[fn Forum] Finding Balance in the Gray Zone

On the morning of October 7, 2023, the Palestinian armed group Hamas launched a surprise attack on the State of Israel. It was Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles), the Jewish harvest festival, and many soldiers were on leave. Israel’s advanced warning systems had been hit in preemptive strikes and failed to function properly. Taking advantage of this gap, some 6,000 armed Hamas fighters turned 22 communities near the Gaza Strip border, including Sderot, into ruins. According to an Israeli government report, 1,195 people were killed in a single day, including 36 children, and 251 were taken hostage. Foreign media reported that some residents were burned alive and others were beheaded. Israel, which did not issue a full war alert until two hours after the attack, then went on to fight a two-year war with Hamas.
The raid came just as many were hoping for a historic shift in the Middle East, and it turned the clock on peace backwards. Negotiations to establish diplomatic relations between the State of Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the leading Sunni power, were on the verge of bearing fruit. On September 22 that year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted at an imminent breakthrough in his UN General Assembly speech, saying, "The two countries stand at a historic turning point." Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia remarked, "We are getting closer to Israel every day," while United States of America (U.S.) National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan optimistically declared that "the Middle East is entering its most peaceful period." Monarchies in Saudi Arabia and across the Gulf were seeking to normalize relations with Israel as they prepared their economies for a post-oil era.
The trigger pulled by Hamas plunged the Middle East back into a bloody cycle of war and hatred, shattering U.S. strategy and peace plans for the region. After two years of the Hamas war, the flames spread further with the so-called "12-day war" last June and the conflict that has continued for more than 40 days since the 28th of last month. The India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor agreement (IMEC agreement) aimed at countering China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s NEOM City project have all been brought to a standstill and now face the risk of derailment. From the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Kingdom of Bahrain to the wider Middle East, the entire region is precariously engulfed in the flames of war.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has long declared that it would "wipe the invading Israel off the map and topple the corrupt monarchies," focusing on exporting its Islamic Revolution. On the other side, the State of Israel, the United States, and Sunni monarchies in the Gulf, having concluded that "coexistence is no longer possible," came to regard Iran—the patron of the Shia "resistance belt" that includes Hamas in Gaza Strip, the Houthis in the Republic of Yemen, and Hezbollah in the Lebanese Republic—as a ticking time bomb they could no longer ignore. Moderates in Israel who had believed in and worked for peaceful coexistence fell silent under the weight of collective trauma. Only a struggle for survival over a shrinking living space was left to be justified.
Under the banner of security and the right to survive, the two sides have not stopped striking each other. Each invokes its own wounds and trauma to justify acts of aggression, accelerating the vicious cycle and escalation of violence. Two years into the Hamas war, about 70,000 Palestinians have been killed. In the Lebanese Republic, 1 million people have been driven into refugee status. Haredi Jews (ultra-Orthodox Jewish community), the most hardline current within Judaism, have raised their voices, reinforcing a rigid religious narrative and undermining Israel’s diversity and openness. Some observers have voiced concern and sarcasm that "Israel is becoming more like the theocracy of the Islamic Republic of Iran." The ambitions and legal risks of Benjamin Netanyahu, who has aligned himself with these forces, have also pushed decision-making toward more extreme options.
Palestinians, 60% of whose 11 million people have been driven from their homes and now wander as refugees. Jews, who fled persecution and established a state in the Middle East in 1949. Between them, no clear formula for compromise or reconciliation is in sight. The conflict among the Islamic Republic of Iran, Israel, and Palestine—where Iran has made Palestinian liberation and the destruction of Israel a national cause—has created a gray zone in which black-and-white distinctions are hard to draw. The roles of victim and perpetrator keep switching and intertwining, revealing an extreme existential situation in which ethical and moral standards are stripped of their force.
Just as preemptive strikes by Israel and the United States cannot legitimize a dogma-bound theocracy that has shot and killed tens of thousands of its own citizens at protest sites, it is also difficult to accept Benjamin Netanyahu’s reckless course of action justified in the name of survival and security. Anthropologist Hee-Soo Lee has argued that the latest attacks by the United States and Israel have, in fact, prolonged the life of Iran’s theocratic regime, which had been losing legitimacy and faltering at home. He pointed to a relationship of hostile symbiosis between the two sides.
The shockwaves of war have rattled the global economy and reminded us that our externally dependent economy needs more robust, long-term safeguards against growing vulnerabilities. They have also forced us to reexamine the security environment that underpins our economic prosperity. To navigate safely through the reefs of the gray zone, we must maintain a sense of balance and prepare for sudden variables that could disrupt our course. Amid the signs that the unipolar era of hegemony is fading, and as surrounding great powers grow more aggressive in forcing others to choose sides, the Iran war presents us with many tasks we must prepare for and resolve if we are to preserve our national dignity and room to maneuver.
june@fnnews.com Reporter