5 min readAug 17, 2026 01:49 PM IST
First published on: Aug 17, 2026 at 01:49 PM IST
The Middle East is in limbo, and little is likely to change in the short term due to the US-Iran deadlock. In many ways, the world has come to terms with this reality and is adjusting to it.
Donald Trump faces a double loss. First, he began a war of choice on February 28 and failed to topple the Iranian regime. The US had no casus belli when it joined Israel in the limited bombing of nuclear sites in June last year. For Israel, a war with Iran was inevitable because Hezbollah, Iran’s creation, started attacking Israel from October 8, 2023, right after Hamas’s attack a day earlier. The second loss for Trump is that now he is not in a good position to end the war, get any deal or withdraw US troops from the region. He is stuck and may remain so, one way or another, for the rest of his time in office – that’s the quicksand of the Middle East.
There is ambiguity, and a slight risk, in the temptation to find winners and losers in any war. Trump may appear to have won if there is a domestic upheaval in Iran that Revolutionary Guards will not be able to suppress. For now, though, Iran has the upper hand and, in strategic terms, is outmanoeuvring the best of US strategists.
‘Winning Iran’ is not demanding much for the Palestinians
Curiously, Iran is not asking for anything for the Palestinians. It did not demand much in the Memorandum of Understanding signed on June 17. Issues like the Israeli army’s withdrawal from Gaza, the everyday violence against Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, or even asking for Israel’s commitment to the two-state solution (Saudi Arabia has refused diplomatic normalisation with Israel on this) were absent. Even in the new and maximalist list of demands that Iran’s Supreme National Security Council put forward two weeks ago, there isn’t even a rhetorical nod to the Palestine issue.
Iran’s apex political council has six conditions for the US: A permanent end to attacks against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen and Iraq; the lifting of the US naval blockade and withdrawal of US air forces from around Iran; compensation for war damage; the lifting of sanctions; and the unconditional release of frozen Iranian assets. It is as if the Palestinians are out of Iran’s calculus, even as Tehran is dictating new terms over the Strait of Hormuz and seeking concessions from the US.
Decoding Iran’s silence
The Palestine issue, no matter how dire the situation may have become in the last three years, is not an essential concern for the Iranian regime in the face of its own immediate needs to stop attacks or end economic sanctions. What the silence reveals is the political use of the Palestinian issue by the Iranian ruling clergy for anti-Americanism and anti-Israel/Zionism.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas exposed the Iranian appropriation of the Palestinian issue and its policy of radicalising the Islamists of Hamas against the secular Palestinian national movement in April 2024. He said, “… we will not allow our sacred cause and the blood of our people to be exploited for suspicious plots that have nothing to do with them.” Abbas has long distrusted the Iranian regime. He even tried to get some funds for a radio station in Tehran that would support the reformist movement led by Mir-Hossein Mousavi against the Ayatollahs in 2009.
Second, the tragedy of Palestinian advocacy by regional actors is not new. The Palestinians have suffered many political heartbreaks in the past. Yasser Arafat, who grew up in Cairo in the 1940s, believed the Palestinian loss in the 1948 war was due to the vested interests of Arab states. Later, Egypt and Jordan retained control of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from 1948 until 1967 rather than declaring a state of Palestine. Israel got hold of these territories in 1967.
Third, the Iranian revolutionaries prefer to aid Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad because they are ideologically alike and reject the two-state solution with Israel. The secular nationalists of the Palestinian Authority are critical of the Ayatollahs and are committed to the two-state solution with Israel.
The writer is Professor and Executive Director, Jindal Centre for Israel Studies, Jindal School of International Affairs, OP Jindal Global University
The Palestine issue, no matter how dire the situation may have become in the last three years, is not an essential concern for the Iranian regime in the face of its own immediate needs to stop attacks or end economic sanctions. 
Share
