The Iran War: De-Europeanization opens a path to peace - opinion

The Iran war achieved something remarkable that has nothing to do with Iran: It could mark the end of 2,300 years of disruptive European intervention in the Middle East, and thus remove a primary hurdle to regional peace.

Europe’s decision to sit out the war was astonishing. Iran attacked Europe. The furthest its missiles could reach was Cyprus, an EU member state. Experts agree that Iranian missiles soon could have reached Brussels, Paris, and London. Still, French President Emmanuel Macron insisted: “We are not a party to the conflict,” and the EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas reiterated: “This is not Europe’s war.”

As America and Israel protected Europe from an imminent threat of a nuclear Iran, Europe did not say “thank you.” On the contrary; it used the war to escalate its assault on the Jewish state, condemning Israel for defending itself from Hezbollah missiles, indoctrinating the global population that Israel’s action will have “devastating humanitarian consequences,” prompting the age-old European blood libel of “Jewish violence” (now called “settler violence”), and advancing measures to sanction the Jewish state and its Jewish residents.

Europe refusing to help, neglecting to say “thank you,” and escalating its assault on Judaism is, on the one hand, disappointing, but at the same time, it inadvertently charts a golden opportunity for regional peace and prosperity.

The de-Europeanization of the Middle East is happening as America solidifies its position as the world’s sole superpower. In January, US President Donald Trump formed the Board of Peace under America’s leadership, and without Europe. And so, in 2026, we are witnessing the beginning of the matching of global structures to global realities.

Indeed, in the war with Iran, we saw a shift from America being Europe-facing through NATO, the “special relationship” with the UK, and legacy obligations, to a tight partnership with Israel – “the model ally,” as it is now called by the US Department of War.

It is a shift from an American strategy based on historical ties, to one anchored on a 4,000-year-old, deeply rooted ideological bond at the core of Americanism: “One nation under God.”

The de-Europeanization is already bearing fruit. In a historic moment, on April 14, Lebanon and Israel met for direct peace talks, brokered by the US.

Lebanon did not ask for land, airplanes loaded with cash, a Palestinian state, or ways to weaken Israel. On the contrary. Michael Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, who represented Israel in the talks, recounted: “We discovered today that we are on the same side of the equation.”

Yet, the success of the Israel-Lebanon meeting faced a hurdle: France reportedly demanded to be involved.

After all, it was France that prompted the Israel-Arab conflict in 1920. Back then, there was a brief period of peace that was anchored in an organic version of the “two-state solution”: A Jewish state in the making in British Mandate Palestine, living peacefully with a pro-Zionist Arab kingdom in Syria, which had the broad support of Arabs throughout the region, including in Palestine.

Peace ended when France invaded Syria and obliterated the short-lived Arab kingdom, claiming Syria for itself. Subsequently, the UK reneged on its League of Nations obligation to usher in a Jewish homeland and sought Palestine for itself. Resorting to its “divide and rule” tactics, the British incited local Arabs against the Jews, and cultivated the then-nascent concept of Palestinianism.

This was later followed by broader European intervention. In the 1930s, Germany identified Arabs in Palestine as a counterforce against the British, and since the 1990s, the EU and European governments have been funding the so-called “conflict industry” – NGOs, UN agencies, and direct European programs that incite Arabs and Westerners against the Jewish state.

And so, a century after initiating the conflict, France and Europe want to be part of the equation that ends the conflict.

When a reporter asked Leiter if Israel stopped France from being part of the peace talks, he answered: “We certainly do not want the French anywhere near these negotiations. We’d like to keep the French as far away as possible from pretty much everything, but particularly when it comes to peace negotiations. They are not needed. They are not a positive influence.”

“To the victor belong the spoils,” Trump proclaimed.

The de-Europeanization of the Middle East must happen across the board: from discarding European war-perpetuating frameworks like the two-state solution, to revisiting border arrangements created a century ago by Europe for the exclusive benefit of Europe, to moving away from Europe-centric structures and organizations that rigorously stand in the way of peace and prosperity.

The emancipation from Europe would allow Arabs and Jews to engage in true peace, based on organic regional realities. This includes the natural Arab desire to benefit, rather than oppose, the light emanating from Zion, and to transform the region from a mode of survival to that of sustainable peace.