History repeatedly teaches a simple and terrifying lesson: when leaders frame conflicts as existential, compromise disappears and catastrophe becomes possible.
New York, N.Y. — Today, the world is watching a dangerous escalation in the Middle East as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pursues a strategy that appears increasingly zero-sum—one in which the defeat or humiliation of an adversary becomes the only acceptable outcome. In such a framework, diplomacy becomes weakness, international law becomes inconvenient, and violence becomes the primary language of policy.
Netanyahu may well have the support of many Israeli soldiers and citizens who feel besieged by years of rocket fire, terrorism, and regional hostility. Israelis have lived under genuine security threats for decades, and the trauma of attacks against civilians has hardened public opinion. That support matters politically and militarily. Armies fight not only with weapons but with conviction.
Yet national trauma cannot justify a descent into a lawless international order.
When a state openly targets foreign political leaders for assassination, threatens to eliminate their successors, and bombs urban civilian infrastructure, the global system of norms that has governed warfare since World War II begins to fracture. These norms were not invented out of idealism; they were created after humanity witnessed the mechanized slaughter of millions.
Among the foundational legal principles at stake are those embedded in the United Nations Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and decades of customary international humanitarian law.
The UN Charter prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state except in self-defense or when authorized by the Security Council. Targeted killings of foreign leaders—particularly outside an active battlefield—raise profound legal and ethical questions under this framework.
The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols establish protections for civilians and require the principles of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity. Civilian populations are not legitimate targets. Infrastructure essential to civilian survival cannot be attacked indiscriminately.
There is also the longstanding international prohibition against assassination of political leaders, which many states—including the United States—have formally codified in their own policies after the abuses revealed in the 1970s.
When these norms are violated or ignored, the damage extends far beyond the immediate battlefield. Each erosion of international law invites reciprocal violations. Each precedent becomes an excuse for the next war, the next bombing campaign, the next assassination.
And that is the real danger of zero-sum thinking.
The Middle East already sits atop one of the most volatile geopolitical fault lines on Earth. Iran, Israel, and several surrounding states possess advanced missile programs. Israel is widely believed to maintain a nuclear arsenal. Iran stands near the threshold of nuclear capability. External powers—the United States, Russia, and increasingly China—hover over the region with their own strategic interests.
In such an environment, escalation is not theoretical. It is structural.
A strike meant as deterrence can be interpreted as an existential attack. A retaliatory strike can spiral into regional war. A regional war can pull in global powers through alliance obligations or strategic calculation.
History offers chilling examples. In 1914, a single assassination in Sarajevo triggered alliances that dragged the world into World War I. Today’s geopolitical web is even more interconnected—and the weapons infinitely more destructive.
A nuclear exchange, even a limited one, would not merely devastate the Middle East. It would alter
the climate, collapse global supply chains, and plunge millions—perhaps billions—into famine.
None of this is inevitable. But it becomes more likely every time leaders abandon restraint and treat international law as optional.
Israel has legitimate security concerns. So do Palestinians, Iranians, Lebanese, and countless civilians trapped in the region’s cycles of violence. The purpose of international law is not to erase those fears but to prevent them from turning into annihilation.
The world must insist that all parties—including close allies—operate within the bounds of law and humanity. If international rules apply only to adversaries and never to friends, then they are not rules at all.
They are illusions.
And illusions are a dangerous foundation on which to build a nuclear age.