In the 20th century, the United States sponsored two peace agreements between Israel and Arab states, and it was close to securing a third, decisive one with Syria.

These agreements came after decades of successive wars: The 1956 Tripartite Aggression, the 1967 Naksa, the October 1973 war, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1978, and its invasion of Beirut in 1982.

Yet in recent years, the US has abandoned pushing Israel down that path of genuine peace. Instead, it has helped Israel fight its way into hegemony over the entire region.

The result is that now that Washington needs to strike a peace deal in the region and maintain it, it cannot – because it cannot rein in the Israeli aggression it has long fanned.

Israel’s two paths

Israel’s forefathers were haunted by the anxiety of pursuing a settler-colonial project within a geographic space largely populated by Arabs and dominated by Islam. As a result, they developed two paths to deal with this existential anxiety.

The first was the doctrine of force and military brutality, which was best formulated by Zeev Jabotinsky, the founder of the Irgun terrorist organisation in Palestine, in a 1923 essay titled The Iron Wall. “Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach,” he wrote in Russian.

David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, was also a proponent of the idea that Israel must change the Middle East by force, to secure itself.

Several decades later, Benjamin Netanyahu, then leader of the Likud party, wrote in his 1993 book,, A Place Among the Nations, that Israel needs to change the Middle East in ways that suit its security. He argued that if Israel could not preserve overwhelming military superiority, it would not survive. As prime minister, he has stuck to this doctrine, which has sown death, destruction and instability across the region.

The second path emerged after the October 1973 war when Israel came close to an existential catastrophe. It gave rise to the “existence through peace” approach under which Israel aimed to integrate into the region politically and economically.

The advocates of this path supported the “land for peace” solution in which Israel would return territories it occupied in 1967 in exchange for recognition and peace.

This approach gave immediate results. In 1978, Israel concluded a peace deal with Egypt, which saw the return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egyptian borders. In 1994, Israel signed a peace agreement with Jordan, again returning some occupied land. The Oslo Accords with the Palestine Liberation Organization were also part of this process.

The Israeli government under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was reportedly prepared to return the entire occupied Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for a peace agreement as well. But Rabin was assassinated at the end of 1995 by Zionist extremists.

Since then, Israel has gradually returned to the “iron wall” approach, reaching its most terrorist form at present.

This Israeli regression has not been met by a similar aggressive posture from the Arab states. On the contrary, the Arab world presented the Beirut Arab Peace Initiative in 2002, which again took Israel’s existential anxieties into account by offering peace in exchange for land, namely, the Golan Heights and the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, to establish a Palestinian State. Yet this initiative found no serious consideration in Israel.

Choosing domination over peace

Israel’s return to its path of aggression was not just the result of domestic politics. The US has played a key role in encouraging this direction. By refusing to place any limits on the Israeli government and army’s brutal behaviour, Washington has acted as if no state in the Middle East has legitimate interests except Israel.

Under the two terms of US President Donald Trump, US assistance for Israel’s hegemonic plans has become even more apparent. His support has gone beyond financial assistance, diplomatic protection, recognition of annexed occupied territories, and military backing.

Going against the US’s long-term policy, Trump has attempted to bury the Palestinian cause through the Abraham Accords. These agreements are meant to wipe out the “land for peace” principle. In its place, the current US administration is advancing the formula of “peace in exchange for no killing, destruction, and war”.

Trump has also allowed Israel to go on a rampage across the region, with the Israeli army attacking six Arab countries in 72 hours last year. Shockingly, among them was Qatar, which hosted the forward headquarters of the US Army’s Central Command.

But perhaps the clearest example of how far Trump has gone in serving Israel’s brutal agenda is the war he waged against Iran that benefitted Israel solely and went against US foreign and domestic policy interests, as well as the interests of its Arab allies.

By doing all this, the Trump administration has marginalised Arab states, which have every right to shape the future of their own region – states that have long considered themselves US strategic partners. It has also forced them to bear the costs of reshaping the region to fit Netanyahu’s vision, not their own sovereignty, security, or stability.

This militarised chaos wrapped up in “peace and stability” rhetoric cannot bring anything good to the region. Israel’s refusal to accept the ceasefire deal Trump has agreed to with Iran is a clear example of what happens when aggression is given unconditional support. Throughout the negotiation process, the Israeli government has repeatedly sabotaged efforts to end hostilities on all fronts by attacking Lebanon. And it will continue to do so, no matter the strong language Trump may use in his statements or phone calls with Netanyahu.

What Trump and his successors need to understand is that US policy towards Israel needs to be fully reversed for there to be genuine peace in the region. Hegemonic arrangements presented as “peace agreements”, like the Abraham Accords, would not resolve the region’s ongoing conflicts or prevent future ones. The peoples of the region will not accept Israel in its current expansionist form, however much the Abraham Accords are marketed to them.

Opinion polls clearly reflect this state of affairs. In the Arab Opinion Index 2025 survey, 87 percent of respondents oppose recognising Israel and normalising relations. The US was perceived as a threat to the region’s stability by 77 percent of respondents.

The more the US continues to support this hegemonic, aggressive version of Israel, the more it will lose the region and its peoples. With the Iran war reshaping security calculations and geopolitical considerations, Washington may eventually find itself losing its grip on a region of major strategic significance in an increasingly multipolar world.

If the US truly wants to retain its positions, it has only two choices: either pressure Israel to transform itself and return to a path of “existence through peace” – one rooted in a just resolution of the Palestinian question – or simply abandon it.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.