While attending last week’s annual conference against antisemitism, I was brought to attention by a recurring argument that surfaced across panels and discussions. Articulated in different ways, it challenged the instinct to confront antisemitism accusation by accusation and instead urged a shift toward elevating the conversation—toward articulating what Israel contributes, what it represents, and why it matters.

From Defensive Arguments to Forward Vision

For decades, Israel advocacy has exhausted itself with historical arguments—responding to accusations about 1948 with counter-narratives about Arab rejection of partition, defending settlements with biblical claims, justifying operations with security imperatives—while Qatari funding shapes Western campus discourse. We cannot outspend this influence. But we can outperform it. Instead of rebutting hostility point by point, Israel should emphasize its contemporary value: technological excellence, regional stabilization, and its function as the easternmost outpost of liberal-democratic civilization.

Israel’s contributions are tangible. The country leads globally in R&D investment, with Israeli innovations in cybersecurity, medical technology, and water solutions addressing humanity’s most pressing challenges. Israeli drip irrigation serves over one hundred countries whilst water recycling technology offers solutions to climate-driven scarcity. This is what Israel offers: not historical arguments, but present-day solutions that matters.

Yet technology alone isn’t enough. Israel embodies the defense of liberal democratic values at civilization’s edge—the Middle East’s only fully functioning democracy where Arab leaders denounce the government in parliament, a free press criticizes without reprisal, and women and minorities serve as Supreme Court justices.

Iran’s regime opposes Israel not over territory but over what it represents ideologically. The doctrine of Vilayat-e Faqih—Guardianship of the Jurist—envisions an Islamic political order fundamentally incompatible with Western liberal democracy. Under this framework, legitimacy flows not from popular sovereignty but from religious jurisprudence interpreted by the Supreme Leader. Individual rights and democratic accountability—the foundations of Israel’s system—are viewed not merely as foreign but as threats to Islamic authenticity.

This explains Iran’s otherwise puzzling obsession with Israel’s destruction despite having no territorial dispute. Israel’s existence as a successful, prosperous democracy in the heart of the Middle East delegitimizes the entire Vilayat-e Faqih project. If democratic governance, individual liberty, and pluralistic systems can flourish in the region, the ideological foundations of Iran’s regime crumble. Israel’s destruction would signal democracy’s regional defeat and validate authoritarian alternatives.

Saudi Arabia’s Dangerous Pivot

Which brings us to Saudi Arabia’s troubling pivot. The Abraham Accords promised regional transformation as the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan recognized Israeli capabilities aligned with their interests. Saudi accession would have completed this. Instead, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman refuses to commit—and the implications are profound.

Despite MBS’s social liberalization—permitting cinemas, concerts,and reducing religious police powers—the Wahhabi-Salafi establishment retains veto power over matters touching religious legitimacy. The ulema’s interpretation of Palestinian liberation as a religious obligation, not merely a political cause, makes normalization without substantive Palestinian progress a direct challenge to decades of religious discourse. Post-October 7th, with Gaza operations inflaming Arab public opinion, this domestic constraint has intensified dramatically.

More critically, Saudi Arabia is realigning toward Turkey and Qatar—powers representing everything Vision 2030 supposedly rejects. Turkey under Erdoğan has dismantled pluralistic institutions while Qatar bankrolls Muslim Brotherhood movements. These promote political Islam as governing philosophy, not technocratic modernization.

Saudi engagement with this axis reveals fundamental ambiguity in MBS’s project. By strengthening ties with Ankara and Doha and at the same time, cooling toward Abu Dhabi and Jerusalem, MBS signals that managing Wahhabi constituencies takes precedence over regional transformation.

Syria’s May 2023 Arab League readmission illustrates this. Saudi support wasn’t about Assad reconciliation but competing with Turkey, Qatar, and Iran for reconstruction influence. This is balance-of-power politics contradicting the Abraham Accords’ values-based alliance logic. Yemen offers similar divergence: UAE maintains hard lines against Houthis while normalizing with Israel; Saudi Arabia links everything—negotiating with Houthis, engaging Iran, cooling toward Israel—prioritizing immediate threat reduction over strategic positioning.

The March 2023 Chinese-mediated Saudi-Iranian rapprochement fundamentally altered this calculus. Beijing’s diplomatic coup—brokering what Washington couldn’t or wouldn’t—demonstrated to Riyadh that multiple patrons provide more flexibility than exclusive U.S. partnership. The agreement reduced immediate confrontation risks with Iran, particularly regarding Yemen and Iraqi militia attacks on Saudi infrastructure.

Following Israeli strikes that degraded Iranian capabilities—destroying advanced air defenses, damaging nuclear facilities, and decimating Hezbollah’s arsenal—the immediate Iranian threat to Saudi Arabia diminished substantially. This creates a paradox: the very Israeli military action that made the region safer for Saudi Arabia also reduced Riyadh’s incentive to formalize ties with Jerusalem. When Iran posed an acute threat, Israeli intelligence sharing and military coordination were invaluable. With that threat temporarily contained, domestic political costs of normalization loom larger than strategic benefits.

The Risk of Strategic Miscalculation

This is strategic hedging carried to its logical conclusion—maintaining relationships with Washington, Beijing, Tehran, Ankara, Doha, and Abu Dhabi simultaneously to maximize autonomy. But hedging assumes the regional order remains fundamentally stable. If that assumption proves wrong, the strategy collapses.

The risks are existential. Should the United States and Israel decide that containing Iran is insufficient—that regime change through support for internal opposition or direct action is necessary—the entire Middle Eastern order will be reconstructed. In that scenario, Saudi Arabia’s careful hedging becomes strategic disaster. Having strengthened relationships with Turkey and Qatar, powers certain to oppose Western-led regime change in Tehran, while simultaneously distancing from Israel and reducing coordination with Washington, MBS will have positioned Saudi Arabia outside the coalition determining the region’s future structure.

Iraq’s political reconstruction and Lebanon’s post-Hezbollah future will determine regional power balances for a generation. Will these be pluralistic systems oriented toward Western partnerships, or will Muslim Brotherhood-aligned movements fill the vacuum? By cultivating ties with the Brotherhood’s primary sponsors—Turkey and Qatar—while cooling toward modernizers in Abu Dhabi and Jerusalem, Saudi Arabia may inadvertently strengthen ideological forces that could ultimately challenge the monarchy’s legitimacy.

From Tehran to Western Campuses: One Ideological Struggle

This is where the ideological framework becomes inescapable. The incoming Trump administration faces a choice: transactional relationships based on immediate interests or values-based strategy recognizing competing visions of political order. While the first Trump administration achieved breakthroughs through transaction—moving the embassy, brokering normalization deals, withdrawing from JCPOA—the challenge now is deeper.

Iranian resistance to Israel isn’t about borders or resources. It’s about validating Vilayat-e Faqih as a governing model against the challenge posed by democratic success. When Iranian protesters demand representative governance, they threaten the entire ideological structure justifying clerical rule. The regime views these movements and Israel as two fronts in the same war—the struggle between authoritarianism and democracy.

This is why supporting Israel’s security and supporting Iranian democratic opposition are inseparable. Both validate the possibility of individual rights, representative governance, and democratic accountability in the Middle East. Both delegitimize the claim that these are foreign impositions incompatible with regional culture. Israel’s elimination would demonstrate democracy’s vulnerability; its flourishing proves authoritarianism is not inevitable.

Understanding this ideological dimension explains otherwise inexplicable phenomena. Why do progressive Western movements—ostensibly committed to feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and pluralism—align with Hamas and Hezbollah, movements that execute homosexuals and enforce religious law? This “green-red alliance” unites Islamist and leftist forces around shared opposition to Western liberal democracy, despite completely incompatible values. The enemy of my enemy becomes my friend, even when that friend would destroy everything you claim to value.

This alliance manifests on campuses where student groups simultaneously advocate gender equality while defending gender apartheid, promote LGBTQ+ rights while supporting movements that execute homosexuals, champion pluralistic causes while backing religious authoritarians. The common thread isn’t coherent values but opposition to Western power generally and Israel specifically as its regional manifestation.

Gaza Phase Two: The Values Test

Gaza reconstruction tests this framework fundamentally. If Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Palestinian Authority maintain commitments to Israel’s destruction while rejecting democratic governance, inclusion becomes paradoxical.

The Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas has demonstrated consistent authoritarian tendencies—suppressing dissent, canceling elections indefinitely, and maintaining the “martyr payments” program that rewards violence against Israelis. Turkey and Qatar, the proposed reconstruction partners, present grave concerns as well . Turkey under Erdoğan has systematically dismantled democratic institutions, imprisoned journalists, and purged the judiciary. Qatar maintains an absolute monarchy while serving as Hamas’s primary financial backer and providing safe haven to its leadership.

Partnerships with these actors—Turkey, Qatar, and a Palestinian Authority that has shown no genuine commitment to democratic reforms or renunciation of violence—contradict stated values. These are not partners committed to building democratic institutions, protecting minority rights, or fostering representative governance in Gaza. They are authoritarian actors with direct interests in maintaining influence through Islamist movements that reject the very principles reconstruction should establish.

Israel must reject arrangements empowering authoritarian movements and insist on partners genuinely committed to democratic accountability, transparent governance, and individual rights protection—even when facing international pressure. We cannot fight for democratic values globally while abandoning them in Gaza or advocate for Iranian protesters while empowering authoritarian movements next door.

Conclusion: The Choice That Defines a Century

The conference speakers were right. We must rise above apologetics because the stakes transcend Israel’s existence—they concern what kind of world we are building.

To Saudi Arabia: Vision 2030 modernization aligns with Israeli partnership, not Turkish-Qatari Islamist orientation. Stability through Islamist engagement betrays your vision. Position yourself with modernizers before regional restructuring leaves you on the wrong side.

To the Trump administration: Iran’s will to destroy Israel is its will to destroy democratic governance, individual liberty, and pluralism. The green-red alliance influence threatening America is what must be avoided in Gaza and fought in Iran.

To Israel and Jewish communities: Our duty is defending the values enabling Jewish flourishing globally. Stand firm in Gaza reconstruction. Demonstrate through achievement why Israeli partnership benefits the world. Articulate that defending Israel means defending individual rights, democratic governance, and human dignity—the rights defining Jews and the Jewish state.

This is what makes Israel attractive to partners like Saudi Arabia. This reminds MBS of his original vision. This shows Trump why supporting Israel means supporting the Iranian people’s struggle. The choice will define this century. In this new fight against antisemitism, we must emphasize these rights, values, and achievements—because they define not just Israel’s contribution, but the very possibility of human freedom in the 21st century.