‘Wasatiyyah,’ the belly button of a new world order

For the many of us who feel our world has lost its way in recent years, I think we need to work toward a new equilibrium, to find urgent avenues of improvement in the face of the devastating human tragedies we are witnessing in Gaza, in Lebanon and in Ukraine. We all understand that war, death and destruction are not the way forward, but that is the path Israel has chosen in Gaza and Lebanon and Russia has chosen in Ukraine. Looking back through history, it is a path that has never borne fruit and the image it brings up is one of desperate action by a flailing behemoth.

What Israel experienced on Oct. 7, 2023, was despicable and devastating, understandably bringing about a strong reaction on the part of Israel and its military leaders. But the firepower that has been concentrated on innocent civilians in Gaza, destroying some 90 percent of buildings and infrastructure and killing more than 40,000 — mostly women and children — in one of the poorest and most densely populated areas in the world has been devastating. Almost all of the 2 million people of Gaza are now left without food, shelter or medical care, suffering an even greater tragedy than what preceded it.

The devastation the US unleashed upon Vietnam, upon Afghanistan or upon Iraq also had a vengeful element to it, yet their overwhelming firepower did not allow the Americans to achieve their objectives in these wars beyond eliminating some enemy leaders, while the peoples of those countries were to suffer for decades to come. Israel’s current record looks rather similar, eliminating enemy leaders and dealing death and destruction on a massive scale, with no new perspective of moving beyond the demonstrative acts of revenge intended for a domestic public. That gap or disconnect will become obvious and engulfing rather fast, and we need some alternatives.

This concept denotes a notion of middle ground, of balance and moderation that serves the greater good

Hassan bin Youssef Yassin

This is where I come to the concept named in the title, the idea of “wasatiyyah.” It denotes a notion of middle ground, of balance and moderation that serves the greater good. Saudi Arabia has represented this approach throughout recent history, seeking to find the middle ground and to bring others toward compromise and understanding. The many examples of mediation and compromise Saudi Arabia has been engaged in internationally have been made all the more meaningful by the sense of balance, confidence and moderation that our current leadership has brought about in the people of the Kingdom. We are freshly positioned to bring compromise and realism back into the picture to steer clear of the current path of total devastation.

What the world has sadly been lacking is the idealism we once possessed, of striving for peaceful coexistence and compromise. There was even a time when a majority of the Israeli public was supportive of a peaceful two-state resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and living side by side with a Palestinian state. Our duty is to revive this Israeli wasatiyyah, allowing Israelis to recognize that the path of death and destruction they are currently on will never give them any peace. Instead, Israel’s current policies must give way to compromise and to building a new order of peace and stability with regional partners and with Palestinians. There cannot be war without end.

Israel’s current policies must give way to compromise and to building a new order of peace and stability

Hassan bin Youssef Yassin

From creation, God provides us with an umbilical cord that connects us to life. Once we are born, our belly buttons are there to remind us of this connection we have not only to our mothers but to all life on Earth; of the life we receive from everything around us. We must ensure that Palestinians, Ukrainians and all other peoples of the world realize that they have a metaphorical cord that connects them to life and to the entire world, a way to heal the terrifying devastation that has been visited upon them. Global public opinion, including that of the US, has rallied in support of Gazans and Ukrainians in the midst of their ordeals, sending them an umbilical lifeline. It is now our job to make that metaphor a reality.

With the leadership of Hamas and Hezbollah largely compromised, the Israelis should consider their revenge mission over and come to the path of wasatiyyah with us. We are also extending them an umbilical cord to seize, a middle ground of balance and rationality to embrace as an alternative to this endless death and destruction. The next war will no longer be about who wins, for none of us will be left to tell the tale.

That is why we must act now, with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries inspiring the world to join this movement of wasatiyyah and the middle ground. It is our only alternative for the birth of something good in the place of the madness that has taken hold of our world and our region in particular.

• Hassan bin Youssef Yassin worked closely with Saudi petroleum ministers Abdullah Tariki and Ahmed Zaki Yamani from 1959 to 1967. He headed the Saudi Information Office in Washington from 1972 to 1981, and served with the Arab League observer delegation to the UN from 1981 to 1983.