From the heritage of the Al-Hariqa neighborhood in Old Damascus, it is said that a merchant once consulted an expert to price a rare Kashan carpet. The expert coveted the carpet but could not afford it, so he gave the merchant an imaginary valuation that made selling it impossible. It was said that the expert had “tied the merchant’s head,” not by force, but by allowing the fear of selling fairly and suffering a loss to govern his mind.
This is exactly what Itamar Ben Gvir, on the one hand, and Yahya Sinwar, on the other, did: They served each other by tying their communities’ heads with a mix of excessive power and existential fear, to the point that abandoning a zero-sum security logic seems to these tied minds more costly than any real peace in the region.
Previously, leaders such as Eshkol, Eban, Ben-Gurion, Peres, Barak and Olmert seriously sought a regional climate of peace as a necessary condition for the prosperity of the Israeli experience itself, even if their choice was based on the logic of deterrence rather than reconciliation. But the fearful fear even shaking hands with their opponents, even when their own hand is on the trigger.
This dilemma began when secular and moderate Israelis decided to coexist and collude with extremist ideological messianics, succumbing to their constant extortion and even offering them every possible social and then political incentive and bribe for the sake of coexistence. Even Rabin’s assassination did not deter them.
Since the 1990s, Israel has stopped seeking any peace. But now it faces its most dangerous moments since its establishment.
Israel of 1948 is no longer the same. There have been decisive changes in society, with gradual demographic shifts: migration from Eastern Europe and the growth of conservative communities. With the collapse of the Arab national project and the Soviet Union, the arrogance of power rose, while the left and center were pushed aside in favor of the right, to the extent that Israeli negotiators firmly tell us that the new young generation “no longer sees a need for peace, so why make any concessions?”
It was a profound shift in Israel’s vision of its reality in the region. Instead of seeking a peaceful climate, it surrendered to the logic of fortifying the fortress and expanding its walls, while weakening its strategic environment and relying on the coexistence of mutual extremism.
Both sides continued to bet on the zero-sum solution, each finding in the other’s extremism a justification for further fortification and polarization. This was reflected in the division of the Palestinian Authority and the support for the Hamas experience while suppressing its moderate alternative, then in the cold war with Iran in Syria and Lebanon, where the logic of the besieged fortress prevailed. The need to expand the geographical field became apparent, and living with the surrounding region without higher and thicker walls became impossible.
Israeli elites, led by Netanyahu, even talked about the need to diversify alliances with Russia, Eastern Europe and China, to the point that Washington itself needed to remind Tel Aviv of the dangers of competitors entering the core of the Israeli security system.
Then came October 7 as a consecration of this undeclared mutual extremism. The wall theory was pierced through primitive, raging methods, creating a toxic mix of fear and siege and excessive force. Instead of a self-assessment to reconsider the isolated fortress theory, coexistence with extremism and the suppression of all moderation in the opposite trench, the Israeli government insisted on the same zero-sum logic.
That was until the war on Iran exploded, with Israel discovering a completely new world: It was neither able to abandon Washington’s cover and find an alternative, nor able to resolve the conflict by forcibly deporting Palestinians. As America itself retrenches into its regional strategy, Israel is learning late that even Trump, who accompanied it toward its final goals, has begun to find it a burden on his projects. Indeed, its diplomatic crisis intensified until the Israeli Foreign Ministry almost completely evaporated.
It is approaching, with its accumulated victories and its arrogance of power coupled with a lack of wisdom, a Pyrrhic victory: the king who was doomed by his victories before suffering a single defeat.
Regardless of Iran’s nuclear project, about which not even America has a serious vision regarding its fate, dangers are growing around Israel like mushrooms that require neither a reactor nor enriched uranium: a drone priced like a mobile phone, and a precisely guided missile.
The moment of elections is a moment when its collective mind is put to the test, on the eve of elections that might overthrow Netanyahu. But I doubt they will solve the dilemma he inherited for the country. The question is not: Who will win the seats? It is: Will the elections create a turning point that unties the head and allows a significant bloc of Israeli elites to emerge from the cocoon of power and fear?
Despite the cultural depth of the Israeli people, what makes me pessimistic is that these elections are taking place amid a significant dose of opportunism within the political elite. Even Netanyahu’s competitors fear, even falsely, speaking about regional peace, while many secretly look for alternative foreign passports.
How absurd it is for an elite to fear the word “peace” more than missiles!
In an era of an American shift away from traditional security guarantees, these dangers spread like mushrooms. Raising walls is not enough to protect the old fortress, nor will the fortress, in any case, be an alternative to a safe regional climate. Neither walls protect, nor does technology grant immunity that can compensate for the absence of peace.
