Israel-Palestine Conflict: Effect on the Middle East

In 1917, the Balfour Declaration marked a turning point in Middle Eastern history as the United Kingdom endorsed the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. While intended as a diplomatic solution, the declaration instead intensified tensions between Jewish and Arab communities, as Palestinian Arabs increasingly resisted what they perceived as foreign intervention and dispossession. These tensions escalated into open conflict during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, which led to the establishment of Israel and the mass displacement of Palestinians. This displacement, often referred to as the Nakba, permanently altered the region’s demographics and created a large refugee population whose status remains unresolved. The conflict deepened further after the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel captured and occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The occupation of these territories introduced a complex system of military administration and settlement expansion that fundamentally reshaped the physical and political landscape. For Palestinians, this era intensified the struggle for self-determination and contributed to the rise of organized resistance movements and the subsequent Intifadas, which brought the realities of the conflict to the global stage. Peace efforts, most notably the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, briefly offered a glimmer of hope for a two-state solution; however, internal political divisions and recurring cycles of violence ultimately undermined the momentum. The enduring impasse has produced a humanitarian crisis that persists into the twenty-first century, leaving both populations caught in a cycle of trauma and a search for security. Historical evidence suggests that the Israel-Palestine conflict is central to the Middle East and North Africa because it provides unifying grievances for extremist movements and creates a structural environment of political and economic instability that hinders development across the Middle East. Jordan’s role as a buffer state between Israel and other conflict-prone areas of the region places Jordan’s national identity under significant strain. Its population, largely composed of Palestinian refugees, shapes the way Jordan views the Israel-Palestine issue, especially in relation to US support, as external decisions directly affect its internal unity and future.

Extremist mobilization in the Middle East has been deeply shaped by the Israel-Palestine conflict, which is repeatedly framed as a central symbol of Western-backed oppression and Muslim grievances. Former Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden reflects this narrative in his 2002 Letter to the American People, where he wrote that Western policy “slipped out of your grasp the day you made the Jews victorious in occupying our land and killing our brothers in Palestine,” positioning the conflict as a catalyst for broader resistance against perceived foreign domination. By linking the establishment of Israel to the loss of Palestinian control, bin Laden transforms a territorial dispute into a struggle where the Palestinian cause serves as a moral litmus test across the Muslim world. This framing turns the conflict into a symbol of Western interference, allowing extremist groups to justify violence as a form of resistance tied directly to Palestinian suffering. Similarly, Al-Qaeda’s former second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, rejected political compromise in a 2006 speech, urging “Muslims to reject any referendum on Palestine because Palestine is part of the Islamic world and not subject to any compromise.” He further encourages Muslims to support “their brothers in Palestine…so that jihad continues. [Palestine’s] liberation is the duty of every Muslim,” transforming the issue into a continuous ideological rallying point. This rhetoric removes the conflict from the realm of traditional diplomacy and reframes it as a religious obligation that supersedes national borders. By characterizing the land as an inseparable part of the Islamic world, al-Zawahiri delegitimizes secular political solutions and positions perpetual militancy as the only religiously sanctioned path. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, former Supreme Leader of Iran, reinforces this perception by arguing that “Israel is not a country, rather it is a terrorist camp against the Palestinian nation and other Muslim nations.” By portraying the state as a terrorist entity, Khamenei strips Israel of its sovereign legitimacy and reclassifies it as a purely military target. This language broadens the scope of the conflict, suggesting that the threat is not localized to Gaza or the West Bank but is an existential threat to the entire Islamic world.

The Israel-Palestine conflict also produces structural instability across the Middle East by embedding unresolved political tensions into regional systems of security, governance, and development. This instability is reflected in Saleh Omar’s Arab Nationalism: A Retrospective Evaluation, where he claims that “every Arab state became fair game for Israeli and Western intervention,” highlighting how the conflict extends beyond Palestine itself and contributes to a wider environment of regional insecurity and external involvement. This dynamic has been particularly evident in states such as Syria, where ongoing conflict and regional rivalries have been intensified by broader geopolitical tensions tied to the Israel-Palestine conflict, further destabilizing already fragile state structures. The scale of this instability is reinforced by the fact that Middle Eastern states collectively spend over 200 billion dollars annually on military expenditure, representing one of the highest defense burdens in the world relative to economic output. This cost illustrates how insecurity redirects resources away from development and toward sustained militarization. Countries across the region, including Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, have prioritized military capacity over economic reform and democratic institution-building, demonstrating how persistent insecurity provides a pretext for the consolidation of authoritarian power. At the same time, the persistence of displacement underscores the long-term consequences of this instability, with over 5.9 million registered Palestinian refugees under the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), making it one of the most enduring refugee crises globally. As Fouad Ajami writes in The Arab Predicament, this condition reflects “the incapacity of the dominant order to resolve the Palestinian question,” demonstrating how failure to reach a durable settlement creates systemic paralysis that perpetuates instability across the region. This instability is not only material but also political, as competing regional and global narratives further fragment cooperation and erode trust among states. The conflict has functioned as a powerful systemic regulator, shaping the ideological orientations of nearly every state in the region. As Fawaz Gerges writes, “this struggle, which has ebbed and flowed from 1954 till the present, has shaped the identity of the postcolonial, post-independence state and its conduct towards its citizens and the outside world,” demonstrating how the Israel-Palestine conflict has become embedded in state formation itself, influencing how regional governments govern internally and position themselves externally in response to the ongoing conflict.

The Israel-Palestine conflict extends far beyond a localized territorial dispute, operating as both an ideological driver of extremist mobilization and a structural force that entrenches instability across the Middle East. The broader impact of the conflict is particularly evident in Jordan, where its consequences are deeply internal. As a buffer state positioned between Israel, the Palestinian territories, and wider regional tensions, Jordan exists in a constant state of strategic vulnerability, forced to respond to external pressures beyond its control. This position has required the country to maintain one of the highest levels of defense spending in the world relative to its size, as fear of regional conflict, particularly with Israel, drives the prioritization of security over domestic investment and economic expansion. At the same time, this reliance on militarization limits Jordan’s ability to fully capitalize on opportunities for growth and development, reinforcing the very instability it seeks to contain. Compounding this challenge are Jordan’s demographics, as an estimated 50 to 65 percent of its population consists of people of Palestinian origin. This reality has made the formation of a singular national identity more complex, as the state must balance competing historical narratives and political loyalties within its own borders. Jordan’s identity is not rooted in a unified cultural foundation but instead shaped by displacement and the ongoing consequences of the Israel-Palestine conflict. The internal fragility is further intensified by Jordan’s dependence on the United States, as alignment with the U.S. support for Israel constrains its political flexibility and ties aspects of its domestic stability to decisions made beyond its borders. The Israel-Palestine conflict does not simply destabilize the region externally; it penetrates the internal structure of states themselves, shaping their identities, priorities, and futures in ways that make lasting stability and political independence increasingly difficult to achieve.