Exploiting the War on Iran to Shape the Middle East… with Israel First!

Major wars in the Middle East are not merely fleeting military confrontations, but pivotal moments where the balance of power is reordered and maps of influence are redrawn. The war on Iran – if it expands or prolongs – could turn into a tool for politically and security-wise reshaping the region, placing Israel at the heart of this formation. However, any serious strategic reading cannot ignore the fundamental question: what about the Palestinian people and their cause, the cornerstone of the region's stability or instability?

From an Israeli perspective, the confrontation with Iran represents an opportunity to reshape its surrounding security environment.

Weakening Tehran means reducing its regional influence, re-establishing new deterrence equations, and opening the door for a broader system of alliances that consecrates Israel as a pivotal security partner in the region.

Amidst shared fears of cross-border threats, military and technical cooperation networks could be strengthened, giving Israel an advanced position in any emerging Middle Eastern structure.

But reshaping the region in the wake of war is not just about Iran and Israel.

There is a deeper political dimension represented by the position of the Palestinian issue within this transformation.

The history of the conflict shows that attempts to bypass or jump over this issue have not produced lasting stability, but rather have generated recurring cycles of explosion. Hence, building a new Middle East that ignores ending the occupation and establishing an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, will only be a reproduction of the same sources of tension in a new form.

Any regional system intended to be stable needs political and moral legitimacy, and this legitimacy cannot be derived from purely security arrangements or fleeting military alliances.

True stability is based on addressing the roots of the conflict, foremost among them the national rights of the Palestinian people according to international legitimacy resolutions and the principle of self-determination.

Otherwise, the state of tension will remain latent beneath the surface, capable of igniting at the first test.

The war on Iran could be used to reorder regional priorities, so that security issues and confronting regional influence take precedence over political solutions.

However, this arrangement, if it marginalizes the Palestinian issue, will carry within it the seeds of instability.

Peoples do not look at alliance maps as much as they look at justice and national dignity, and any regional system that does not take this into account will remain fragile no matter how cohesive it appears on the surface.

Furthermore, Israel itself, despite its efforts to consecrate its military superiority and regional integration, realizes that the unresolved Palestinian conflict keeps it in a state of permanent attrition, security-wise, politically, and morally.

Normalization and alliances cannot substitute for a historical settlement that ends the occupation and establishes a normal relationship between two states living on one land, each with internationally recognized rights.

Hence, the question of the fate of the Palestinian people becomes not an appendix to the analysis, but its center.

If the goal of reshaping the Middle East is to produce a more stable system less prone to wars, then ignoring the Palestinian issue will make this goal elusive.

However, if it is integrated into the core of any new arrangements, as a priority and not a burden, that could constitute a real entry point for a different phase.

Ultimately, Israel may seek to be “first” in the post-war engineering on Iran, but the Middle East will not know lasting stability unless the Palestinian people are an integral part of the solution equation, not a margin within it.

It is either a Middle East based on balanced justice, ending the occupation, and establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, or a Middle East that remains ablaze with successive explosions, bringing everyone back to square one no matter how maps and alliances change.