Signs of the Collapse of the Zionist Project

Continuing the discussion we began in the previous article on the implications of Israel’s war against Iran — which ended on June 24 — for the future of the Zionist entity, we pause here to examine the deeper battle of narratives between the two sides, a battle that started long before the military conflict and persists well beyond it.

If the Israeli-Iranian conflict is about regional influence and a proxy war against the axis of resistance, then at its core, it is a struggle of narratives and identities: the Western–American and European narrative that portrays Iran as a threat to international security and Israel’s security — Israel being upheld as the legitimate representative of Western civilization and modernity — versus the narrative of resistance: the struggle against colonialism, imperialism, and global Zionism. This resistance narrative frames Israel as a genuine threat to the Middle East and the broader Arab world, driven by its biblical ambitions to build a Greater Israel, what Netanyahu and the wider Israeli religious right call “Greater Israel” and the “New Middle East.”

It is clear that the Arab and broader Islamic narrative — including Iran’s position on Zionism and the Palestinian cause — is a global narrative. This is evidenced by the solidarity shown by free peoples around the world with Palestinian rights and the unprecedented condemnation of Zionism and Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza. Today, this resistance narrative is even shared by a growing number of Israeli and diaspora Jews: intellectuals, journalists, writers, and civil society actors calling for peace from within Israel itself.

We have seen a surge of voices rejecting the genocide and war crimes Israel committed in Gaza. The likes of Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé, Avraham Melster, Avi Shlaim, William Amriev, and Yakov Rabkin — and many others — stand as proof.

Within this rejection of Zionist brutality, Jewish voices around the world — especially in the West — have grown louder, denouncing the Israeli–Iranian war and declaring that Israel is the true threat to Iran, not the other way around.

As historian Avi Shlaim noted in an interview with Al Jazeera Documentary on June 20, 2018, “Israel has been a threat to Iran for forty years. Iran has never attacked Israel. Iran signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty while Israel refused, and Israel possesses nuclear weapons while Iran does not. Israel has never stopped spreading lies, hypocrisy, and fabrications to sway Western and global opinion against Iran, not the other way around.”

Avi Shlaim, an Iraqi-born Jewish historian and author of “Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew” (2024), is one of the most prominent voices opposing the Israeli–Iranian war. He founded the school of “New Historians” alongside Ilan Pappé and Benny Morris, who have challenged Israel’s foundational narratives using Israeli archives to debunk many Zionist claims.

In this context, numerous Western Jewish journalists and public intellectuals — even Israelis — did not hesitate to speak out against Israel’s assault on Iran last month. Among them, the Israeli novelist and journalist David Grossman, who wrote an article in Haaretz strongly criticising Israel’s calls for a unilateral attack on Iran. He called for widespread civic mobilisation and public awareness to prevent war with Iran, warning before the fighting began about the grave risks such a war would pose to Israel and the entire region, highlighting the moral consequences and the violent escalation that could drag the region into a full-scale war incompatible with basic human ethics.

Political analyst Dalia Scheindlin cited the “Peace Index” poll showing that 61% of Israeli Jews opposed launching a unilateral strike on Iran, explaining that the daily suffering this would inflict on Israelis has nothing to do with real security and will never truly keep them safe. She called for civil action and moral responsibility to resolve the conflict peacefully.

Israeli lawyer and researcher Itay Mack wrote in Haaretz that Israel effectively lost its war against Iran the moment it fired its first missile, arguing that the war lacked any realistic objectives, mirroring the endless quagmire in Gaza. He stressed that only Iranians have the right to decide their country’s system, not Israel, and that this war would only burden Israel with heavy costs and leave it in a weakened position once negotiations resume. He added that the loser is not Israel alone but also the United States under Donald Trump’s leadership, criticising Netanyahu for his disregard for Israelis’ plight. Mack concluded that Israel has lost all its leverage and now stands weak, especially as the international community leans toward a diplomatic solution.

Canadian Jewish journalist Ron Mati told various outlets that Israel had no right to attack Iran, calling the assault a violation of international law based on flimsy pretexts recycled from Iraq. He argued that Iran poses no threat to Israel and does not have nuclear weapons, while Israel’s American-backed tyranny is the root cause of Middle Eastern crises. He described Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as sadistic.

These voices — and many more — did not merely reject the war after it happened; some opposed the entire military push from the start. Before Israel’s war on Iran even began, Jewish Israeli thinker Peter Beinart wrote in The Atlantic that the U.S. must end its “Cold War” with Iran. He argued that the so-called Middle Eastern “cold wars” are never truly cold — they involve killing and destruction, as seen in Syria and Yemen. Beinart urged that easing tensions, not fueling conflict, would spread security, peace, and stability in the region — and that supporting democracy for the Iranian people against oppressive clerical rule would be more effective than conflict.

Israeli intellectual Haggai Ram described the war as the inevitable result of Israel’s unrealistic paranoia about an Iranian threat. In his critical, anti-colonial perspective, he argues that Israel’s narrative about Iran is a product of classic colonialist stereotypes that must be dismantled. In his influential 2007 book “Holes in the Israeli Discourse on Iran,” Ram showed how many Israelis have long bought into these mythic fantasies about Iran.

In light of all this, domestic and international Israeli public opinion played a major role in hastening the end of the conflict, favouring diplomatic solutions for Middle East disputes. This was echoed in countless articles: military analyst Yossi Melman argued there was no reason to enter this war, especially given that Shia communities in Iran and elsewhere have historically been prepared to sacrifice themselves. He called the war madness that should be stopped immediately. Haaretz’s Amos Harel noted that while Iran’s leadership is radical, it is also rational, pointing out that Israel now faces a difficult situation as Iranian power becomes more evident. Researcher Raz Zimmt warned that Iran is not Hezbollah or Hamas — that the idea of toppling Iran’s regime is wildly unrealistic given its resilient political and security elite.

On the futility of this war in stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Jewish thinker Dmitry Chomsky argued that such aggression would only strengthen Iran’s determination to acquire nuclear weapons. Many Iranians would say, “If we had nukes, Israel would never have dared this war.”

The dire conditions Israelis faced during the war — health crises in bomb shelters, outbreaks of strange illnesses due to poor sanitary conditions underground, panic attacks, and mass fear — along with thousands fleeing across the Jordanian and Egyptian borders, and then on to Europe and America, plus the massive damage to both military and civilian infrastructure, injuries, and deaths, all dealt a severe blow to Israel’s narrative and collective memory. As U.S. media, especially The Wall Street Journal, reported, Israel even pleaded with Trump to halt the war with Iran.

In this context, Israeli writer Alon Mizrahi wrote in Haaretz that “the Iranians are not naïve or foolish — they have a plan of patient resilience. They won this last round decisively, and this is likely not the end.”

Between the legitimacy of war and Israel’s claim to peaceful existence, the real threat to Israel’s Jews remains Zionism itself, not any Arab or Muslim country.

As Jewish journalist Martin Jacques told Anadolu Agency, “The attacks Israel carried out in the region are illegitimate and aim to wipe out the Middle East to make way for the ‘Greater Israel’ project.” These wars, he argued, cannot be described as “pre-emptive strikes” or legitimate defence — they are simply preventive destruction targeting the entire Middle East, including Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran.

Iran has never sought to eradicate Jews, and the historical facts, including the presence of a Jewish community in Iran for decades, prove Israel’s Zionist claims false. Many Western journalists have debunked these fabricated narratives. Jewish American journalist Larry Kohler, writing for the pro-Israel newspaper The Forward, confirmed that during his visit to Iran ,he found no evidence of any real desire to destroy Israel, contrary to the claims of opponents of the nuclear deal with Tehran. He noted that Iranian Jews live freely, wearing their kippahs openly in public, and that the Iranian people are generally open-minded. Some high-ranking Iranian clerics even believe in a two-state solution, as reported by The New York Times.

The anti-Zionist intellectual and cultural current, which surged during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and its war on Iran, echoes what German Chancellor Friedrich Merz meant when he said, “Israel is doing our dirty work in Iran.” This remark exposes the colonial-settler foundations of the West’s relationship with Israel and Israel’s functional role as the West’s outpost in the Middle East.

This “dirty work” is eating away at Israel’s dream of security and stability, revealing that the real threat comes from the West and Israel itself, not the Arab or Islamic world. Israel — the West’s representative — carries within it the seeds of its decline and the decline of the West alongside it. This is what Ilan Pappé, Rabbi David Weiss, Jewish thinker Thomas Friedman, Israeli historian Benny Morris, human rights activist Sion Assidon, Jewish intellectual John Rose, novelist Leon de Winter, former Israeli intelligence chief General Oren Shachor, and politician-scholar Yossi Beilin, among many others, have all argued.

If these views come from thinkers, clerics, journalists, and even some military and political figures, then it is clear that re-examining the Western and Israeli narrative, built on a settler-colonial foundation, has become urgent for genuine peace and stability, especially in the Middle East.

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Closing Note

The deep rift that wars have left in the collective memory of Jews in Israel and beyond — along with the waves of hatred and animosity these wars have stoked across global societies, including the West — is evidenced by the persistent anti-Israel statements from intellectuals, journalists, media figures, and politicians in Western newspapers and on social media, despite censorship and unjust prosecutions. This has dealt Israel’s image an unprecedented blow since 1948.

Public opinion, now mobilised in massive, even million-strong demonstrations across European, Arab, Islamic, and global capitals, is re-examining the Israeli narrative, which can no longer be separated from the colonial–settler Zionist narrative. This signals that the end of that narrative — and the collapse of Israel’s once-unquestioned prestige — began immediately after the Al-Aqsa Flood.