Since the emergence of the Zionist Movement and the establishment of the state of Israel in our region, Israel has played a pivotal role in catalysing ideological transformations in the Arab world.

One of the most significant consequences of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been the decline of reformist and moderate tendencies in favour of successive waves of radicalism and extremism. What, then, will likely be the ideological outcome of the current round of conflict? Will it ignite a new wave of radicalism across the region, or has our region developed an immunity to such ideological currents?

In the 1940s before Israel’s establishment, constitutional systems of governance, whether monarchies or republics, prevailed across the region. Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon experienced party pluralism, elections, and constitutions that were respected at times and violated at others. There were power struggles among elite groups and factions of the ruling classes, but a liberal reformist current dominated these societies.

This system was far from ideal, and social inequality, poverty, disease, and ignorance plagued the majority of the poorer population. Agriculture was the primary economic activity, controlled by large landowners, while an emerging industrial, banking, and service-oriented capitalist class struggled to develop an efficient market economy. However, although there was much social exclusion and concentration of power, the old system maintained enough legitimacy to serve as a viable framework for reform and political and social competition.

The Arab defeat in the 1948 War dealt a fatal blow to the legitimacy of the authority and governance systems in the Arab countries. The defeat became a focal point that brought together dispersed sources of anger. Avenging the defeat, dismantling corrupt regimes that had failed to prevent the loss of Palestine, and confronting Zionism in order to champion Palestine were all reasons cited for overthrowing the quasi-constitutional regimes, starting with the coup led by Hosni Al-Zaim in Syria in 1949.

Egypt’s significant political victory in the 1956 Suez Crisis gave radical movements across the region a considerable boost. Although Palestine was not liberated, Israel and the former colonial powers were forced to retreat. Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, marking the first time it had vacated Arab land. The performance of Egypt’s republican government in the 1956 Crisis was markedly better than that of the monarchy in 1948. The appeal of revolutionary systems of governance was thus reinforced, while reformist and conservative systems faced immense pressures, leading to a wave of revolutionary coups over the following decade.

These coups, suspensions of constitutional rule, and the monopolisation of power effectively eradicated the reformist movements that had previously thrived. The liberal reformist path was abandoned, and radical paths opened up across the region, later growing increasingly rigid. In the wake of coups led by military officers, ideological ones arose, whether Baathist, Nasserist, or Communist, all promoting various forms of revolutionary rhetoric aimed at defeating Zionism and liberating Palestine, accompanied by calls for Arab unity and socialism.

These radical and leftist currents reached their peak in the 1960s, as the threat of a new Arab-Israeli war loomed. In May 1967, a fresh crisis erupted between the Arabs and Israel. Egyptian president Gamal Abdel-Nasser employed an escalation strategy, relying on diplomacy to defuse the tensions at the last moment and thus avoid war. However, diplomacy failed to intervene, and war ensued, resulting in the catastrophic defeat of June 1967, the repercussions of which continue to haunt the Arab world over 50 years later.

Some revolutionary leaders continued to talk about liberating Palestine without taking any substantial action to do so, while others merely spoke about addressing the consequences of aggression. The defeat eroded the ideological appeal of the Arab revolutionaries and undermined the legitimacy of the regimes they had established, opening the door to a new ideological shift in the region.

The Political Islam movement associated with the Muslim Brotherhood was revived, joined by increasingly rigid, militant, and extremist variations. Regardless of their actual contributions to it, Palestine consistently featured in the Brotherhood’s propaganda and served as a justification for their opposition to the governments in place and their pursuit of power.

The ongoing war in Palestine and Lebanon today, with Yemeni, Iraqi, and Iranian participation, is a war by the Political Islam current against Israel, much like the June 1967 War was a war by the Arab Socialist current. The ultimate outcome of the current war remains uncertain. Israel has occupied Arab land, but no one has yet emerged on the Arab side to concede defeat and assume responsibility for it. The defeated states of 1967 could not conceal the disaster they had brought on themselves, but today’s militias possess the flexibility and room for manoeuvre to present reality in a different light.

Will the current war bolster the legitimacy and momentum of Sunni and Shia Political Islam, providing it with additional legitimacy and power? Or will it weaken Political Islam and erode its legitimacy? Every major Arab-Israeli confrontation has left an ideological imprint on the Arab world. The question now is what the ideological outcome of the current war will be, leaving open the possibility that the Arab-Israeli conflict has lost its centrality and no longer affects the rise and fall of ideological currents in the Arab world, which are now primarily shaped by internal developments.

*The writer is a senior adviser at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 24 October, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly