A Brief History of the Next Decade: Zionist Tyranny and the Coming Reckoning

Source: “The Ever-Expanding Middle East War: Ten Countries Have Now Been Dragged into the Fighting,” The Economist, January 24, 2024.

This phase of Zionist tyranny is one in which the Zionist establishment has come to terms with a new reality: after going too far in Gaza, the prospects for regional integration and acceptance have all but collapsed. So, what comes next, or what is already now, is a shift—not toward diplomacy or damage control, but toward asserting Israel’s presence through unmasked violence, through spectacular brutality, and through the total disregard for people’s lives, sovereignty, and dignity.

This latest iteration of the Israeli project is not subtle. It’s not about quiet security arrangements or traditional normalization. It’s about declaring, loud and clear, that Israel reserves the right to bomb anyone, anywhere, at any time. And any attempt to question this entitlement will be answered with more violence. This is the next decade. Israel, backed by U.S. military funding and political cover, bombing its way into asserting itself as the region’s supreme bully and extortionist.

Wars will continue to be waged in the region, while globally, Zionist lawfare and propaganda (Hasbara) machines will continue their work—smearing, silencing, distorting. What we’re witnessing is an attempt to turn Israel into a mini-empire: a regime that continues to bomb Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Yemen simultaneously, while fighting its critics and challengers on every continent, in every courtroom, newsroom, and university.

But empires collapse under the weight of their own delusions. And this attempt to dominate the region and police the globe will lead to overreach, overextension, and eventually unraveling. The U.S. taxpayer will wake up—not just the disillusioned left, but segments of the right too. And the people of the region? They will not accept this reality.

Israeli racism continues to treat the people of this region as static, broken, and passive. But this region has shown, again and again, a capacity for resistance that is unmatched in the 21st century. This is not a region that forgets. It is not a region that submits.

A decade and a half ago, the people of the region rose up in the largest wave of uprisings demanding dignity, freedom, and social justice. As I argued in my essay for In These Times, the reaction to the Arab Uprisings was the regional adoption—and expansion—of the Israeli model: surveillance, militarization, fragmentation, and control.

People are not fools. A new generation of Arabs, many of whom were too young to participate in or even remember the 2011 uprisings, now understand Israel not only as an obstacle to Palestinian liberation, but as a central obstacle to the dignity and emancipation of the region as a whole.

In the face of Israeli and Zionist tyranny, the world will shift, and the region surrounding Palestine will not remain the same. The decade ahead will be bloody, punishing, and exhausting. It will demand everything from those who believe in justice and refuse to normalize genocide and Zionist tyranny. There is no room for passivity now, no space for the easily discouraged, no tolerance for the politically fatigued.

This is it. We are already living through the most consequential decade in the history of our region—and perhaps our world. And the only way forward is through.