Two Tears Of War in the Middle East
An Assessment and What Comes Next
The series of events triggered by the operation of October 7, 2023, revealed pre-existing realities that had remained hidden until then. Before October 7, the Middle East was evolving in a way that sidelined the Palestinians and disregarded their rights and interests. Their emergence, or rather their return, onto the stage of history disrupted many projects that denied their rights and interests, even their very existence. It also ushered in a phase of heightened tensions that had been accumulating in the region at least since the Oslo Accords (1993). The main forces in the Middle East clashed: the United States and Israel on one side, and the axis of resistance (Palestinians, Iran, Hezbollah, Ansarullah) on the other. Rich in lessons, the outcome is rather favorable to the axis of resistance, without being decisive.
Before October 7, 2023
On the eve of October 7, the picture in the Middle East was as follows: the Oslo Accords having proven counterproductive for the Palestinians, the latter split between the PLO which supported them and the groups which opposed them, including Hamas; this division led to the separation of the Palestinian territories between the Palestinian Authority (PLO) in the West Bank and Hamas and other organizations in Gaza; no longer speaking with one voice, the Palestinians neutralized each other and were excluded from negotiations concerning their future and the region; the wars in Iraq, Libya and Syria took up all the attention, so that the Palestinian question faded into the background and the United States-Israel tandem acted as it pleased.
The United States had plans that disregarded the Palestinians. Their initial formula, developed by the neoconservatives during the Bush II era, was the “Greater Middle East.” This involved overthrowing the regimes of several Arab countries by force – through invasions or coups disguised as “revolutions” – to install US-controlled governments and seize control of countries destined for fragmentation along sectarian and/or ethnic lines. The objective was to create a regional bloc uniting Arab countries with Israel at its head and the United States as the ultimate master of the region. The primary mission of this combination was to wage war against Iran on behalf of the United States and Israel.
Originally, the attack against Iran was planned as a US action following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. However, American failure to control Iraq and the losses of soldiers due to Iraqi resistance dampened American warlike enthusiasm. Iran prepared for an attack by developing ties with Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Ansarullah to form an axis of resistance, a strategy promoted and implemented by Iranian General Qassem Soleimani who was assassinated by the United States on January 3, 2020. The American “Greater Middle East” project was in trouble. The idea of uniting Arabs and Israelis in a military alliance was pure fantasy, and the plan quickly faded into oblivion.
It was resurrected as an economic project in 2020 through the “Abraham” Accords, which involved brokering agreements between Arab states and Israel under the auspices of the United States. Economic cooperation was intended to resolve, or at least mask, political disputes. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco signed these agreements with Israel. Saudi Arabia was on the verge of following suit when the October 7th 2023 operation occurred, placing Palestine into the spotlight and bringing everything to a halt.
Added to this project was another, announced on September 9, 2023, called the India -Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), which would have linked India and Europe via Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, with Israel as the point of entry for goods from Asia to Europe. Linking Arab countries and Israel, the IMEC also aimed to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative by distancing India from China. The Middle East was heading towards a unification of Arab states and Israel under US domination, and towards the normalization of the occupation of Palestine, with the Palestinians being relegated to the sidelines of history. It was this scenario that was abruptly interrupted by the dramatic action of October 7.
The confrontation and its results
With the support of the United States and numerous Western countries, Israel then launched a campaign whose objectives were explicitly stated: to destroy Hamas, raze Gaza, ethnically cleanse Gaza (a genocide), and recover the hostages by force. Egypt was asked to receive the Palestinians expelled from their country. Simultaneously, the American-Israeli camp waged war against the entire axis of resistance: Hezbollah, Syria, Ansarullah, and Iran. Unleashed and assured of American and Western support, Israel attacked its adversaries all at once. The configuration of this war was characterized by the fact that Israel was on the offensive with all the resources provided by the United States, while its adversaries, adopting a defensive posture, refrained from using all their resources or did not react. It is interesting to note that this configuration replicated the global conflict in which the United States is the one taking the belligerent initiatives and its adversaries are the ones reacting to repel them.
After two years of carnage, crimes against humanity, orchestrated famine, and murderous madness, Israel achieved none of its objectives. Gaza was indeed ravaged by more than 80,000 tons of bombs, but the Palestinians did not leave. Despite overwhelming military superiority and assassinations, Israel failed to eliminate Hamas, which never ceased to function. It retained its structure and its civilian and military command bodies. The hostages were released through negotiations with Hamas, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, not by force.
The United States intervened to break the deadlock in Israel with a ceasefire in October 2025 for two reasons. First, the unfolding genocide, witnessed by the entire world, had sickened Western public opinion, including in the United States, discrediting Western governments compromised by their support of Israel; it became impossible for Israel’s Western backers to continue covering it. Second, Israeli threats of a complete occupation of Gaza were unworkable; urban combat would have cost hundreds of soldiers, a fact the Israeli army had been warning against for weeks. Israel sowed death in Gaza but never truly controlled the territory, however small it may be.
Regarding Hezbollah, the assassinations of some of its leaders did not prevent it from having the upper hand on the ground and preventing Israel from occupying territory in Lebanon. In Yemen, Ansarullah forced the United States to abandon its campaign against it, and it remains as combative in 2025 as it was in 2023. As for the aggression against Iran in June 2025, it turned into a fiasco for Israel when the Iranian response revealed its vulnerabilities and its inability to wage a protracted war against an adversary capable of defending itself. Israel was forced to request a ceasefire, and, as in Gaza in October 2025, the United States stepped in to extricate it from its predicament. It is true that the axis of resistance suffered a significant setback in December 2024 when Syria fell to al-Qaeda jihadists, but Israel’s role was minor and indirect because the overthrow was due to the support of Turkey and the shortcomings of the Syrian government, which won the war that began in 2011 but lost the peace.
The overall conclusion is unequivocal: military force alone is insufficient to impose one’s will when the adversary is resilient. All of Israel’s objectives remained unattainable. The unequal struggle waged by the Palestinian resistance neutralized the Israeli war machine, despite the enormous power disparity between the two sides. The strategy of asymmetric warfare allows a weaker force to push back a superior one by increasing the cost to the latter of continuing its operations. Iran survived an aggression (in which the United States participated) and emerged victorious. However weak, divided, inert, and disoriented the Arab world may be, it is not easy to subdue, and Iran is even less so.
In summary, Israel’s offensive strategy has reached its limits, despite Netanyahu’s bluster. The maximum use of Israel’s resources, under conditions favorable to it, has nonetheless resulted in failure. Military superiority does not lead to military results, much less political ones. Solutions based on force, without addressing the underlying problems, are doomed to failure.
The outlook
It is reasonable to assume that, due to its failures, Israel will reignite conflicts with the Palestinians, Iran, and Hezbollah as soon as it can. This assessment is realistic, clear-sighted, and credible. Its realization is possible, even probable. It is consistent with Israeli behavior, for whom ceasefires are merely truces between offensives. However, there is another equally disastrous possibility: putting the current conflicts on hold in order to revive the “Abraham” Accords. The United States might lean in this direction, setting aside fantasies of real estate development, Riviera-style resorts, and casinos for the ultra-rich in Gaza, and postponing a new aggression against Iran. Having failed to consolidate its hold on the Middle East between 2023 and 2025, the United States would temporarily pause its offensives in the region to wage wars against Russia and soon, China.
The Palestinians would once again be forgotten in the pursuit of Arab-Israeli normalization, as was the case before October 7th. The enormous tragedy of 2023-2025 in Gaza would end up resembling Israel’s previous, more sporadic assaults in 2008-2009, 2012, 2014, and 2021. It is up to the Palestinians to ensure that their immense sufferings and notable successes of 2023-2025 are not in vain and that they translate into results commensurate with the sacrifices made in the quest for their political rights.
* Samir Saul holds a doctorate in history from the University of Paris and is a professor of history at the Université de Montréal. His latest book is L’Impérialisme, passé et présent. Un essai (2023). He is also the author of Intérêts économiques français et décolonisation de l’Afrique du Nord (1945-1962) (2016), and La France et l’Égypte de 1882 à 1914. Intérêts économiques et implications politiques (1997). He is also co-editor of Méditerranée, Moyen-Orient : deux siècles de relations internationales (2003). Email : [email protected]
** Michel Seymour is a retired professor in the Department of Philosophy at the Université de Montréal, where he taught from 1990 to 2019. He is the author of a dozen monographs, including A Liberal Theory of Collective Rights, 2017; La nation pluraliste, co-authored with Jérôme Gosselin-Tapp, for which the authors won the Canadian Philosophical Association Prize; De la tolérance à la reconnaissance, 2008, for which he won the Jean-Charles Falardeau Prize of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. He also won the Richard Arès prize from Action nationale magazine for Le pari de la démesure, published in 2001. Email : [email protected] web site: michelseymour.org