The Midterm Elections and the Nature and Limits of Their Palestinian and Israeli Achievements

Detailed summary

A broad consensus around a conspicuous fact has emerged following the American midterm elections: supporting Israel, be it in the wrong or the right, which used to be a…

A broad consensus around a conspicuous fact has emerged following the American midterm elections: supporting Israel, be it in the wrong or the right, which used to be a prerequisite for political success, has now become a burden that can end a politician's career. The most frequently cited example was the victory of Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race.

This development's significance renders how it is read significant as well. Indeed, our traditional reading is built on shoddy underlying assumptions: a broad swath of mainstream Arab political discourse has long oscillated between two contradictory myths that have sometimes been merged into a single ragged myth. The first is that Israel controls the US; the second, that the US Israel.

Reading the latest development demands that we leave behind the accumulated myths that do nothing but worsen our reading. We recall how, with Israel's war on Gaza in response to Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, we were flooded with analyses categorically concluding that democracy is a sham, and even that Western civilization is a lie on its last legs. Shortly afterward, however, we were surprised by elections in the US, and others in Israel, that could allow for major achievements for the Palestinians.

The achievements these elections yielded remain hostage to shoddy interpretations, mostly offered by the very voices that had declared democracy a lie and the West finished. While a few have spoken of conspiracies, many more have cast the elections and their results as military battles in which "the enemy's nose was rubbed in the mud." Some have presented these achievements as the first step toward America's exit from the region, or toward an open, absolute rupture between the US and the Jewish state. And, of course, those who glorify the catastrophe of October 7 have loudly credited it with these achievements.

As more than one observer has noted, sympathy for the Palestinians grew out of Israel's savage response to the catastrophe, not out…

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Opening of the article, excerpted from Asharq Al-Awsat. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.