The Middle East’s existential wars – and the European ethical mirror

The author explains how Israel’s leading thinkers confront existential fear – why the war against Iran forces a moral reckoning and how history can turn, sometimes surprisingly, in the peacemakers’ favour.

Neophytos Loizides is Professor in International Conflict Analysis at the School of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) at the University of Warwick.

As war once again engulfs the Middle East – this time with direct confrontation involving the US, Israel and Iran – questions of survival, escalation, and moral responsibility return with renewed urgency. The language of ‘existential threat’ is no longer confined to rhetoric. It circulates in official speeches like the one by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, military doctrines, and public anxieties. In moments like this, the debate is not only about strategy or deterrence, but about something deeper: the morality and mortality of nations.

In a letter to President John F. Kennedy in 1963, Ben Gurion voiced his profound fear for the future of the state of Israel he had founded as a safe haven for Jews: ‘I am not certain that the State will continue to exist for long after my death’. Cited by Uriel Abulof (p.13) in The Morality and Mortality of Nations this quote best demonstrates Zionist contradictions and the ‘persistent anxiety about Israel’s end’ and ‘existential doubt’ apparent everywhere and across the country’s political spectrum (p.139). Perhaps the most striking statement comes from the award-winning Israeli novelist David Grossman: ‘The thing that scares me most is losing my confidence in Israel’s existence’. In October 2023, Grossman wrote an inspiring piece in the Financial Times in which he argues, ‘Israel after the war will be much more right-wing, militant, and racist.’ Reactions against Israel’s policies are likely to intensify globally as demonstrated recently in the UK in the Gorton and Denton by election.

But a divided planet of Palestine vs. Israel camps, leaves both camps held to the ‘ethical mirror’ of global public opinion and subject to pleas for the ‘better angels’ of morality. Taking these arguments to an extreme, Israeli Jews are arguably today ‘the most likely’ nation to face a annihilation through weapons of mass destruction. Regardless of the outcome of the war with Iran, those opposing Israel’s existence are a step away from developing such capabilities. The irony for those of us third parties taking a position either for Israelis or Palestinians is that none of us can predict the long-term outcome of this war and its series of pre-emptive strikes and atrocities. Critics of Israel will be held accountable in an ‘extinction scenario’ while supporters are judged, and rightly so, for the deaths, suffering and displacement of millions of civilians. The ‘ethical mirrors’ are inescapable today but will also be relevant in the long future ahead.

Is there a third way? Scholars have suggested various scenarios. The Afrikaner case as examined in detail by Abulof is intriguing: nations could even opt to live as a minority if they can gain some institutional protection mechanisms in the negotiation outcome. Also more relevant today are Ian Lustick’s call for a joint democratic Israel-Palestine polity or Dahlia Scheindlin’s vision for an Israeli-Palestinian confederation. The latter will offer multiple protections for all communities that neither the conventional one-state nor two-state solution could provide at this point in history.

Optimists are a rare tribe in peace negotiations. The temptation is to see complex problems as unique and devoid of solutions. The best rejoinder to the optimist view on peace negotiations, albeit not as perceptive, is Jonathan Stevenson’s 1995 piece in Foreign Policy, ‘Treating Terrorists as Stateman’. Echoing forward to today’s doomsayers, the temptation then was to treat peace negotiations in Northern Ireland as an impossible mission.

Ironically, while praising leaders for their pragmatism in South Africa and Israel/Palestine leading to the post-apartheid and Oslo accords, when speaking of Northern Ireland, Stevenson argues that ‘the situation is less negotiable’. But the hope for Israeli optimists is that contrary to predictions, their Belfast counterparts reached a deal just three years later.

Following a quarter of a century progress, peace in the region is a welcome reality. Societies can transform complex problems and history can turn, sometimes surprisingly, in the peacemakers’ favour.

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Caption: People watch among debris following an Iranian rocket attack that hit Beit Shemesh near Jerusalem, Israel, 1 March 2026. Israeli police confirmed at least nine fatalities as a result of the Iranian rocket attack. Iran retaliated with attacks against Israel and across the Gulf countries after joint US and Israeli military attacks on Iran on 28 February 2026. EPA/ABIR SULTAN