Regardless of how Israel’s unjustified and illegitimate war on Iran ends, no Middle Eastern state should dream of a happy ending as long as Israel is cementing its absolute control over the region, and humiliating anyone it pleases and appeasing whomever it wants to based on its requirements for security and hegemony. Iran, despite its differences with several Arab capitals on many issues, remains the only force that can restrain the Israeli “monster” and its encroachment on Arab rights.

The disintegration of Iran and the collapse of its centralised state, with its ancient culture and historical contribution to Islamic civilisation, would only bring disaster to Arabs and Muslims in the region in terms of security and the economy. However, it would be perfectly in line with Israel’s ambitions, which appear to be seeking to break up  the countries of the region along ethnic and sectarian lines, weakening them and ensuring there is no common bond nor strength enough to challenge Israeli power. With its vast area (1.6 million square kilometres) and ethnic and sectarian diversity on the eastern shores of the Gulf, Iran would become a major source of instability, sending further waves of migration from a region already suffering a demographic imbalance, as well as posing a threat to countries such as Türkiye, Pakistan and Russia. This nightmare could become a reality if the United States allows Israel to overthrow the regime and the state structure of Iran under similar pretexts to the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, which brought nothing but bloodshed and destruction to the people of those two countries and their neighbours.

The Israeli dream of dividing up the countries of the region into small entities and mini-states, harking back to the Western colonial project that emerged after the First World War, is no secret anymore. Ministers in Netanyahu’s government have made statements about it in Syria, and Zionist theorists talk about applying it in other countries in the region. 

Nevertheless, the Western-backed Israeli propaganda machine claims Israel’s actions are essentially self-defence in protection of Western interests and values, and this new narrative hints that Arab governments support Israel’s war on Iran, a ridiculous claim that does not fool the majority of people in the region.

The goal of this propaganda is not just to silence official criticism of Israel’s actions in the region—the silence is already deafening!—but also to demand that capitals near and far should be grateful to Israel for keeping the region safe from Iran’s alleged nuclear weaponisation programme. That’s the view of the Israeli ambassador to Britain, Tzipi Hotovely, who said in an interview with the BBC: “Europe owes a huge thank you to Israel for doing that, and the Gulf countries as well. Our region would have been a place that is not safe for anyone if Iran had accomplished their plan.”

Some Israeli commentators have made even more extravagant claims, for example Professor Meir Masri of the Hebrew University, a frequent guest on Arabic TV channels such as BBC Arabic and Al Jazeera. He tweeted: “The era of normalisation with Israel for free is over. After the war, we will demand that Arab normalisers pay tribute.” People like Masri and Hotovely might wear a mask of civility and international law when addressing Western audiences, but they openly practise racism and incitement against civilians when they discuss Arabs and Muslims. It is no wonder, then, that Meir Masri himself, whose tweets betray his own racism and incitement to violence, has become an advisor to the largest Zionist institution that blackmails the media and instigates witch-hunts against Arab journalists on grounds of “antisemitism”.

Since time immemorial, the Middle Eastern nations have fought one another, sometimes winning, sometimes losing, sometimes reconciling among one another. But Israel, since its inception in 1948, has decided not to live like a normal state with declared borders like the rest of God’s creation. It chose the model of the American settler, the white cattle drover who appeared amid the “uncivilised” indigenous people and decided to take everything they needed to survive, becoming the master of all those that remained. As a settler-colonial project, or an advanced Western fortress, Israel decided to subjugate its neighbours to its power, aided by constant European and American support. It promoted the deceptive idea of being a meek, little lamb encircled by Arab and Muslim wolves, which must therefore be protected. In the context of the Zionist idea, there is no good Arab except the Arab who accepts what Israel does and submits to its power on its terms.

Thus, the Western-backed Israeli propaganda machine invented endless justifications for Israeli aggression, which has not stopped since the establishment of the state in 1948. Starting with the lie that Arab countries almost wiped out the Jews who survived the Holocaust, while the historical record shows none of these countries possessed any power comparable to that of the well-trained and well-armed Zionist gangs, which conducted massacres in Arab villages and displaced 700,000 Palestinians from their land; to the myth of Abdel Nasser’s quest to throw Israel into the sea and the deception of the 1967 defeat. Since its inception, Israel has been and continues to be, in the Western imagination, the biblical image of the good boy David who kills the mighty Goliath with his slingshot and stone. And the story was always met with applause and admiration from Western audiences that rejected the supernatural everywhere except when it came to God’s covenant to Israel.

The Israeli propaganda repeated by decision-makers in Washington and Europe about the “existential threat” posed by Iran’s nuclear programme is a fabrication that few people challenge. The reality is that Iran and six countries (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany) signed an agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme in 2015 after 20 months of marathon negotiations, with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) coming into force on 20 January 2016. What happened next? Tehran complied with the agreement, and the international community, especially the European Union, was optimistic about the possibility of containing it and softening its positions on many issues. However, the US withdrew from the agreement under Trump’s first administration, at the urging of Israel and its prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Is history repeating itself? The US imposed maximum sanctions on Iran and cut off its ties to the international financial system. According to US intelligence estimates, Iran was not close to manufacturing a nuclear weapon, but Israel’s doctrine of superiority does not accept that another country in the region should have the right to approach that point, while Israel, according to reliable estimates, possesses more than 200 nuclear warheads.

In the early 1960s, Israel targeted German scientists participating in the Egyptian missile programme with assassination and intimidation in order to disrupt the programme. At the same time, with European and American collusion, it was developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. During that period, Washington cajoled many countries into joining the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, except Israel. When President John F. Kennedy sought to pressure Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, and his successor Levi Eshkol, to prevent the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the Israelis manipulated that pressure. When CIA Director Richard Helms came to inform Lyndon Johnson in 1968 that Israel already had the bomb, the US president asked him not to spread the news further and act as if he did not know. Israel was the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East, under American and Western cover, and no one else has this advantage or seeks it. The US destroyed Iraq under the pretext that it possessed weapons of mass destruction, at Israel’s instigation, and threatened North Korea, Syria and Libya for the same reason.

The Western-accepted doctrine of Israeli superiority will not allow any Arab or Islamic country in the Middle East to enjoy military capabilities that approach or match Israel’s. The Israel lobby in Washington does not hesitate to oppose any deal to sell advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or Egypt that could match what Israel gets for free. In the case of Egypt, the Israeli propaganda machine never stops denouncing any Egyptian attempt to strengthen its military presence in the Sinai Peninsula on the pretext of the peace agreement signed between the two countries, while Israeli forces and aircraft are stationed on the Philadelphi Corridor, just metres from the international border.  The Israeli veto on armament in the Middle East is no longer limited to Arab countries; it now threatens Türkiye in order to limit its influence in Syria and keep Syria a disarmed state, like Lebanon.

Israel’s dream of reshaping the Middle East is the most dangerous nightmare the region has faced in decades. I doubt it will be based on trade, peace and profit, as US President Donald Trump claims, but it will place the region and all its countries at the mercy of the Israeli hegemon. This nightmare may come true and remain for some time, but over the centuries, the sands of the Middle East have swept away many empires and invaders who did not absorb the region’s deeply rooted culture and did not know that these peoples do not forget or forgive, even when they are at their weakest.