Beyond Imagination?
It is quite easy to understand what Israelis think about Iran and why they justify the war launched by Israel and the United States against it. The following are some of the most hostile and alarming public quotes by Iran’s (dead) Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, about Israel: “Israel won’t exist in 25 years”. “God willing, there will be nothing of the Zionist regime in 25 years”. “I favor destroying Israel.” “The Zionist regime is headed for destruction.”
Israel has long perceived Iran as a hostile regional power that could eventually acquire a nuclear weapon and that openly threatens Israel’s existence. This is especially powerful in Israeli strategic thinking not only because of Iran’s repeated hostile rhetoric toward Israel, but also due to Iran’s continued support for Hezbollah and Hamas. Iran’s massive missile development and the proximity of proxy forces on Israel’s borders makes the threat of Iran even more real to most Israelis. In short, Iran’s actual plans have been perceived as a long-term existential and strategic threat that must be stopped before nuclear weaponization becomes irreversible.
Iran’s ideological and military leadership led many to believe that only sanctions and military pressure could contain its ambitions, making diplomacy seem unrealistic. Yet in 2015 the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) proved otherwise. Signed by Iran and the major world powers, it placed strict limits on Iran’s nuclear program by reducing uranium stockpiles, capping enrichment levels, limiting centrifuges, and allowing extensive IAEA inspections. In return, international sanctions were eased and Iran regained access to frozen assets and global markets. Despite Iran adhering to the terms of the agreement, Prime Minister Netanyahu opposed it, arguing that Iran remained an existential threat and in 2018 he convinced President Trump to withdraw the United States from the deal, and it gradually unraveled. Iran afterwards enriched some 450 kilograms of uranium to dangerously high levels enabling its “break-out” to a weapons program in a very short time frame. Even though the JCPOA was not a perfect agreement, once it was canceled, Iran moved rapidly towards a bomb which could have been prevented if the deal has remained in place.
After the establishment of the State of Israel, the biggest existential threat to Israel was Egypt.
Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rhetoric demonstrated Egypt’s commitment to the eradication of Israel. Here are some examples: “Israel is an artificial state which must disappear.”
“There is no sense in talking about peace with Israel. There isn’t even the smallest place for negotiations between the Arabs and Israel.” “The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel.” “Our path to Palestine will not be covered with a red carpet… our path to Palestine will be covered with blood.”
Before President Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in November 1977, most Israelis did not truly believe that peace with Egypt was realistically possible, even if many wanted it. The dominant feeling was deep skepticism rather than outright rejection. For nearly 30 years, Egypt had been at the center of Arab military confrontation with Israel. So for most Israelis, Egypt was seen as Israel’s principal military enemy. That history made real peace seem almost unimaginable.
But examining history may offer us some insights regarding Israel’s current existential threats. Peace with Egypt once seemed impossible but we have a peace treaty for almost five decades.
Even peace with Jordan once seemed impossible but in 1994 Israel and Jordan signed a peace agreement. Germany and France moved from repeated wars to partnership and even more remarkable is noting that in 1965, 20 years after the Holocaust, Israel and Germany established full diplomatic relations.
Peace usually begins not with trust, but with exhaustion. When both sides conclude that war no longer serves their interests, diplomacy becomes thinkable. Even without a regime change as a result of the current war, a look at Iran’s economy might provide some hope for change.
Iran’s economy before the war was already under severe strain and the war has pushed it into a much deeper crisis. Over the past years Iran has suffered from a sharp economic contraction. Iran experts expect a severe GDP decline, with some estimates suggesting the economy could shrink by around 10% in 2026 because of the war, on top of the damage already caused by sanctions and structural weakness. This reflects the destruction of infrastructure; the falling industrial output; the disruption to trade and transport and capital flight as well as reduced investment. Inflation was already running above 40% before the war was launched, and it has now worsened significantly. Recent reports indicate food inflation above 100%. Add to this the currency collapse with the rial continuing to weaken dramatically. The Iranian Central Bank has reportedly issued its largest-ever banknote (10 million rial note) as inflation and the war drive demand for cash and accelerate currency depreciation. The war will continue to disrupt oil and trade. In addition to this the enormous direct war damage with recent strikes hitting steel plants in Isfahan and Khuzestan and power infrastructure all over the country. The bottom line is the war has turned an already fragile economy into a full-scale economic emergency.
Israel’s economic growth is slowing but not collapsing. Israel is still functioning as a high-income advanced economy, but the war with Iran has clearly reduced growth expectations. Recent estimates suggest 2026 growth may be revised down versus higher prewar expectations. That means the economy is still growing but significantly below potential with key sectors under pressure such as tourism, retail consumption, services, aviation, and logistics. Israel’s biggest economic challenge is the budget deficit. The newly approved 2026 budget is defense-heavy, with an additional 32 billion shekels for military needs, and that is probably not the final figure. The deficit target is now around 4.9%–5.1% of GDP. That is high for Israel and means more borrowing with much higher debt service costs and most likely significant tax increases later this year. Israel’s debt is expected to rise toward 70% of GDP. The real risk is not immediate recession, but a lost decade of slower growth, higher taxes, and rising debt if multiple fronts remain active.
Former Bank of Israel Governor and world renown economist (the late) Dr. Stanley Fisher noted that under peace conditions, Israel’s economy could grow “at even 7 percent”. Fischer also went beyond short-term growth rates and described a much larger vision: “We could within one or two decades find ourselves living in one of the most advanced economies in the world.”
Fischer believed that peace would allow Israel to convert military resilience into long-term prosperity. Fisher was not speaking about peace between Israel and Iran – he was speaking about peace between Israel and Palestine.
We should recall that in March 2002 the Arab League adopted the Arab Peace Initiative offering Israel full normalization in exchange for withdrawal to the 1967 lines and a Palestinian state. Iran is not an Arab League member so it was not a direct signatory. But a few months later, in June 2002, the Organization of the Islamic Conference—which included Iran—endorsed the initiative. This meant that Iran, as an OIC member, effectively accepted the diplomatic framework at that time, at least formally. There is no assurance that if the next Government of Israel were to accept the Arab Peace Initiative that Iran would change its position on the destruction of Israel, but Iran would be completely isolated in the Muslim world which would welcome Israel’s changed position on the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel.
It is seriously questionable if Israel and the United States will succeed in their war aims vis-à-vis Iran. There may not be a regime change, there may not be the extracting of the highly enriched uranium from Iran. The new leaders may be more extreme than those killed in the war. Both Israel and Iran have suffered from this war and the thought of having to do more of the same in the not-too-distant future should be cause enough to begin to search for an alternative to more death and destruction. That is in the hands of the people of Israel and the people of Iran and lot more than we may understand. War should always be the last possible choice – in our case it is not. And that needs to change.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-891774
The most important thing this piece does is resist the assumption that the current moment is a permanent condition. That resistance is harder to sustain than it sounds, and it matters more than almost anything else being written about this right now.
The Sadat parallel is the right anchor. What makes it useful isn't just that peace happened — it's what the pre-1977 period looked like from inside it. Egypt had been at the center of Arab military confrontation with Israel across three wars. Nasser's rhetoric made what you quote from Khamenei look restrained. The dominant Israeli feeling, as you note, was that real peace was almost unimaginable. Not unlikely. Unimaginable. And then Sadat flew to Jerusalem and the unimaginable became not just possible but, in retrospect, almost inevitable. That retrospective inevitability is the thing worth holding onto right now.
History doesn't move in straight lines and it doesn't respect the certainties of the contemporary moment. Adversaries become partners. Frameworks that look dead get resurrected. The Germany-France partnership, the Israel-Jordan treaty, the JCPOA itself — each of these required people to act on a future that was not yet visible from inside the present. What looks like the end of days from inside a dark moment rarely is, examined across any meaningful span of time. That isn't naivety. It's what an honest reading of history actually shows.
The danger of the current moment isn't just the immediate destruction — it's what happens when people internalize the assumption that nothing can change. When the contemporary situation feels immovable, permanent, inevitable, the temptation is to either despair or dig in. Both responses accelerate the dynamics that make change harder. The people who keep the possibility of a different future alive — politically, diplomatically, analytically — are doing something structurally important even when the immediate evidence is discouraging.
The 2002 OIC endorsement of the Arab Peace Initiative deserves more attention than it gets. Iran's formal acceptance of that framework, however tactical at the time, complicates the argument that Iran is categorically and permanently committed to Israel's destruction. Regimes perform ideology and calculate interest simultaneously. What looks like an absolute position in one moment can become a negotiating posture in another — particularly when the economic cost of maintaining that position becomes structural rather than manageable. That's what the Iran economic data you lay out suggests is now happening.
Fischer's vision — the one about what Israel's economy could look like under peace conditions — is worth returning to not as wishful thinking but as a description of what the current trajectory is foreclosing. The lost decade scenario isn't just an economic projection. It's a picture of what a society looks like when it organizes itself permanently around threat management rather than possibility. That kind of exhaustion doesn't produce Sadat moments. It produces internal fragmentation. Which is why the argument you're making here — that exhaustion can also be the precondition for diplomacy — is the more important one to keep making, even when the immediate evidence runs the other way.
Gershon
I agree with your thesis that the only way to assure that Iran does not get a nuclear bomb is through diplomacy, and that it is in Israel's interest to find peace with Palestinians. That said, I am bothered by the first sentence of your second paragraph, "Israel has long perceived Iran as a hostile regional power that could eventually acquire a nuclear weapon and that openly threatens Israel’s existence."
That seems to accept an incorrect understanding of the use of nuclear bombs, namely that if/when Iran gets even one nuclear bomb, it would use it to destroy Israel. In fact, nuclear bombs can not be used for fear of massive retaliation. The mullahs of Iran are not suicidal and would follow that rule. If/when Iran gets a nuclear bomb, it would set up mutual deterrence with Israel. Its main effect will be to make Israel more cautious in its military aggression.
As an aside, Israel has Plutonium bombs, Iran will eventually get a Uranium bomb.