Europe, the United States, and Israel are going through political turmoil. Yet there is a clear divide.
Europe currently lacks a common uniting narrative, while the US and Israel are anchored in solid ideologies that allow debates to be argued passionately, yet safely, as evident this week in the US, where pro- and anti-Administration voices united in reaction to the assassination attempt of US President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondence Dinner – a celebration of the core American value of freedom of speech.
Similarly, this was evident in Israel over the last two and a half years, as political rivals fought shoulder-to-shoulder to save Israel and helped one another, in an astonishing display of mutual assurance.
On the other hand, some Europeans seem to bond through obsessive opposition to the Jewish state, which increasingly serves as an indirect assault on the US. While Israeli and American fighters protect Europe from Iran and its proxies. Europe was attacking the American value of freedom of speech by sanctioning Israelis for things they say.
Europe also targeted the American value of freedom of religion by sanctioning leaders of Israel’s religious community, and challenged free and fair elections by sanctioning elected Israeli political leaders whom Europe does not like.
This European-American chasm is now highly visible in the Iran war, yet at the same time presents an opportunity to transform the Middle East.
The Iran War changes the Middle East
The outdated myth held by Europe is that the Israeli-Arab conflict requires a “balanced approach” toward Israel to maintain good relationships with the Arabs collapsed during the Iran war.
The war not only underscored that the Arab interest is for a strong and prosperous Jewish state, but it also showed that there is a Middle East-wide dependency on the military might of Israel.
The war also reiterated that the threat to the Arab world is not coming from Israel on the West, but from Iran and other actors to the east and the north, accelerating the need for a realignment of the Middle East’s defense lines and borders. After all, today’s borders were created a century ago by and for the exclusive benefit of Europe.
New ideas for peace discussed in this column and in my new book, From Survival to Peace, are now turning actionable.
These include abandoning Western-imposed “divide-the-baby” templates that perpetuate conflict, like the “two-state solution”, and switching to win-win deals that benefit the local population, such as the Abraham Accords.
Vision for organic peace
One such win-win deal is ending the illogical population concentration on the western edge of the Middle East, while there is vast empty land to the east.
Indeed, conditions are now ripe to build the “California in the Middle East,” in the eastern Syrian/Jordanian desert, providing tremendous economic opportunities for the region while also protecting Arab regimes from emerging threats and shifting the West’s defense lines from the shores of Europe and the Jordan River to further east.
Similarly, the mass labor needed for such huge projects is now available as Gazans are seeking to leave, while funding is now more feasible thanks to commitments to rebuild the Middle East.
The peace vision, outlined in my book, also includes ending the 1948 forever war, which was artificially prolonged by Europe – for example, through funding UNRWA, a dehumanizing entity designed to perpetuate the misery of 1948 refugees. Expanding the Trump Gaza relocation proposal to include 1948 refugees would give Palestinians choices – personal self-determination at last.
It is a peace-promoting shift from exclusive focus on Palestinian national rights, intertwined with Western dehumanization of Palestinians (such as denying them the opportunity to leave Gaza), to renewed focus on Palestinian human rights, including the basic human right to leave a demolished war zone, choose where to work, how to collectivize, and whether to immigrate.
Indeed, such peace ideas could emancipate Arabs and the Middle East from a century of European occupation and exploitation.
Arabs seek to benefit from the Jewish state
Over the last two years, we witnessed visible miracles; the Jewish nation fended off a simultaneous physical assault coming from Iran and its proxies, and a brutal ideological assault coming from Europe.
The ability to not just survive, but thrive through those insurmountable challenges, was duly noted by Israel’s Arab neighbors, who, unlike Europe, now wish to benefit from the crisp light coming from Zion, not to oppose it.
Israel thrives because it is anchored by the ideology of Zionism, just like the United States thrives because it is anchored in the ideology of Americanism. Those sister ideologies are grounded in faith, particularity, nationalism, and conviction.
The strength of such a bond could now bring sustainable peace to the Middle East and beyond.
The writer is the author of the new book, From Survival to Peace. He is also the author of The Assault on Judaism: The Existential Threat is Coming from the West, and of Judaism 3.0: Judaism’s Transformation to Zionism. For his geopolitical analysis, visit EuropeAndJerusalem.com