From the Illusion of Peace to the Logic of Hegemony: The Israeli Transformation Reveals the Crisis is in the Nature of the Project, Not in the Rejection of Settlement

For many decades, Western and Israeli discourse has been dominated by a political narrative stating that the essence of the Arab-Israeli conflict lies in the Arabs' and Palestinians' rejection of peace and their unwillingness to accept Israel as a final political reality in the region. According to this perception, Israel presented itself as a party seeking settlement and coexistence, while the fundamental problem, according to this narrative, lay with the Arab side, which had not adapted to historical transformations and had not accepted their outcomes.However, the course of events over the past decades, and the accumulated intellectual and political transformations witnessed in Israel, necessitate a re-examination of this premise from its foundation. The crisis does not seem to be solely linked to the issue of accepting or rejecting Israel, nor is it exclusively related to the 1967 borders or to security and negotiation arrangements. Rather, it is more deeply connected to the nature of the Zionist project itself, and to the logic that has governed its development from its inception to the present moment.Zionism was not merely a political movement seeking to create a safe haven for persecuted Jews in Europe; it was a national settler-colonial project aimed at establishing a new political entity by reshaping the geography, demography, and political identity of Palestine. Most Zionist currents, despite their ideological differences, started from a fundamental assumption: the priority of establishing a state with a Jewish majority and exclusive Jewish sovereignty over the land.It is true that Zionism was not a single, homogeneous current; it included Labor Zionism, Revisionist Zionism, Religious Zionism, and other diverse currents. However, these differences often revolved around means and tactics more than around ultimate goals. These currents, to varying degrees, shared the pursuit of ensuring a stable Jewish majority, maintaining security and military superiority, and preventing any political arrangements that might threaten the Jewish character of the state.Hence, one of the common mistakes in reading Israeli transformations is the belief that Israel suddenly shifted from moderation to extremism, or from a peace project to an expansionist project. The reality is that what we are witnessing today does not necessarily reflect the birth of a new project, but rather reveals more clearly the latent implications within the project for many decades.The so-called Israeli peace camp was more inclined to manage the conflict through diplomatic and political tools that allowed for the preservation of international legitimacy and the reduction of the cost of control, while the rising nationalist and religious currents tend to express the same goals directly without the need for the rhetorical cover that prevailed in previous stages. In other words, the fundamental shift lies not only in changing goals, but in moving from a stage where hegemony was managed with the language of settlement to a stage where it is openly declared with the language of force.Here, the importance of viewing the Israeli case within a broader framework related to settler-colonial projects in modern history emerges. Major settler-colonial experiences, whether in North America, Australia, South Africa, or French Algeria, did not view the indigenous populations as equal partners in sovereignty, but rather as a demographic and political problem that must be dealt with through exclusion, containment, or social and political re-engineering.This does not mean a complete congruence between these experiences and the Israeli case, as each experience has its historical and political specificities. However, the comparison reveals a recurring pattern in which the settler-colonial project seeks to combine control over land with the reduction of the political weight of the indigenous population. From this perspective, a significant aspect of the ongoing Israeli dilemma can be understood: Israel seeks to retain the largest possible area of land, but at the same time fears the demographic and political consequences of granting Palestinians full political rights within this area.Hence arises the structural dilemma facing the Israeli state: how can it combine control over almost all the land, maintain a Jewish majority, and continue to present itself as a democracy at the same time? This question has been one of the main drivers of Israeli policies towards Palestinians over the past decades, and it explains a significant aspect of Israel's chronic hesitation towards any final settlement based on full political equality.However, understanding current Israeli transformations also requires introducing another, more important variable: the variable of surplus power.In the realistic literature of international relations, states in normal circumstances seek to achieve security and survival. However, possessing power that far exceeds the requirements of direct defense may push some states to shift from the logic of security to the logic of hegemony. When military, economic, and technological superiority transforms into sustainable surplus power, the state becomes more capable of reshaping its surrounding regional environment instead of merely adapting to it.This is what appears to have gradually happened in the Israeli case after the 1967 war. Israel emerged from that war not only with clear military superiority, but also with a growing sense of its ability to redraw regional balances according to its own interests. Over time, with increasing Western support, the decline of the Arab system, and the disintegration of several central states in the region, Israel gradually began to transition from a state primarily concerned with survival to a state capable of influencing the shape of the regional environment itself.From a strategic perspective, surplus power not only changes a state's capabilities but also changes its way of thinking. The more the balance of power shifts in favor of a particular party, the less incentive it has to make substantial concessions, and the greater its ability to impose facts unilaterally. Therefore, it was not surprising that stages of increasing Israeli superiority coincided with the expansion of settlements, the deepening of security control, and the raising of political demands.From this angle, an important historical paradox can be explained: the more Palestinian and Arab concessions increased, the less the conflict approached a final solution, as the imbalance of power only grew. Palestinian recognition of Israel did not stop settlement, the Oslo Accords did not lead to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, and waves of Arab normalization did not produce a parallel transformation within Israeli political thought towards a comprehensive final settlement.The reason for this is that the conflict, from the perspective of a growing segment of the Israeli elite, is no longer viewed as a border dispute that can be resolved through traditional settlements, but rather as an ongoing process of managing the geopolitical sphere to ensure the continuation of Israeli superiority and prevent the emergence of any power centers capable of challenging it in the future.The rise of nationalist and religious currents has reinforced this trend unprecedentedly. These currents do not view the West Bank as merely a disputed area, but rather as part of the historical and religious domain of the Jewish people. Within this perception, regional settlement becomes less important than establishing long-term control over the land, and the conflict gradually transforms from a political conflict to a conflict related to identity, creed, and history.This transformation has also been accompanied by a relative decline of liberal forces within Israel and the rise of forces more willing to openly use terms like annexation, decisive action, displacement, and demographic reshaping. Herein lies the importance of the current moment; it not only reveals transient political changes but also reflects deeper transformations in the nature of the ruling elite and its vision for the future of the region.The war that followed the events of October 7, 2023, revealed these transformations more clearly. The discussions within Israel were not limited to security and deterrence but extended to questions concerning the future of Palestinian existence itself, the political and demographic reshaping of Gaza, and the possibility of eliminating any prospect for an independent Palestinian political entity.At this specific point, it becomes difficult to explain Israeli behavior based solely on the concept of security. Security explains part of Israeli policies, but it alone does not explain the continuous settlement expansion, nor does it explain the rejection by many Israeli currents of any form of genuine Palestinian sovereignty, nor does it explain the increasing tendency to reshape the regional environment to ensure continued Israeli superiority for decades to come.The most important development revealed by current Israeli transformations is the gradual transition from the logic of a state seeking security to the logic of a power seeking to manage hegemony. In this context, the conflict is no longer merely a dispute over borders or negotiable security arrangements, but becomes part of a broader project to reorganize the political and geopolitical sphere in the Middle East according to a balance of power overwhelmingly tilted in Israel's favor.Therefore, the real question is no longer: Why have successive peace attempts failed? But rather: Is it even possible to produce sustainable peace under a project that possesses a significant surplus of power, views the continuation of its strategic superiority as a condition for its survival, and considers reshaping its surrounding environment as part of its national security?The answer to this question will be crucial not only for understanding the future of the Palestinian issue but also for understanding the future of the entire regional system in the Middle East.========================The most important development revealed by current Israeli transformations is the gradual transition from the logic of a state seeking security to the logic of a power seeking to manage hegemony.