Has Zionism Failed?

 

A history of critical thinkers, Jewish dissent, and the responsibility to act

R.M. Westerink; August 2026 

In brief

Doubts about Zionism did not begin with Gaza. For decades, Jewish and non-Jewish thinkers, Israeli public figures and Jewish organizations have asked whether a state built on Jewish security can last while Palestinians are denied freedom of their own. Their criticism ranges from early warnings to the explicit verdict that the project has failed. Today's evidence of insecurity, displacement and fading belief in coexistence gives those questions new weight.
Questioning Zionism is legitimate and is not inherently antisemitic. It also carries responsibilities: for Western governments, to act independently and uphold international law, and for Israeli citizens, to decide what they continue to support.

Doubts and Questions

Doubts did not begin with Gaza. Long before today’s destruction, thinkers were asking whether Zionism could secure Jewish freedom while denying Palestinians theirs. Jewish philosophers and Israeli public figures were among them. Their warnings belong to the project’s history and deserve a place in public debate.

Three questions recur.
Is the project morally defensible? Has it delivered the security and peaceful life it promised? Can it endure?

Israel’s statehood, refuge and cultural achievements are real. They do not settle these questions. The history of criticism helps us understand why they have become more urgent, and why questioning Zionism is legitimate.

This article follows that history in four steps: the thinkers who raised the doubts, the Jewish dissent that offered alternatives, the cycle of insecurity that followed, and the responsibility this places on Western and Israeli citizens.

Critical thinkers and the Zionist project

Hannah Arendt, the German-Jewish political thinker who escaped Nazi Europe, challenged the belief that an exclusively Jewish sovereign state would resolve the Jewish predicament. She explored federal alternatives and warned about those whom nationalism would exclude. [1]

In 1948, Arendt foresaw that even military victory might leave Jewish life surrounded by hostile borders and absorbed by self-defense. Permanent confrontation could consume the freedom a homeland was meant to secure. [1]

Her warning has painful relevance in 2026. Military superiority has still not resolved the relationship between the two peoples. What freedom is achieved when defending the state dominates life within it?

Avraham Burg, former Knesset speaker and leader of the World Zionist Organization, warned in 2003 that Zionism’s ethical foundations were collapsing. The criticism came from the movement’s institutional center. Burg questioned whether power had consumed the ideals used to justify it. The state’s survival alone, in this view, could not vindicate its conduct. [2]

Nivedita Menon, an Indian political theorist, made the judgment explicit in her 2012 essay Zionism as a Failed Project. She assessed Zionism by the standard of justice for Palestinians and proposed a democratic, binational alternative. In her view, the rights of people living there today take precedence over competing ancestral claims. [3]

American journalist Max Blumenthal was equally explicit during a 2013 discussion of his book Goliath. He called Zionism “an absolutely failed project,” pointing to the suffering inflicted on Palestinians and a political order that denied equal belonging. In his view, economic achievement and military victories could not answer that moral objection. [4]

Judith Butler, the American Jewish philosopher, grounds criticism in Jewish ethics as well as equal rights. Drawing on Arendt, she examines how securing political membership for one population can leave another excluded or stateless. In this view, Jewish belonging carries no obligation to endorse a state’s political arrangements, and Jewish historical experience can support a commitment to coexistence. [1, 5]

Ilan Pappé, the Israeli-British historian, goes further. In The Collapse of Zionism (2024), he identified social division, economic strain, international isolation and reliance on external military support as signs of crisis. [6]

His 2025 book Israel on the Brink develops that argument and considers a shared future for Palestinians and Jews. Collapse remains a prediction, but the strains he describes sharpen the question of sustainability. [7]

These thinkers offer different judgments: an early warning, a moral indictment, an explicit verdict of failure, a forecast of collapse. Together they invite us to judge Zionism by the life it makes possible for both peoples.

Jewish dissent and alternative visions

Jewish disagreement with Zionism also produced movements and organizations. Their purposes differed, but their history makes it impossible to equate Jewish identity with support for political Zionism.

The Jewish Labor Bund was founded in Vilna in 1897, the year of the First Zionist Congress. It organized Jewish workers around socialism and cultural autonomy, seeking a Jewish future in the societies where Jews already lived. Its principle of doikayt, or “hereness,” expressed that commitment. [8]

The Holocaust devastated those communities and exposed Europe’s failure to protect them. The Bund nevertheless shows that Jewish self-determination had competing political meanings from the outset. [8]

In Mandatory Palestine, Brit Shalom, founded in 1925, and Ihud, formed in 1942, advocated a shared homeland. Martin Buber and Judah Magnes, the founding president of the Hebrew University, sought a future in which Jewish and Arab collective life could develop without either people dominating the other. These were alternatives within Zionist thought. An exclusively Jewish sovereign state was one political choice among competing visions. [9]

Religious opposition took another route. Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum and the Satmar tradition rejected political Zionism on theological grounds, including opposition to Jewish sovereignty before messianic redemption. Their position differed fundamentally from the Bund’s socialism and Buber’s binationalism. Jewish dissent never had one program. [10]

After statehood, criticism also came from people who had participated in Israeli military rule. Breaking the Silence, founded in 2004 by soldiers who served in Hebron, collects veterans’ testimony and seeks an end to the occupation. It opposes occupation without declaring against every form of Zionism. Its work shows how participation can lead to public opposition and responsibility. [11]

Jewish Voice for Peace, founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1996, adopted an explicitly anti-Zionist position in its 2019 statement. It grounds that position in equality and Palestinian freedom, rejecting the idea that Jewish safety requires Palestinian subordination. [12]

In Britain, Jewish Voice for Liberation, formerly Jewish Voice for Labour, likewise identifies as anti-Zionist. Its 2025 statement places liberation and equality at the center of its position. [13]

The alternatives were imagined, organized and defended. Their existence keeps open a question that the dominant political path has repeatedly failed to resolve: can security be achieved through control over another people?

Insecurity and the flight forward

Israel has extraordinary military power, yet insecurity persists. The unresolved issue lies at Israel’s foundations: how can Jewish national life be secure while Palestinians are denied the freedom to determine their own?

Jewish attachment to the land is ancient. Israel is a modern state. Neither fact settles the rights of Palestinians who lived there, were displaced, or remain under Israeli control. Military victory establishes control; it cannot resolve dispossession or confer equal rights.

Actual threats intensify this insecurity. Attacks on civilians, hostage-taking and October 7 are real. So are Palestinian experiences of bombardment, expulsion and occupation.

The recurring Israeli response has been greater control through deterrence, restrictions on movement, military intervention and territorial consolidation. These measures can prevent attacks. They also leave Palestinians with fewer freedoms and fewer prospects for a viable future. The grievance survives.

This is the flight forward: escaping a problem by escalating it. Threat provokes force; force renews hostility; hostility justifies more force. Palestinian armed groups deepen the cycle through attacks on civilians and promises of liberation through violence. The positions remain profoundly unequal: Israel exercises state power and territorial control, while Palestinians endure occupation and fragmentation.

Fear helps explain the attraction of this response. Withdrawal from domination begins to look dangerous, while more domination is presented as protection. Political accommodation becomes harder to imagine. Each failed attempt to achieve safety through force supplies a reason to try again.

A direction sustained through politics

This direction has an electoral base. In 2022, Netanyahu’s allied parties won 64 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, bringing an enlarged far right into government before October 7. Despite substantial dissent, voters and parties helped sustain the pursuit of greater territorial control. Responsibility reaches beyond one leader. [14]

Fewer people believe peace is possible. Pew found that the share of Israeli adults who believed Israel and an independent Palestinian state could coexist peacefully fell from 50 percent in 2013 to 21 percent in 2025 and 17 percent in spring 2026. [15, 16]

Among Palestinians surveyed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, 21 percent believed peaceful coexistence possible; Gaza was excluded. Respondents frequently cited fear and distrust. [16]

As belief in coexistence fades, superior force becomes easier to sell as the only answer. Failure to build an alternative then appears to prove that none exists.

The cost in law and human life

International law places limits on the pursuit of security. In its July 2024 advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice found Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful. It stated that security concerns cannot override the prohibition on acquiring territory by force. [17]

Control nevertheless continues to displace Palestinians. OCHA’s September 25, 2026 report recorded 147 people displaced by demolitions in one week, including 73 children. It also documented displacement through settler violence and restrictions. [18]

B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, describes the wider process in its September 2026 report as the systematic dismantling of Palestinian collective life. Its assessment draws on years of documentation, and more than 2,000 Palestinian testimonies collected since October 2023. The damage extends to the homes and communities that make ordinary life possible. [19]

A politics centered on defeating the next threat can surrender the values security was meant to protect. Civilian lives become secondary to military objectives. Displacement becomes an accepted consequence. Palestinian freedom is postponed in the name of Israeli security, while its denial helps keep conflict alive.

Arendt’s warning is recognizable here. A powerful state remains trapped in recurring confrontation. Breaking the pattern requires security to include the freedom and protection of both peoples.
The flight forward is a political choice that can be challenged.

The freedom to question and the responsibility to act

Questioning whether Zionism has failed is legitimate. Political projects must answer for their promises and consequences. The persecution that helped give rise to Zionism gives this inquiry human urgency; it cannot exempt the project from judgment.

The Jewish identity of many critics exposes the diversity of Jewish political thought. Their arguments stand on their substance. Palestinian testimony needs no outside authorization. Anyone may ask whether a political arrangement is just, successful or sustainable, while affirming the right of Israeli Jews and Palestinians to a safe future.

Criticism and antisemitism

The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism distinguishes opposition to Zionism from hostility toward Jews as Jews. It permits discussion of political alternatives founded on equality. Blaming Jews collectively, spreading anti-Jewish conspiracy stories or denying Jewish people the right to live and flourish remains antisemitic. [20]

The IHRA working definition draws some boundaries differently, but also states that criticism of Israel comparable to criticism of other countries cannot be regarded as antisemitic. Fighting antisemitism and scrutinizing Israeli power are compatible responsibilities. [21]

“The Zionist project has failed” is therefore a legitimate proposition to argue. It is not inherently antisemitic. Its strength depends on the reasoning and evidence offered, not on whether it challenges a deeply held commitment.

Western responsibility

Western governments must exercise independent judgment. Historical responsibility toward Jews cannot be discharged through support for policies that deny Palestinians their rights.

Accusations of antisemitism deserve examination on their merits; they must not become a veto over inquiry, accountability or lawful pressure on a government. Universities and media have the same duty to protect Jewish life and freedom of political debate.

Allies share responsibility when they supply the means for destructive policies and shield Israel from their consequences. In its July 2024 advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice stated that states must neither recognize as lawful the situation arising from Israel’s unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory nor aid its maintenance. Trade, diplomacy and assistance must be examined against those obligations. [17]

Western policy should support equal rights, durable security and accountability. It must also protect civilians from attacks by Palestinian armed groups. Protecting one people cannot justify destroying another’s conditions of life.

The responsibility of citizens

Israeli citizens have responsibilities too. Elections, institutions and everyday participation sustain the political direction. Responsibility varies with power, knowledge and freedom to act, but it cannot rest entirely with the leader at the top.

Citizens can vote for change, protest, support human rights organizations, document abuses and refuse participation in unlawful acts. Some choices carry serious personal costs. The soldiers and organizers who already speak out show that choices exist.

A person need not accept every argument here to find a reason to act. Moral objections, the failure to deliver lasting safety, or concern for an increasingly destructive future can each justify withdrawing support from the policies perpetuating the conflict.

The warnings were voiced long ago. The alternatives were imagined. The consequences are visible. We are free to question the Zionist project and responsible for what we continue to support. A secure future for both peoples requires us to exercise that freedom and responsibility.

References

[1] Judith Butler. “I merely belong to them.” London Review of Books, May 10, 2007. Review of Hannah Arendt’s The Jewish Writings, including discussion of her 1948 warning. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n09/judith-butler/i-merely-belong-to-them

[2] Avraham Burg. “The end of Zionism.” The Guardian, September 15, 2003. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/sep/15/comment

[3] Nivedita Menon. “Zionism as a Failed Project.” Open Magazine, December 9, 2012. https://openthemagazine.com/features/world/zionism-as-a-failed-project

[4] Philip Weiss. “Israeli Jews must become ‘indigenized’ to the Arab world, Blumenthal tells Lustick.” Mondoweiss, October 18, 2013. Report of the University of Pennsylvania discussion, with video links. https://mondoweiss.net/2013/10/indigenized-blumenthal-lustick/

[5] Judith Butler. “Judith Butler’s Remarks to Brooklyn College on BDS.” The Nation, 2013. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/judith-butlers-remarks-brooklyn-college-bds/

[6] Ilan Pappé. “The Collapse of Zionism.” New Left Review, Sidecar, June 21, 2024. https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/the-collapse-of-zionism

[7] Ilan Pappé. Israel on the Brink. Beacon Press, September 23, 2025. Publisher description and contents. https://www.beacon.org/Israel-on-the-Brink-P2220.aspx

[8] YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. “Bund” and “Russian Empire.” https://encyclopedia.yivo.org/article/146 and https://encyclopedia.yivo.org/article/25

[9] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “Martin Buber,” discussion of Brit Shalom and Ihud. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buber/

[10] YIVO Encyclopedia. “Satmar Hasidic Dynasty.” https://encyclopedia.yivo.org/article/2313

[11] Breaking the Silence. “The Organization.” Organizational history and mission. https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/about/organization

[12] Jewish Voice for Peace. “FAQ” and “Our Approach to Zionism”; statement January 2019. https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/faq/ and https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/resource/zionism/ . Background to its adoption: https://jewishvoiceforliberation.org.uk/article/jewish-vocie-for-peace-wrestinglin-with-zionism/

[13] Jewish Voice for Liberation. “Jewish Voice for Liberation and Anti-Zionism,” October 14, 2025; and “JVL is becoming Jewish Voice for Liberation,” 2025. https://jewishvoiceforliberation.org.uk/statement/jewish-voice-for-liberation-and-anti-zionism/ and https://jewishvoiceforliberation.org.uk/article/jvl-is-becoming-jewish-voice-for-liberation/

[14] Reuters. “Tapped to head new hard-right government, Netanyahu pledges Israeli unity,” November 2022, republished by Euronews. https://www.euronews.com/2022/11/14/israel-politics

[15] Pew Research Center. “Views of the potential for lasting peace,” June 3, 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/06/03/views-of-the-potential-for-lasting-peace/

[16] Pew Research Center. “Many Israelis and Palestinians Say They Cannot Coexist Peacefully – and Explain Why,” September 15, 2026. Face-to-face surveys: 1,001 Israeli adults, April 5–May 6; 1,038 Palestinian adults in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, March 30–April 28. Gaza excluded. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2026/09/15/many-israelis-and-palestinians-say-they-cannot-coexist-peacefully-and-explain-why/

[17] International Court of Justice. Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory including East Jerusalem. Advisory opinion, July 19, 2024; including paragraphs 278–279 and 285 on other states’ obligations. https://www.icj-cij.org/case/186/advisory-opinions

[18] OCHA. Humanitarian Situation Report, September 25, 2026. https://www.ochaopt.org/content/humanitarian-situation-report-25-september-2026

[19] B’Tselem. The Elimination Project, September 14, 2026. https://www.btselem.org/the_elimination_project/

[20] Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, March 25, 2021. Definition and guidelines 6–13, particularly guidelines 10, 12 and 13. https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/

[21] International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism, adopted May 26, 2016. https://holocaustremembrance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/IHRA-non-legally-binding-working-definition-of-antisemitism-1.pdf

 

When Society Becomes the Battlefield - Ukraine's Next War Is Fought Behind the Front

 

When Society Becomes the Battlefield

Ukraine's Next War Is Fought Behind the Front

Ukraine may be able to fight for another two years.
But what happens when the war increasingly targets the society that must sustain the fight?

 

R.M. Westerink; September 2026 

This piece does not continue “The Other War Over Ukraine” so much as react to what has changed since it was written [1]. That article asked whether Ukrainian air defense and manpower could hold for two more years. In the weeks since, a different question has become urgent: what happens to the society those defenses are meant to protect?

The short version: Russia is no longer only trying to break Ukraine's ability to fight. It is testing whether Ukrainians can still lead ordinary lives. That is a contest Europe cannot leave to weapons and air-defense procurement alone.

A new phase of the war in Ukraine is becoming visible. Russia has attacked civilian infrastructure throughout the full-scale invasion, but the target system is widening and becoming more interconnected. The latest warning comes from attacks on internet providers and data centers — the same digital backbone that keeps banks, payment systems, businesses and public services running [2]. At the same time, repeated strikes have damaged logistics, ports, energy facilities and industrial production, including the closure of Ukraine's largest steel plant after repeated attacks.

The battlefield is no longer adequately described by the front. The systems that allow the society behind the front to function are increasingly part of the war.

From Military Attrition to Societal Attrition

The significant change is not a tidy chronological progression in Russian targeting. Energy, transport, industry and civilian infrastructure have been attacked for years. What matters is the growing breadth of the target system and the way failures in one system propagate into others.

military forces → energy → logistics → industrial capacity → digital infrastructure → functioning society

Modern societies depend on networks of networks. Electricity supports telecommunications.
Telecommunications support payments and government services. Data centres support banking and administration. Transport depends on energy and digital control. Industry depends on all of them. An attacker therefore does not have to destroy a society physically to make ordinary life progressively harder. It can repeatedly damage enough critical nodes to keep the society repairing yesterday's losses rather than strengthening tomorrow's capacity.

This also creates an escalation dynamic.
Ukraine is increasingly able to strike Russian energy and industrial infrastructure at long range: Russian refineries have suffered repeated disruption, including the temporary shutdown of processing at the Moscow refinery after a September drone attack [3, 4].
Russia, meanwhile, continues much larger attacks across Ukraine — and mutual degradation does not mean symmetrical degradation. Russia has far greater capacity to affect basic civilian functioning across Ukraine. Ukraine can impose significant costs on Russia, particularly on energy production, war-supporting industry and economic efficiency, without presently possessing a comparable ability to make Russian society broadly unlivable.

Livability: When Does Disruption Become Something More?

This suggests a useful concept for thinking about the next two years of war: livability. It is not a mathematical index. It is a way to ask whether a society can still support an ordinary civilian life while absorbing sustained attack.

Livability = essential services + physical safety + income + housing + mobility + social support + expectation of recovery

The last component may be the most important.
Populations can endure extraordinary hardship while they believe it is temporary. The dangerous transition occurs when repeated disruption changes expectations — when families stop asking when normal life will return and start deciding where else they should build their future.

Five groups of indicators therefore matter:
- physical security;
- reliability of electricity, heating, water, communications and healthcare;
- housing and employment;
- mobility and functioning social infrastructure such as schools and transport; and
- expectations about recovery.

Geography changes how those indicators translate into displacement.
Frontline communities may become unlivable primarily through physical danger. Large inland cities can absorb much more damage because they possess redundancy, repair capacity, hospitals, employment and functioning administration. Western Ukraine remains an internal refuge for people leaving more exposed regions. Beyond it lies the European Union, offering a large and relatively accessible external safe zone. External displacement pressure can therefore accelerate when internal refuge becomes overloaded or begins losing its own livability advantage.

A Ladder of Societal Deterioration

Stage	Condition	Societal response
1 — Disruption	Outages, shortages and attacks remain intermittent.	Society adapts.
2 — Chronic disruption	Failures recur; repair and workarounds become normal life.	Households and firms build redundancy.
3 — Local unlivability	Particular areas cannot reliably support civilian life.	Internal displacement rises.
4 — Systemic degradation	Several essential systems fail simultaneously across substantial areas.	Relocation becomes a broader household strategy.
5 — Expectation break	People cease expecting recovery within a tolerable horizon.	External migration can accelerate.
6 — Demographic feedback	Departure reduces workers, taxpayers, technicians and economic activity.	Recovery becomes harder, encouraging further departure.

These are qualitative stages, not a scored index — a way to orient analysis, not to assign Ukraine a rank.

Ukraine already experiences different stages in different places. The point is not to label the country as a whole 'unlivable.' It is to watch whether severe local and regional disruption becomes broader, deeper and more persistent — and whether temporary displacement increasingly becomes permanent relocation.

Ukraine: Current Situation and Outlook

The earlier article asked whether Ukraine could retain enough military, economic and societal capacity to continue the war. The question now is what another two years of cumulative degradation might do to the society that has to sustain that effort.

The 2025–26 winter demonstrated the vulnerability.
UN human-rights monitors documented systematic and repeated Russian attacks on energy infrastructure [3]. Emergency outages affected millions; at times civilians had electricity for only a few hours a day. Heating was disrupted for hundreds of thousands during temperatures below −20°C, while water supplies, schools and healthcare were also affected. Some people left their homes because of the outages.

The danger is not simply destruction. It is a possible feedback loop:

infrastructure degradation → economic disruption → displacement and emigration → smaller workforce and tax base → weaker repair capacity → poorer services → further departure

This would turn demographic loss into a strategic effect. Skilled technicians, professionals, younger workers and families are not merely population statistics. They are part of the capacity that repairs infrastructure, sustains the economy, finances the state and eventually rebuilds the country.

The strategically important threshold may not be when Ukraine can no longer fight. It may come earlier — when too many Ukrainians conclude that they can no longer build ordinary lives inside Ukraine.

That is a risk to monitor, not a prediction. Ukraine has repeatedly demonstrated substantial adaptive capacity. The question is whether adaptation can continue to outrun cumulative damage.

Russia: A Different Degradation Path

Russia is also increasingly exposed to long-range Ukrainian attacks.
Drone strikes have reduced output at major refineries, created fuel-market pressures and forced repairs at important facilities [5]. The economic cost of the war is also visible in public finances, with Russia's government projecting a larger 2026 budget deficit than originally planned [6].

Yet the Russian livability problem is fundamentally different. Its enormous geography, deeper infrastructure base and the distance of most major population centres from Ukraine provide substantial physical redundancy. Damage to a refinery or electricity system in one region does not make Moscow, Kazan or Siberian cities unlivable. Russia can absorb substantial physical damage before national livability is threatened; Ukraine has much less geographical and demographic margin.

Russia's nearer-term degradation pathway is therefore more likely to run through economic cost, constrained opportunities, selective infrastructure disruption, mobilization risk and political coercion rather than widespread physical unlivability. These pressures can still stimulate emigration, particularly among mobile, educated or internationally oriented groups, but that resembles selective demographic and economic erosion more than Ukraine's present displacement problem.

The Race Between Destruction and Adaptation

Infrastructure warfare does not mechanically produce societal collapse. Societies respond. Ukraine has spent years repairing networks, decentralizing energy supply, using generators and alternative communications, relocating businesses and drawing on European assistance. The relevant contest is therefore not destruction alone.

Can adaptation remain faster than degradation?

This reframes civilian support. A transformer, distributed generator, protected data center, communications backup, repaired railway or replacement industrial facility does more than restore an economic asset. It increases the amount of damage required before ordinary life stops functioning. Resilience is therefore not separate from defense. It is one of the means by which a society denies an attacker the strategic effect sought from infrastructure attacks.

What This Means for Europe

Europe should prepare for four consequences.

First, protect the functioning society, not only the battlefield.
Air defense and scalable counter-drone systems matter not only for military formations and major power plants, but increasingly for the distributed infrastructure on which daily life depends.

Second, treat civilian resilience as defense capability.
Energy redundancy, telecommunications, data storage, transport, heating, hospitals, housing and industrial repair should be understood as components of Ukraine's strategic endurance, not merely as postwar reconstruction.

Third, watch displacement as a strategic indicator.
The crucial signal may not be the headline refugee total, but whether temporary displacement is turning into permanent family relocation. An expectation break could become visible in migration behavior before it is obvious in conventional economic statistics.

Fourth, learn the lesson for Europe itself.
Ukraine is demonstrating the vulnerability of highly networked societies. Europe's electricity grids, cloud and data infrastructure, payment systems, telecoms, ports, satellites and logistics networks create enormous efficiency. They also create dependencies whose failure can propagate across society.

Another Two Years Will Not Simply Be More of Today

The territorial front remains central to the war. But prolonged conflict creates incentives to seek effects behind that front: reducing industrial output, disrupting logistics, imposing repair costs and weakening the society that sustains military resistance.

For Ukraine, this raises a question more demanding than whether enough weapons and soldiers can be found.
Can the country preserve enough safety, employment, services and confidence in recovery for millions of people to continue regarding Ukraine as the place where their future lies?

For Russia, the pressure is different: how much economic, industrial and social degradation can be absorbed before war costs begin changing behavior more broadly?

And for Europe, the lesson reaches beyond Ukraine. The defense of a modern society is increasingly the defense of the interconnected systems that allow ordinary life to continue.

Another two years of war should not simply be imagined as another two years of today's battlefield. They could become two years of progressively discovering — and attacking — the vulnerabilities of modern society itself.

 

References

1. R.M. Westerink, “The Other War Over Ukraine — Can Ukraine Last for Two More Years?” Europe Is Us, 8 September 2026.
https://europe-is-us.blogspot.com/2026/09/the-other-war-over-ukraine.html

2. The Guardian, “Russia strikes at heart of Ukraine's digital economy with attacks on ISPs and datacentres,” 26 September 2026.

3. UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, “Attacks against Ukraine's energy infrastructure and update on the human rights situation in Ukraine, 1 December 2025 – 31 May 2026,” 29 June 2026.

4. Reuters, “Three dead in Moscow region, drones hit oil refinery in Russian capital,” 20 September 2026.

5. Reuters, “Moscow oil refinery output halted after Sunday drone attack, sources say,” 21 September 2026; Reuters, “Half of Russia's top diesel-producing refineries cut back output after drone strikes,” 15 September 2026.

6. Reuters, “Russia will have budget deficit not exceeding 3% of GDP in 2026, Finance Minister says,” 21 September 2026.

7. UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, “Attacks on Ukraine's Energy Infrastructure: Harm to the Civilian Population,” 18 September 2024.

 

A European Civil Power Initiative for Iran

A European Civil Power Initiative for Iran

What Gharibabadi's Warning Actually Reveals

R.M. Westerink; September 2026 

This week, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi had a message for Europe: helping the US strike Iran "will not go unanswered."[1] NATO's own Secretary General had just confirmed that thousands of American sorties flew out of European bases during the war. Tehran's point was simple — Europe isn't neutral. Europe is complicit.

It reads like a threat. It is one. But underneath it is something more interesting: an admission that Europe still matters to Iran, separately from the United States.

That's worth pausing on. Because right now, Iran is negotiating almost entirely with Washington — trading a reopened Strait of Hormuz for an eased blockade, at the UN in New York, this very week. Europe isn't in that room. Gharibabadi's warning is really aimed at Washington, delivered through Europe because Europe is the exposed one.

Europe could just absorb that threat and move on. Or it could ask a better question: what if Iran's warning is actually an opening?

---

Iran Has Been Saying What It Wants for Months

Iran hasn't hidden its ambitions. Its own officials keep repeating them.

President Pezeshkian has said the region "does not need external guardianship" and that regional states "can sit together and solve their problems." Parliament speaker Ghalibaf has spoken of the US seeking an "honorable exit" and a "new regional order" with less foreign interference. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has quietly built new defense ties with Pakistan and Turkey — a sign that even Washington's closest Gulf partners are hedging their bets.

The pattern is clear: Iran wants fewer relationships that run exclusively through Washington, and more that don't.

That is exactly the gap Europe could fill — if it stops treating every Iran story as a security threat to manage and starts treating it as a relationship it could actually shape.

---

Why This Would Suit Iran

A direct channel to Europe gives Tehran something the US talks never will:

• A way to reduce isolation without looking like it caved to Washington.
• A second track that keeps working even if the Hormuz negotiation with the US collapses.
• A partner whose regional framework isn't built entirely around guaranteeing Israel's security.
• Leverage of its own — the more capitals Iran can talk to, the less any single one can dictate terms.

None of this requires Iran to become Europe's friend. It only requires Iran to see Europe as useful in a way Washington can't be.

---

Why It Would Suit Europe Even More

Here's what's easy to miss: everything on that list works just as well in reverse.

Right now, Europe doesn't really have a Middle East policy. It has an echo of Washington's. A direct relationship with Iran would be the first real evidence otherwise — proof that Europe can act on its own reading of its own interests, not just co-sign someone else's.

Those interests are concrete. European ships and European energy depend on a strait Europe has no independent say over. Waiting for the US and Iran to work that out leaves Europe's own economy hostage to a negotiation it isn't part of. Europe can secure its own interest in Hormuz directly, instead of hoping Washington gets the deal right.

And then there's the part that matters most, even though it's rarely said out loud: a Europe that can talk to Iran on its own terms is a Europe with real leverage on Israel, for the first time in years. Europe's influence on settlements, on Gaza, on the West Bank has been weak precisely because Europe brings nothing to the table that Washington doesn't already control. A working channel to Tehran changes that. It's proof Europe can move the region without asking permission — and that's the only kind of leverage that has ever actually shifted Jerusalem's calculations.

---

Two Things Europe Needs, Regardless of Each Other

A secure Hormuz is a European interest on its own. European ships, European energy, European trade run through that strait — none of that should wait on Iran's human rights record improving, any more than it should wait on Washington's negotiation with Tehran succeeding.

Reduced repression is a European position on its own too. Europe opposes executions everywhere, not as something it raises only when it also wants shipping guarantees. The moment human rights become a bargaining chip, they stop being a principle.

Keeping the two apart is what makes each one credible. Iran can't buy its way out of scrutiny on repression by cooperating on shipping. Europe can't be accused of only caring about human rights when it suits its energy security.
Two expectations, two timelines — Europe holds both, and neither buys relief from the other.

The same goes for the NATO-basing exposure Gharibabadi raised, and for Europe's own push to protect shipping through Hormuz. Both are genuine European interests, worth pursuing because they're Europe's, not because they're chips in someone else's negotiation.

---

What Europe Can Hold, in Parallel

None of this is a single deal to be struck. It's a set of expectations Europe can hold at the same time, each one standing on its own:

Iran	Europe
No attacks on European ships, personnel or infrastructure	Makes clear its own defenses aren't preparation for attacking Iran
Supports an international effort to keep Hormuz open	Leads that effort itself, rather than leaving it to Washington
Verifiably reduces executions and repression	Expands engagement step by step as that happens — never as a swap for something else
Accepts real nuclear verification	Offers its own diplomatic track on nuclear questions
Reins in destabilizing regional activity	Backs a regional order that includes Iran instead of isolating it

Nobody has to become anybody's ally for this to work.
Iran stays Iran. Europe stays Europe. They just stop needing each other to be enemies.

---

The Point Worth Making Publicly

Iran wants the region to depend less on Washington.
Europe should want the same thing for its own Middle East policy. Those two ambitions don't cancel each other out — they line up.

Europe can't end a war it didn't start. But it doesn't have to keep being defined by it either.

A Europe willing to deal with Iran directly is a Europe that finally has something of its own to offer — to Tehran, and eventually, to Jerusalem too.

---

Reference

[1] Europe's help in US attacks not to go unanswered
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/248057/Europe-help-in-US-attacks-against-Iran-not-to-go-unanswered

Further reading:

A European Civil Power Initiative for the Middle East
https://europe-is-us.blogspot.com/2026/06/a-european-civil-power-initiative-for.html

A European Declaration for Middle East Stability
https://europe-is-us.blogspot.com/2026/06/a-european-declaration-for-middle-east.html

GRAND EUROPE VERSUS
THE GREAT POWERS

Look What We Will Be compared to America, China and Russia

 R.M. Westerink; September 2026 

A Grand Europe: A Vision to Build described a Europe that brings together its economic, industrial, technological and military resources while preserving its nations and democratic diversity.

Imagine our GRAND EUROPE…
Where will we stand alongside the United States, China and Russia?

Note: For this comparison, Grand Europe consists of an integrated EU core, closely connected with the United Kingdom and Norway and with Ukraine incorporated into its security and industrial system.
With responsibly estimated figures, looking like this..
 

THE FOUR POWER PROFILES

	GRAND EUROPE	UNITED STATES	CHINA	RUSSIA
Population (Million)	560	345	1.410	144
Nominal Economy ( $ Trillion)	25	31	20	3
Defence Resources ($ Billion)	600	1000	325*	175*
Nuclear Power	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Global Currency	Euro world’s 2nd	Dollar dominant	Renminbi growing	Ruble marginal
Defining strength	Balance	Innovation and reach	Scale and production	Military force and resources
Central challenge	Coordinated action	Political volatility	Demography and control	Narrow economic base

*Military expenditure comparisons are approximate. Exchange rates, domestic purchasing power and undisclosed expenditure significantly affect Chinese and Russian figures.

UNITED STATES: 
POWER THROUGH INNOVATION AND REACH

The United States would still remain the strongest integrated military power. It possesses the deepest capital markets, the most influential technology companies, the dollar and an unmatched worldwide military presence.

Grand Europe would have a larger population and an economy approaching American scale. It would also possess a broader social model, considerable industrial diversity and two nuclear powers.

CHINA: POWER THROUGH SCALE

China’s 1.4 billion people and immense manufacturing system give it a scale Europe cannot reproduce. It can build infrastructure, develop supply chains and expand industrial capacity with extraordinary speed.

Grand Europe brings different advantages. Its citizens would be considerably wealthier per person. Its companies would remain powerful in aerospace, pharmaceuticals, advanced machinery, energy technology, chemicals and precision manufacturing. Europe would also possess stronger alliances and a widely attractive political and social model.

RUSSIA: NUCLEAR POWER AND RESOURCES

Russia would remain a formidable nuclear power with enormous territory, energy resources, a large defense industry and demonstrated willingness to mobilize society for war.

The underlying balance would nevertheless strongly favor Grand Europe.
Europe would have approximately four times Russia’s population, around ten times its economic output and potentially several times its annual defense resources.

GRAND EUROPE: POWER THROUGH BALANCE

Europe’s advantage would lie in the combination:

European asset	Global significance
More than 550 million people	A population larger than America’s
An economy approaching $25 trillion	One of the world’s three great economic centres
Two nuclear powers	An independent European deterrent
Major aerospace, pharmaceutical, energy and engineering industries	Broad technological and industrial capacity
The euro	The world’s second international currency
Extensive alliances and diplomatic networks	Global influence without imperial goals
Democratic government and social protection	Power + an attractive way of life

 

FOUR POWERS IN ONE LINE

• America is the power of innovation and global reach.
• China is the power of scale and production.
• Russia is the power of military force and natural resources.

Grand Europe would be the power of balance:
Prosperous, Armed, Democratic, Social and Diverse.

That is the Meaning of EUROPE the GRAND

To be one of the world’s three comprehensive powers, capable of protecting its territory, negotiating from strength and choosing its own future.

Grounded in Europe’s democratic and human values, defending free societies, human dignity, equal citizenship and peaceful cooperation. Supporting international law and institutions as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization.