“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” — Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The Middle East is sleepwalking toward Armageddon. Its leaders mistake noise for strategy and emotion for resolve, while all sides fall into the familiar pattern of playing the victim. The trap is set on multiple fronts. The question is whether anyone has the wisdom—or the honesty—to recognise it before it is too late.
I. The Root Cause We Refuse to Name
Every war in the Middle East over the past seventy-eight years has a single return address: Palestine. These include Lebanon (1948, 1967, 1973, 1982, 2006, 2024–present); Egypt (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973); Jordan (1948, 1967, 1973); Syria (1948, 1967, 1973, 1982, 2007, 2024–present); Iraq (1948, 1967, 1973, 1991, 2003); Sudan (1948); Libya (1948, proxy support across decades); Yemen (1948, 2015–present, Houthi strikes 2023–present); and Iran (1980s–present, direct strikes 2024–present). Pull any thread and it leads back to the same unresolved structural question — not as sentiment, not as rhetoric, but as the foundational cause that every peace process has deferred, every normalisation agreement has bypassed, and every diplomatic forum has buried.
The late South African President and anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela understood this clearly.
“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
He was right in 1997. He remains right in 2026.
The chain of consequences is unbroken. In 1948, approximately 700,000 Palestinians were displaced through Israeli military operations and expulsion in what Palestinians call the Nakba — the catastrophe. Around 400 villages were destroyed and never resettled, leaving a refugee crisis that remains unresolved to this day. In 1967, Israel launched preemptive strikes against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the Six-Day War, occupying the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai, and the Golan Heights. That occupation — now spanning more than half a century and regarded as illegal under international law by successive UN resolutions — has left millions living under military rule, in refugee camps, or in diaspora, still awaiting the rights affirmed under UN Resolution 194 in 1948.
The unresolved displacement of 1948 produced resistance. The Israeli occupation following the 1967 war accelerated the emergence of the Palestine Liberation Organization as the central representative of Palestinian national aspirations. Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 produced Hezbollah. The armed suppression of Palestinian aspirations produced Hamas in 1987 — and with it, the transformation of Gaza into an open prison holding nearly two million people under blockade, cut off from the world by land, sea, and air. The continued suppression of Palestinian rights culminated in October 7, 2023. What followed was the Gaza war — over 70,000 killed, the majority of them women and children, 17,000 under the age of eighteen — in what the United Nations described as a genocide. That war activated the axis of resistance.
In April 2024, Iran launched Operation True Promise 1 — its first-ever direct military strike on Israel — in retaliation for Israel’s bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus and the killing of its senior officials. True Promise 2 followed in October 2024, in response to the Israeli assassinations of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, killed in Tehran on Iranian soil, and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, killed in Beirut.
In June 2025, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion — a large-scale preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure — triggering True Promise 3: a twelve-day campaign of missiles and drones. On 22 June 2025, the United States joined the conflict with direct strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. A ceasefire followed. It did not hold.
In early 2026, a surprise and unprovoked US-Israeli strike during nuclear negotiations killed Supreme Leader Khamenei, senior Iranian officials, and 165 schoolgirls and staff at a girls’ school in Minab. Iran’s response — True Promise 4 — expanded into a multi-week campaign of successive waves of drone and missile strikes targeting Israeli cities and American military bases across the Gulf. The United States launched Operation Epic Fury — a sustained military campaign against Iranian military and nuclear infrastructure. Israel re-entered southern Lebanon, advancing toward the Litani River.
Every link forged from the one before it. Every escalation traceable to the same unresolved origin. Palestine is the disease. Every attempt to treat the symptoms while avoiding the root cause has failed. It always has. It always will. Until the international community faces this with the honesty the seventy-eight-year record demands, every ceasefire will be temporary, every normalisation will be fragile, and every war will produce the conditions for the next one.
Wars Fought for Someone Else’s Vision
To understand how the Middle East reached this point, two documents must be read alongside the history.
The first is the Yinon Plan — a 1982 article titled “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s,” written by Oded Yinon and published in the Hebrew journal Kivunim. It argued that Israel’s long-term security required the fragmentation of surrounding Arab states into smaller, ethnically and sectarian-divided entities incapable of mounting a unified regional challenge. The scenarios it outlined included: Lebanon divided into multiple provinces; Syria fragmented along sectarian lines; Iraq split into Kurdish, Sunni, and Shia entities; and Jordan “liquidated” as a Hashemite kingdom through the encouragement of large-scale Palestinian migration from the West Bank into eastern Jordan. It also referenced Egypt in the context of the Camp David Accords and broader regional realignments, while implying that similar pressures could eventually extend to other states, including Saudi Arabia—a vision of regional reordering through sustained division.
The second is A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, written in 1996 for Benjamin Netanyahu by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, and other American strategists. It argued for abandoning the Oslo land-for-peace framework and instead pursuing the removal of hostile regimes — beginning with Iraq, then Syria, then Iran — to reshape the regional balance of power in Israel’s favour.
Both documents were published. Both blueprints were, to varying degrees, pursued. The costs, however, were borne largely by others. America bore significant financial and human costs. Arab populations bore the societal costs. Israel advanced its regional position.
What Disappears When Palestine Is Free
The question Western policy discourse rarely asks honestly: what disappears if Palestine is genuinely resolved?
The answer is both simple and transformative. Hezbollah’s military rationale would weaken. Born from Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, it would increasingly evolve into a domestic political actor — as it has already partly done — with its armed wing potentially integrated into the national military, contingent on a respected and enforceable international border agreement.
Palestinian armed resistance in Gaza and the West Bank would cease, whether through a two-state solution or a single, democratic, non-apartheid state in which equal rights are guaranteed to all — Jews, Christians, Muslims, Druze, and others.
The Yemeni Houthis’ Red Sea campaign would likely come to an end.
Iranian proxy networks would be disbanded as the central cause that sustains them diminishes. The so-called “axis of resistance” is built around Palestine. Sanctions on Iran could ease with a revival of agreements such as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, improving trade and stability across the Gulf.
This is not idealism. It is strategic logic. Wars persist not because actors prefer conflict, but because the underlying grievance remains unresolved. Address it and the architecture of conflict begins to weaken.
In September 2024, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi criticised Israel for its lack of a clear “end game,” accusing the nation of perpetuating conflict rather than pursuing resolution. Responding to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion that “we are surrounded by enemies,” Safadi stated: “We are here, members of the Muslim-Arab committee, mandated by 57 countries. I can tell you unequivocally that all of us are willing, right now, to guarantee Israel’s security, provided that Israel ends the occupation and allows for the emergence of an independent Palestinian state.”
This framework has, in fact, already been proposed. The Arab League Peace Initiative (2002) offered full normalization with Israel in exchange for: withdrawal to the 1967 borders; the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital; and a just solution to the Palestinian refugee issue.
At a minimum, if such a framework proves unattainable, the alternative would be a single, democratic, non-apartheid state in which equal rights are guaranteed to all, regardless of religion or ethnicity.
Can all Muslim and Arab country leaders come together again and repeat that offer — “We can tell you unequivocally that all of us are willing, right now, to guarantee Israel’s security, provided that Israel ends the occupation and allows for the emergence of an independent Palestinian state? ” And if the offer is refused, do they have the courage to impose it — with the dignity and resolve the moment demands?
LEBANON
1948 — Lebanon joined the Arab-Israeli War alongside Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq following Israel’s declaration of independence. Lebanese forces engaged along the northern border. Lebanon signed an armistice with Israel in 1949 but never a peace treaty — making them technically in a state of war for decades.
1967 — Lebanon did not directly participate in the Six-Day War but Palestinian fedayeen operating from Lebanese territory began cross-border raids into Israel, drawing Israeli reprisals and beginning the cycle of conflict that would define the next six decades.
1973 — Lebanon did not formally join the Yom Kippur War but Palestinian factions based in Lebanon launched operations, and Israeli forces conducted strikes inside Lebanese territory in response.
1982 — Israel invaded Lebanon in Operation Peace for Galilee, advancing as far as Beirut, besieging the city, and forcing the PLO to evacuate. The invasion resulted in the Sabra and Shatila massacre of Palestinian civilians by Lebanese Christian militias while Israeli forces controlled the surrounding area. The invasion directly produced Hezbollah, founded in 1982 as a resistance movement against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon.
2006 — Following Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers, Israel launched a thirty-four day war against Lebanon — Operation Change of Direction — involving extensive airstrikes on Lebanese infrastructure, a naval blockade, and ground operations in southern Lebanon. Approximately 1,200 Lebanese were killed, the majority civilians. The war ended in a UN-brokered ceasefire with no clear military victor but significant destruction of Lebanese civilian infrastructure.
2024–present — Following October 7 and the Gaza war, Hezbollah began daily exchanges of fire across the Lebanese border in solidarity with Gaza. In September 2024, Israel escalated dramatically — assassinating Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, deploying exploding pagers in a mass assassination operation against Hezbollah operatives, and launching a ground invasion of southern Lebanon. By early 2026, Israel had re-invaded Lebanon pushing toward the Litani River.
EGYPT
1948 — Egypt was the primary military force in the Arab coalition that entered Palestine the day after Israel declared independence on 14 May 1948. Egyptian forces advanced from the south toward Tel Aviv before being halted. The war ended with armistice agreements in 1949. Egypt retained control of the Gaza Strip.
1956 — The Suez Crisis. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal. Britain, France, and Israel launched a coordinated military operation — Israel invaded Sinai while Britain and France bombed Egyptian positions. American and Soviet pressure forced a withdrawal. The crisis elevated Nasser to pan-Arab hero status and deepened Egyptian-Israeli hostility.
1967 — Israel launched preemptive airstrikes on 5 June 1967, destroying the Egyptian air force on the ground within hours. Israel captured the entire Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt within six days. Egypt lost approximately 10,000 soldiers.
1973 — Egypt launched the Yom Kippur War on 6 October 1973 — simultaneously with Syria — in a surprise attack designed to recapture Sinai. Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal and initially overwhelmed Israeli defences in a major military achievement. After initial Egyptian advances, Israel counterattacked, crossed the Canal, and encircled the Egyptian Third Army. A ceasefire was brokered under American and Soviet pressure. The war eventually led to the Camp David Accords in 1978 and the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty in 1979 — the first between Israel and an Arab state. Egypt regained Sinai and was subsequently expelled from the Arab League.
JORDAN
1948 — Jordan’s Arab Legion, commanded by British officers, was arguably the most effective Arab military force in the 1948 war. Jordan captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem — including the Old City and the Western Wall — which it annexed and administered until 1967. Jordan signed an armistice with Israel in 1949.
1967 — Jordan entered the Six-Day War despite Israeli messages urging King Hussein to stay out of the conflict. Jordanian forces shelled West Jerusalem. Israel responded by capturing the entire West Bank and East Jerusalem — territory Jordan had held since 1948. The loss of the West Bank and its Palestinian population was catastrophic for Jordan, which had granted Jordanian citizenship to Palestinians after 1948. Jordan lost approximately 6,000 soldiers.
1973 — Jordan did not formally participate in the Yom Kippur War. King Hussein privately warned Israel before the attack — a warning that was not fully acted upon. Jordan sent an armoured brigade to fight alongside Syria on the Syrian front but did not open a Jordanian front, a decision that preserved the kingdom but drew Arab criticism.
1994 — Jordan signed the Wadi Araba Peace Treaty with Israel — the second Arab state to do so after Egypt. The treaty normalised relations and resolved territorial disputes. Jordan has maintained the peace treaty since, though public opinion in Jordan remains strongly pro-Palestinian.
2024 — In a significant development, Jordan participated in intercepting Iranian drones and missiles headed for Israel during Iran’s Operation True Promise 1 in April 2024 — the first time Jordan had taken active military action in coordination with Israel, drawing sharp domestic and regional criticism.
SYRIA
1948 — Syria participated in the Arab coalition in the 1948 war, fighting along the northern front. Syrian forces captured several kibbutzim before being pushed back. Syria signed an armistice in 1949 but never a peace treaty with Israel — remaining technically at war to this day.
1967 — Syria lost the Golan Heights in the Six-Day War. Israeli forces captured the strategically vital plateau overlooking northern Israel and the Syrian capital Damascus in the final two days of the war. The loss of the Golan became a defining national trauma for Syria.
1973 — Syria launched the Yom Kippur War simultaneously with Egypt on 6 October 1973, initially recapturing much of the Golan Heights before Israeli counterattacks pushed Syrian forces back and Israeli troops advanced to within artillery range of Damascus. A ceasefire was brokered. Syria never regained the Golan — Israel annexed it in 1981, an annexation not recognised under international law. The United States recognised Israeli sovereignty over the Golan in 2019 under the Trump administration.
1982 — During Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, Israeli and Syrian forces engaged directly in the Bekaa Valley in a significant air battle. Israel destroyed approximately 82 Syrian aircraft and multiple Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries — a devastating defeat for the Syrian air force.
2007 — Israel conducted Operation Orchard — an airstrike on a facility in Deir ez-Zor, Syria, which Israel and the United States assessed was a nuclear reactor under construction with North Korean assistance. Syria denied it was a nuclear facility. The IAEA later concluded it was likely a nuclear reactor. The strike demonstrated Israel’s willingness to conduct unilateral military action deep inside Syrian territory.
2011–present — The Syrian civil war created a complex new theatre. Iran and Hezbollah intervened to support Assad. Israel began conducting hundreds of airstrikes inside Syria — targeting Iranian weapons transfers to Hezbollah, Iranian military infrastructure, and Iranian-aligned militia positions. By 2024, Israel had conducted over 300 documented airstrikes inside Syria. Following Assad’s fall in late 2024, Israeli forces seized additional Syrian territory and conducted extensive strikes on Syrian military infrastructure.
2024–present — With Assad’s fall, Israel expanded its military footprint in Syria, seizing buffer zone territory and striking Syrian military assets to prevent them falling to hostile forces.
IRAQ
1948 — Iraq sent forces to participate in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, fighting along the northern West Bank front. Iraqi forces performed creditably in several engagements but were ultimately part of the defeated Arab coalition. Iraq signed no armistice with Israel and technically remains in a state of war — having never signed any peace or normalisation agreement.
1967 — Iraq sent troops and aircraft to support Egypt and Jordan in the Six-Day War, though Iraqi forces arrived largely after the fighting had concluded on those fronts. Iraqi aircraft participated in limited operations.
1973 — Iraq sent armoured divisions to fight alongside Syria on the Golan front during the Yom Kippur War, participating in some of the heaviest tank battles of the conflict.
1981 — Israel conducted Operation Opera — a preventive airstrike destroying Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad before it became operational, in what Israel described as preventing Iraqi nuclear weapons development. The strike was internationally condemned including by the United States at the time, but is now widely cited as a precedent for Israeli preventive military action.
1991 — During the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein fired approximately 42 Scud missiles at Israeli cities — including Tel Aviv and Haifa — in an attempt to draw Israel into the conflict and break apart the American-Arab coalition. Israel, under American pressure, did not retaliate militarily, one of the most significant acts of strategic restraint in Israeli history. The Scud attacks killed 2 Israelis directly and caused significant civilian casualties from panic and gas mask misuse.
2003 — The American-led invasion of Iraq, shaped significantly by the Clean Break neoconservative framework, removed Saddam Hussein — eliminating what Israel had considered one of its most significant conventional military threats. The destabilisation of Iraq and the empowerment of Iranian-aligned Shia political parties fundamentally reshaped the regional balance of power.
2019–present — Iraqi Shia militias aligned with Iran — the Popular Mobilisation Forces — began launching drone and rocket attacks on American bases in Iraq and on Israel, particularly following October 7, 2023, as part of the axis of resistance’s coordinated pressure campaign.
SUDAN
1948 — Sudan was then under Anglo-Egyptian condominium rule and was not an independent state. Sudanese volunteers participated in the 1948 war fighting alongside Egyptian forces, but Sudan had no independent military capacity.
Post-independence — Sudan consistently supported the Arab position on Palestine through the Arab League and participated in the Khartoum Summit of 1967 — which produced the famous “Three No’s”: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.
1973 — Sudan provided political and some logistical support to the Arab coalition during the Yom Kippur War.
2020 — Sudan joined the Abraham Accords normalisation process under significant American pressure — including linkage to Sudan’s removal from the US State Sponsors of Terrorism list and debt relief. The normalisation deal was deeply controversial within Sudan and has not been fully implemented amid Sudan’s subsequent political instability and civil war beginning in 2023.
LIBYA
1948 — Libya was under Italian and then British administration in 1948 and had no independent military capacity to participate in the Arab-Israeli War. Libyan volunteers may have participated informally.
Post-independence (1951 onward) — Under Muammar Gaddafi from 1969, Libya became one of the most vocal opponents of Israel and supporters of the Palestinian cause. Gaddafi funded Palestinian factions, hosted PLO offices, and consistently opposed any Arab-Israeli peace negotiations.
1973 — Libya provided financial support and some military equipment to Egypt and Syria during the Yom Kippur War, though Libyan forces did not directly engage.
1986 — American airstrikes on Libya under Operation El Dorado Canyon — ostensibly targeting Libyan terrorism infrastructure — were partly motivated by Libyan support for Palestinian militant groups that had conducted operations against Israeli and Jewish targets.
2011–present — The NATO-led intervention that removed Gaddafi created a power vacuum exploited by multiple armed factions, some with Islamist orientations that included anti-Israeli ideology. Libya became a transit route for weapons flowing toward Palestinian factions in Gaza. The country’s ongoing civil war has kept it as a destabilised actor on the periphery of the conflict rather than a direct participant.
YEMEN
1948 — Yemen participated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, sending forces that fought alongside the Arab coalition, though their military contribution was limited.
Post-1948 — Yemen remained a consistent supporter of the Palestinian cause through the Arab League but was too distant and too poor to be a significant military actor in the core Arab-Israeli conflicts of 1956, 1967, and 1973.
2015–present — The Houthi movement — formally Ansar Allah — seized control of much of Yemen including the capital Sanaa in 2014-2015, triggering a Saudi-led military intervention that has killed hundreds of thousands and produced the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The Houthis are aligned with Iran and frame their ideology explicitly around opposition to America, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.
October 2023–present — Following October 7 and the Gaza war, the Houthis began launching ballistic missiles and drones at Israel — reaching as far as Tel Aviv — and conducting attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea that they identified as linked to Israel or Israeli-bound. This effectively closed a major global shipping route, forcing vessels to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope at enormous cost. American and British forces conducted extensive strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen in response. The Houthis continued operating despite the strikes, demonstrating remarkable resilience against a bombing campaign that has not achieved its stated objectives.
2024–present — Houthi missile and drone attacks on Israel continued throughout 2024 and into 2025-2026, with the Houthis firing hundreds of projectiles. Israel conducted retaliatory strikes on Houthi infrastructure including the port of Hodeidah. The Houthis remained operationally intact.
IRAN
1948 — Iran did not participate in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Iran was a constitutional monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who maintained relatively cooperative relations with Israel through the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s — including intelligence cooperation through SAVAK and Mossad, and oil sales to Israel.
1979 — The Islamic Revolution fundamentally transformed Iran’s position. Ayatollah Khomeini declared Israel an illegitimate state, severed all relations, handed the Israeli embassy in Tehran to the PLO, and made support for Palestinian liberation a foundational principle of the Islamic Republic. The slogan “Death to Israel” became embedded in state ideology.
1980s — Iran founded and funded Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1982 following Israel’s invasion, creating the proxy network that would become Iran’s primary instrument of pressure against Israel over the following four decades.
1990s–2010s — Iran provided funding, weapons, training, and strategic guidance to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and later the Houthis and Iraqi militias — building what became known as the axis of resistance. Iran was widely assessed to have been involved in the 1992 and 1994 bombings of Israeli and Jewish targets in Buenos Aires. Iran’s nuclear programme, which Israel and the West assessed as potentially weapons-directed, became the central axis of confrontation.
2024 — Operation True Promise 1 — On 1 April 2024, Israel bombed Iran’s consulate in Damascus, killing senior IRGC commanders including General Mohammad Reza Zahedi. On 13-14 April 2024, Iran launched its first-ever direct military strike on Israel — Operation True Promise 1 — firing approximately 300 drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. The vast majority were intercepted by Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, Jordan, and France in a coordinated defence. Iran described the strike as a proportionate response to the consulate bombing. Israel conducted a limited retaliatory strike inside Iran.
October 2024 — Operation True Promise 2 — Following Israel’s assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July 2024 and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut in September 2024, Iran launched True Promise 2 on 1 October 2024 — approximately 180-200 ballistic missiles fired at Israel. The majority were intercepted. Israel struck Iranian air defence systems in retaliation.
June 2025 — Operation Rising Lion / True Promise 3 — Israel launched Operation Rising Lion — a massive preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, air defence systems, and military infrastructure. Iran responded with True Promise 3 — a twelve-day campaign involving over 550 ballistic missiles and hundreds of drones. The United States conducted direct strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities on 22 June 2025. A ceasefire was eventually brokered.
Early 2026 — True Promise 4 / Operation Epic Fury — A surprise US-Israeli strike killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and senior Iranian officials. Iran’s response — True Promise 4 — expanded into a multi-week campaign of waves of drone and missile strikes against Israeli cities and American military bases across Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE. The United States launched Operation Epic Fury — a sustained military campaign against Iranian military and nuclear infrastructure. As of March 2026, the conflict is ongoing.
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