Arab Jews or Jewish Spartans?
Regional Integration vs National Ghetto
In 2008, the Saudi prince Turki al-Faisal said that after a comprehensive Israeli-Arab peace agreement, “one can imagine the integration of Israel into the Arab geographical entity” and that Arabs “will start thinking of Israelis as Arab Jews rather than simply as Israelis.” His comments stirred some controversy, insofar as the term “Arab Jews” seems to deny Jews their own unique ethnonational identity. But another, more generous interpretation is that they’re in the pan-Semitic spirit of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli’s quip that Arabs are “only Jews on horseback.” In other words, they gesture toward the possibility of regional integration on a people-to-people level, and not merely the “cold peace” that prevails between Israel and neighboring Egypt and Jordan. The 2020 Abraham Accords, which catalyzed economic but also cultural and interfaith ties between Israel and several other Arab nations, provide proof of concept.1 But because of its regional and religious leadership, the path to full integration lies through Saudi Arabia, which in turn hinges on progress with the Palestinians. Were Saudi Arabia to normalize ties with Israel, other Arab and Muslim states—except for stone-age stalwarts like Ayatollah-led Iran, pirate-led Yemen, and Taliban-led Afghanistan—would eventually follow.
In a deeply historical sense, international normalization is the fulfillment of Zionism. After all, one of its fundamental goals was to make the Jews a normal nation. In 1882, Leon Pinsker wrote that “as long as we lack a home of our own, such as the other nations have, we must resign forever the noble hope of becoming the equals of our fellow-men. . . . a people which is at home everywhere and nowhere, must everywhere be regarded as alien.” Israel’s 1947 Declaration of Independence refers to “the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.” Normal nations have a demographic majority, a common language and culture, and political independence within their own homeland. In that sense, Zionism has been wildly successful. But normal nations are also recognized as legitimate by most of the world, certainly by other countries in their region. By that measure, Zionism is an unfinished project. Twenty-eight UN member states refuse to recognize Israel, most of them majority-Muslim. Israel’s most vehement enemy, Iran, actively seeks to destroy the Jewish state, as do its terrorist proxies. Israel is also viewed as illegitimate by many Muslims in countries that do recognize its existence, as well as much of the radical left. Despite not being, by any objective measure, an actual state, Palestine is recognized by nearly as many countries (157) as Israel (159).
Yet despite opprobrium in response to the war in Gaza, there has been steady progress toward Zionism’s fulfillment. Famously, the 1967 Arab League summit resulted in the adoption of “Three Noes”: no peace with Israel, no negotiation with Israel, and no recognition of Israel. Yet since then, six Arab League members have established ties with Israel: Egypt in 1979, Jordan in 1994, and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco in 2020.2 Moreover, in 2002, the Arab League endorsed a Saudi-sponsored peace initiative that promised full normalization with Israel in exchange for its withdrawal to 1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state.3 The initiative also called for “a just solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees,” which is a nonstarter if it means the so-called “right of return” of Palestinians to Israel. But the ambiguous phrasing suggests room for negotiation.4 Before Gaza, Israel may have been able to forge ties with Saudi Arabia in the absence of serious movement on the Palestinian issue. But even authoritarian rulers must be somewhat responsive to public opinion—which, in the Arab and Muslim worlds, is firmly on the side of their fellow Arab and (mostly) Muslim Palestinians. That means a return to the status quo—interminable Palestinian statelessness, punctuated by violence—precludes further normalization, while Israeli annexation of the West Bank would endanger existing ties with Arab states.5
If normalization is the fulfillment of political Zionism, then Greater Israel is the fulfillment of ghetto Zionism. In the Torah, the pagan prophet Balaam says that Israel is “a people that dwells alone, not reckoned among the nations.” The cost of annexation, let alone expulsion of the Palestinians, would be increasing isolation. In other words, the fulfillment of Balaam’s prophecy, which, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks argues, is intended as a curse. No less an authority than God says to Adam, “It’s not good for man to be alone.” It’s also not good for nations, especially small ones that lack the population and resources to survive without allies. Against the wisdom of God, we have the contrasting vision of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom Israel must become a “super-Sparta” with “autarkic features.” Of course, in historical Sparta, every citizen served in the army. In Israel, both Arabs and the growing Haredi Jewish population are exempt. The Haredim are also reliant on government handouts, which means an autarkic Israel would need to increase its self-sufficiency in order to support a population that doesn’t support itself. The real Sparta fell after its soldier-citizens were vastly outnumbered by revolting helots. Were Israel to annex the West Bank and Gaza, less than 40% of its population would be non-Haredi Jewish, and thus responsible for both suppressing Palestinian violence and upholding Haredi dependency. Seen in this light, Netanyahu’s Sparta comparison comes across rather differently.6
The ideal of regional integration is as old as Zionism itself. Prior to its European conquest in World War I, most of the Middle East was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. Accordingly, Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, negotiated with the Turkish sultan in 1901 to secure a charter for Jewish settlement in the Holy Land. Had Herzl succeeded, and the Ottomans not sided with Germany in the coming war, perhaps Zionism would have resulted in an autonomous Jewish province under Turkish rule. In 1861, the Ottomans granted autonomy to Maronite Christians under the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, so the idea had precedent. But though Herzl was rebuffed, the early Zionists didn’t give up on the Ottomans. Notably, David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi—later Israel’s first prime minister and second president, respectively—became Ottoman citizens, studied in Istanbul, and volunteered to join the Turkish army when war broke out. After the Ottoman Empire’s collapse, Zionists sought rapprochement with the new Arab nationalist movement. The 1919 Faisal–Weizmann agreement, signed by Emir Faisal of the Hashemite dynasty (which now rules Jordan) and Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s future first president, promised collaboration between the nascent Arab state and Zionism based on “the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people.” Ze’ev Jabotinsky, leader of the Revisionist Zionists, even proposed a Jewish canton within a Damascus-based “Confederation of Semitic Peoples.”
Ultimately, these early Zionist efforts at regional integration failed due to a lack of reciprocity. Muslims were used to dealing with Jews as dhimmis, a nominally protected but subservient status in Islam. The Zionists were willing to settle for autonomy rather than statehood, but even that was too much for most Muslim leaders. Their rejectionism proved Pinsker’s earlier point: “The basis is absent upon which treaties and international law may be applied: mutual respect. Only when this basis is established, when the equality of Jews with other nations becomes a fact, can the Jewish problem be considered solved.” Why negotiate with a people whom you could easily oppress or destroy?7 Considering that the last major Jewish military victory was the Maccabee Revolt in 167 BCE, it’s hard to fault Muslims for their ultimately short-sighted view.8 It was Jabotinsky, in his famous 1923 “Iron Wall” essay, who proved most prescient: “As long as the Arabs feel that there is the least hope of getting rid of us, they will refuse to give up this hope . . . when a living people yields in matters of such a vital character, it is only when there is no longer any hope of getting rid of us, because they can make no breach in the iron wall.” Just as Jabotinsky predicted, limited peace with Arabs only followed decades of failed attempts to destroy Israel. Of course, many Arabs and Muslims still haven’t given up their dreams of annihilation, but in the long view of history, October 7 may be seen as the last futile attempt to breach the Iron Wall. Yes, Hamas did succeed in literally breaching Israel’s walls, if only for a day. But that day’s ultimate consequences include the enfeeblement of Hezbollah, the decimation of Iran’s nuclear program, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and the weakening—or, inshallah, end—of Hamas rule in Gaza.
When the Zionists were weak and eager to negotiate, Muslim leaders largely refused to do so. As a result, instead of Jewish autonomy under Turkish or Arab rule—or a small Jewish state covering a third of British Palestine, as proposed in 1937—Israel won its independence and expanded its territory via victory in defensive wars. Israel then achieved peace from a position of strength, but also through a willingness to make concessions, such as the return of Sinai to Egypt in 1982. Even the Abraham Accords, while not predicated on territorial withdrawal, were contingent on Israel suspending plans to annex the West Bank. As Jabotinsky wrote, “the [Arab] leadership will pass to the moderate groups, who will approach us with a proposal that we should both agree to mutual concessions” (emphasis mine). The question now is whether Israel’s military strength is still matched by its willingness to strike a grand bargain. In 1948, Israeli statesman Abba Eban argued for a Near Eastern League, envisaging “Turkey, Christian Lebanon, Israel, and Iran as partners of the Arab world in a league of non-aggression, mutual defence, and economic cooperation.” Eban’s Hegelian logic for regional integration remains sound: “Arab society starts off with an Eastern environment to which it endeavors to adapt Western ideas. Jewish society starts off with Western ideas, which it must contrive to adapt to an Eastern environment. There is an objective historic harmony in this relationship, a basic affinity, more profound than the transient political deadlock which obscures it.” Since the 1940s, Israel has become more “Eastern,” with the majority of its Jews the descendants of refugees from Middle Eastern countries, while Arab states like Saudi Arabia have rapidly modernized, if not exactly Westernized. Thus the case for synthesis is even stronger.
In the same spirit as Eban’s Near Eastern League, the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), a G20-backed counterweight to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, would make Israel a central trading hub in what one scholar dubs “Indo-Abrahamic West Asia.” Israel’s Coalition for Regional Security has also proposed the Abraham Shield Plan, which would formalize security ties between Israel and moderate Arab states. To go even further, why shouldn’t Israel, which is 21% Arab, join the Arab League—perhaps to be renamed the Semitic League?9 Because of what Eban called “the transient political deadlock,” of course. To break that deadlock once and for all requires visionary thinking. Such a vision requires not just a “day after” plan for Gaza, but a “decades after” plan for the region. It needs to extend beyond the Palestinians, but also include them, because history has shown that neither they nor the Israelis are going away. Of course, the fanatics will never be placated, but as an old Arabic saying goes: “The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.” In a September 2025 survey, the great majority of Israelis (78%) said they favored a diplomatic initiative that included an end to the war in Gaza, normalization with Saudi Arabia, political separation from the Palestinians, and a regional security coalition against Iran. Even while co-chairing a conference to recognize Palestine, the Saudis officially reaffirmed the goal of Israel’s “full regional integration, as provided for in the Arab Peace initiative.”10 An integrated Middle East may seem like a fantasy right now, but so, not too long ago, did the reestablishment of the Jewish commonwealth. As Zionism’s prophet once said, “If you will it, it is no dream.”11
Beyond the Middle East, so does Israel’s “popular normalization” with non-Arab Muslim countries like Azerbaijan and Albania.
Sudan also joined the Abraham Accords, but full normalization has been on hold given the country’s internal instability.
Earlier, Mauritania established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1999, but broke off ties in 2010 in response to an anti-terror operation in Gaza. Mauritania is home to an estimated 90,000 black slaves, which brings to mind a paraphrase of Samuel Johnson’s famous quip about the American Revolution: “Why do the loudest yelps for Palestinian liberty come from the drivers of negroes?”
Arab officials later acknowledged the possibility of land swaps between Israel and the Palestinians.
For example, as part of an agreement with the Arab League, Israeli compensation to descendants of Palestinian refugees could be paired with Arab compensation to descendants of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
An end to Palestinian statelessness doesn’t necessarily mean the establishment of a Palestinian state as typically conceived. It could mean that Palestinians are granted statehood through confederation with Jordan (ie, through the Jordanian re-annexation of the West Bank, plus Gaza). It also doesn’t mean the formation of a Palestinian state right now, which would be foolish given continued Hamas rule in Gaza. But full Israeli normalization requires some sort of pathway to Palestinian normalization.
As a curious aside, the Spartans were allies of the ancient Jews, with Spartan King Areus I claiming his people were also “descendants of Abraham.”
To paraphrase Al Capone: You can get much further with “the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people” and a gun than you can with racial kinship and ancient bonds alone.
Though it’s worth noting that there are Jewish groups with a martial tradition, including the Habbani Jews of Yemen, used as bodyguards by King Abdullah I of Jordan, and the Mountain Jews of the Caucasus, who may descend from a Persian-Jewish garrison.
Its headquarters could be moved from Cairo to Neom, the Saudi planned city being built just south of Eilat—perhaps with Israeli collaboration in mind. For a Semitic League anthem, I suggest “Middle East” by Yemenite-Israeli icon Ofra Haza.
Love this take — especially the idea that true normalization requires more than power, it needs legitimacy. Saudi Arabia is the key to unlocking the next phase.
Brillianthistorical framing of the choice between integration and isolation. Your point that Jabotinsky's Iron Wall logic ultimately proved prescient is key, but what's equally important is his recognition that after strength comes the need for mutual concessions. The comparison of Netanyahu's autarkic Sparta to the actual Sparta that fell when helots revolted is devastating, especially given the demographic realities you outline. The idea of a Semitic Leageu with Israel as a member isn't just aspirational; it's the only logicaly sustainable long-term path.