If war is the continuation of politics by other means and every conflict is a symptom of a deeper unresolved contradiction, the violence of the past year – as well as the current direct confrontation between Israel and Iran – are the result of two deep and unresolved political problems.
These are the denial of Palestinians’ basic rights amid long-term Israeli occupation and Iran’s rejection of the basic rules of international law, as well as its insistence on maintaining a string of militias in broken Arab states from Lebanon to Yemen.
A Middle East in which a secure Palestine and Israel live side by side, embedded in a harmonious Arab and Muslim world, as well as an Iran that has pivoted away from its interventionist foreign policy to focus on the security and welfare of its own people, is a Middle East that would be on the road to true stability and prosperity.
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