Rami G. Khouri
THE Middle East in recent months has witnessed multiple military and ideological confrontations. Historic changes in regional power balances signal new strategies by Israel, Syria, Hezbollah, Yemen, and Iran. Many of the current dynamics appear to be continuations of past trends, albeit with heightened degrees of violence, cruelty, and criminality (most notably in the US-Israel joint-venture genocide against Palestinians and attacks on Iran).
The unfolding transformations will affect numerous dimensions of conflict in the Middle East, including relations between major Arab powers and Iran, the actions of Iranian-assisted armed Islamist resistance groups, Turkey’s influence, and the role of great powers (the United States, Russia, and China) in the region. But a closer look suggests that all these phenomena are linked to a long-standing core issue: the rights and fate of the Palestinian people. Indeed, the Palestine-Israel conflict remains central to regional aspirations for stability, justice, and development.
Changing Regional Dynamics, But Palestinian Rights at the Core
The 20-month-old US-Israeli genocidal assault on Gaza and the June 2025 US-Israeli attack on Iran have affected the Palestine question in different ways. An initial stock-taking suggests that the Palestinians will be the losers when the dust settles, considering Israel’s destruction of Gaza, the weakening of Hamas and its support network in the Iran-backed Axis of Resistance, and the generally docile behavior of Arab states. In fact, the Palestinians have been weak since the 1993 Oslo Accords, which fractured the national leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization and allowed Israel to continue efforts to colonize all of Palestine and attack those few Palestinians (or their allies) willing to resist its plan.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel, with its deep US support, has shown its willingness to use its immense military power to devastate Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian, Yemeni, and Iranian targets. These attacks apparently have made Israeli leaders feel able to dictate demands to all Arabs and Iran, while continuing to colonize Palestine and attempting to make the Palestine issue disappear from history and from current global concerns. Israeli officials now speak of this moment in triumphant tones. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted in June 2025, “We will change the face of the Middle East. That is exactly what we are doing.” And in the same month, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared, “We will also win in Gaza, with God’s help open up huge opportunities to reshape the Middle East.” He predicted that “we’re moving to expand the Abraham Accords” while demanding that countries like Saudi Arabia “should be the ones “paying” for peace with Israel—we’ve already done the hard work of standing up to Iran and Hamas.” Smotrich also doubled down on his government’s position that Israel will never agree to a Palestinian state. But Israel’s hubris is misplaced.
Three New Realities That Augur Well for Palestinian Rights
The June 2025 Israel-Iran war did weaken the Palestinians militarily, as their traditional regional supporters seemed unable to repel the powerful US-Israel military alliance that seeks hegemony over the entire region. At the same time, however, Iranian and Arab responses to Israeli attacks since October 7 have clarified three critical realities that dampen Israel’s self-perceived triumph—and that augur well for the century-long struggle for Palestinian rights.
The first such reality is that none of those attacked by the United States and Israel in the past 20 months have surrendered. To the contrary, they have continued to resist as they are able—and occasionally have hurt Israel in different ways. Such damage includes causing a massive displacement of civilians in north and south Israel, sending millions of Israelis into shelters for weeks on end, hitting strategic sites with advanced missiles that Israel could not intercept, closing Israeli ports, disrupting Israel’s economy and exhausting its army, and leading tens of thousands of Israelis to leave the country.
While the US-Israeli military machine has shown that it can attack and destroy at will, it has not been able to subdue its Arab and Iranian foes. The age-old human phenomena of resistance, defiance, and steadfastness in the face of colonial subjugation are being redefined and bolstered in Arab-Iranian lands. Israel and the United States do not seem to know how to deal with this state of affairs.
The second reality is that Israel has been unable fully to protect itself militarily, despite immense US support, and even needed the United States to join in its attack against Iran. Whether the United States will come to Israel’s aid again in the same manner is uncertain, as opposition to unlimited military support for Israel has surfaced among Trump’s base. Trump’s apparent penchant for negotiated diplomatic resolutions to conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran contrasts sharply with Israel’s preference for continuous vicious military assaults, urban annihilation, and starvation sieges. The precise nature of the US-Israeli relationship, beyond military cooperation to defend Israel, remains unclear, but the United States could push Israel-Palestine-Iran-Lebanon into serious diplomacy to end their long-running and futile wars. Resolving the problem of Palestinians’ refugeehood and statelessness must be central to ending these regional conflicts.
The third reality is that global public opinion has shifted against Israel and toward the Palestinian cause. Perhaps most notably, in the United States a recent Gallup poll found that Americans’ sympathy for Palestinians has reached its highest level while support for Israel has dropped to its lowest level in 25 years. The power of public opinion has never quickly influenced US foreign policy in the Middle East. But over time, public opinion can shift policy in the direction of negotiated peace. This occurred in the United States with its war in Vietnam and with public opinion toward apartheid South Africa, among other cases.
Arab Resistance to the Genocide
Public opinion in Arab countries has also reared its head, hardening on coexisting with Israel in view of its genocide in Gaza. Arab governments have been dormant in the face of Israel’s genocide beyond making statements and voting at the United Nations. Rising anti-Israel sentiments among Arab publics have caused some governments, most notably Saudi Arabia’s, to harden their positions on normalizing relations with Israel. When Arab summits these days insist on movement to achieve Palestine’s rights and self-determination, they do so with much more impact because they reflect the sentiments of their people in a way that is more obvious than ever before.
Saudi Arabia will continue to be a pivotal player for the Palestinian cause as long as it demands concrete movement toward a Palestinian state before agreeing to normalization with Israel. This is even more significant considering Saudi Arabia’s leading role in normalizing ties with Iran, in strengthening cooperation with Russia and China, in actively participating in Syria’s and Lebanon’s rehabilitation, and in other moves that reflect its expanding leadership aims in the region. Saudi Arabia is the decisive Arab link to the US administration. Riyadh seems to grasp, if the Trump administration does not yet, that any serious plans for regional development, security, and shared prosperity can only move ahead if Palestine is peaceful and free and Zionism is contained within Israel’s June 1967 borders.
This newfound Arab backbone on Palestinian rights is evident in Arab governments’ rejection of Israeli-US plans to evict Palestinians from Gaza, to set up temporary camps for them in Jordan, Sudan, or Egypt, to launch reconstruction efforts in Gaza without meaningful Palestinian participation, and to close down UNRWA. The US-Israeli approach perpetuates the British-initiated century long strategy of pretending that the Palestinians do not exist, instead of engaging in negotiations with them to allow Israelis and Palestinians to coexist in peace, as all Arab countries have offered since the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative.
The 12-day Israel-US war on Iran was less about nuclear issues and more about hysteria in Israel and the United States’ unwillingness to allow any regional power to resist Israel militarily and to challenge the Zionist colonization of Palestine. The spectacle of advanced missiles and massive bombs exchanged by Israel, the United States, and Iran probably frightened all parties, who nevertheless should have recognized that the Israel-Palestine conflict was the seed that germinated into this militarism.
Since October 7, Palestine has become a global moral issue and a litmus test of people’s commitment to justice and the rule of law. This trend is likely to continue, because the world has opposed the Israel-US commitment to the continued colonization and strangulation of Palestinians, who themselves resist and stand firm as much as they can, with the support of most people and governments in the Middle East.
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The views expressed here are author’s personal.
c. Arab Center Washington DC
