This project was later thwarted by Israel with Western assistance, given that such a project posed a direct threat to the existence of the Zionist entity and to Western interests in the region.

Had there been no Israel as a political entity usurping Arab lands, the region would not necessarily have lived in permanent peace. The absence of Israel does not mean the absence of conflict in the Middle East; it means the absence of a specific, central type of conflict. The Middle East possesses a set of conflict-inducing factors, where the region’s ethnic and sectarian nature intersects with European colonial ambitions and regional powers such as Iran, alongside the region’s strategic and vital importance due to its waterways, crossings, resources, oil, gas, and trade routes. We see the dimensions and impact of these factors in the current war, which triggered an international crisis due to just one of the region’s vital waterways.

The foregoing does not diminish the impact of the existence and establishment of the Zionist entity on the security and stability of the Middle East. The structural components of conflict in the Middle East transformed, with the establishment of the Zionist entity, into open wars, continuous conflicts, international and military interventions, an arms race, human rights violations, occupation, and external interventions to protect the existence of this aberrant and usurping entity.

The absence of Israel may not mean the absence of conflict in the Middle East, but its establishment undoubtedly expanded the scope of such conflict, adding a complex national, ethnic, ideological, and historical dimension. This has deprived the Middle East of its security, safety, and stability, turning it into an open battlefield for all, and pushing the Zionist entity to violate the most basic foundations of human rights. Thus, the existence of Israel, and the conflict that arose around it and persisted with it, have become among the greatest factors contributing to the undermining of security and human rights in the Middle East. Therefore, had Israel not existed, the probability of peace and stability in the region would have been much greater.