Rethinking peace beyond traditional diplomacy
For decades, the Middle East has been shaped through wars, borders, ideological blocs, and narratives of confrontation.
Pan-Arabism failed. For decades, its limitations have been visible in the catastrophic condition of many countries across the region.
Islamism has devastated entire societies, including Palestinians in Gaza, Lebanon, and elsewhere.
Authoritarian nationalisms have trapped peoples in fear, lies, corruption, and hatred of the other.
And yet, despite the wars, another reality is slowly beginning to emerge.
More and more voices across the region are now seeking to build pragmatic forms of cooperation based not on ideology, but on shared interests, stability, economic development, technology, education, and coexistence.
A recent article published in The Jerusalem Post discussed the idea of an “Abraham Peace Corridor,” envisioning a regional framework of cooperation connecting various Middle Eastern actors around peace and development rather than permanent confrontation.
This idea deserves serious consideration.
Not because it offers a miracle solution to the region’s conflicts, but because it reflects something deeper: the growing exhaustion of the grand narratives of hatred that have shaped the modern Middle East.
The failure of destructive ideologies
Today, the Middle East is paying the price of decades of propaganda.
Entire generations were raised to believe that the ultimate priority was the destruction of the other: Israel, the West, minorities, or any dissenting voice.
Meanwhile:
- societies collapsed;
- elites enriched themselves;
- freedoms disappeared;
- minorities were persecuted;
- and millions were forced to flee their own countries.
Syria is perhaps the most tragic example.
Under the banner of nationalism and “resistance,” the Syrian regime destroyed its own people.
Then Islamism further fragmented the country.
Lebanon, too, gradually became a battlefield for regional conflicts at the expense of its sovereignty and development.
As for the Palestinians, they have often been instrumentalized by regimes claiming to speak in their name while refusing realistic solutions.
A different regional logic is emerging
In response to this historic failure, another approach is beginning to take shape.
The Abraham Accords demonstrated that part of the Arab world was ready to move beyond the endless paradigm of war against Israel.
This evolution does not mean abandoning the Palestinian issue.
Rather, it reflects the realization by some states that they can no longer sacrifice their future to the perpetual maintenance of a conflict exploited for political purposes.
Within this new context, unprecedented convergences are emerging:
- between Israelis and pragmatic Arabs;
- between minorities threatened by Islamism;
- between regional economic actors;
- and between civil societies exhausted by destructive ideologies.
These rapprochements remain fragile.
They are often demonized.
But they reveal an important transformation: more and more people in the region want to live, build, and cooperate rather than die for slogans.
The real peace corridor is cultural
But peace cannot be merely diplomatic.
Political agreements are not enough when societies continue to educate their children in hatred.
Lasting coexistence cannot be built solely through trade agreements or international summits.
It must also be built through imagination, education, culture, and human encounter.
This is precisely why independent intellectual and cultural initiatives are essential.
The true peace corridor of the Middle East will not be only economic.
It must also be:
- cultural;
- educational;
- memorial;
- and human.
It must allow Syrians, Lebanese, Israelis, Kurds, Druze, Palestinians, and others across the region to engage in dialogue beyond the narratives imposed by nationalist or Islamist propaganda.
Ashteret: ppening a space for lucid dialogue
It is in this spirit that Ashteret was created.
Ashteret does not claim to solve the conflicts of the Middle East.
But it seeks to open a rare space:
- a space for reflection;
- dialogue;
- intellectual confrontation;
- and the deconstruction of narratives of hatred.
The goal is not to erase identities or disagreements.
The goal is to make possible a shared language capable of moving beyond permanent logics of destruction.
In a region saturated with propaganda, competing victimhoods, and extremisms, coexistence today requires intellectual courage.
It also requires accepting a simple truth: no people of the Middle East will disappear.
And no lasting peace can be built upon the denial of the other’s existence.
rebuilding imaginations before borders
The Middle East does not only need physical reconstruction.
It also needs moral, cultural, and psychological reconstruction.
Roads, pipelines, and economic agreements will not be enough if societies continue to transmit hatred as an identity inheritance.
The real challenge may therefore lie here:
rebuilding imaginations before attempting to rebuild borders.
And it is precisely within this fragile, difficult, but necessary space that Ashteret hopes to contribute.
Inspired by an article published in The Jerusalem Post on the concept of the “Abraham Peace Corridor.”