-Analysis-
BEIRUT — In the early hours of the missile exchange between Israel and Iran, a video from a nightclub in Beirut went viral: loud music, dim lighting, swaying bodies, and in the sky above their heads, Iranian missiles passed through Lebanese airspace toward Israel. The dancers swayed more intensely as they watched the scene in the sky, continuing their celebration of “life.”
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Another video from Syria showed people out at night smoking hookah water pipes, laughing and cheering while missiles flew overhead. Similar scenes spread from multiple areas.
The emotions and images were surreal: Are we celebrating on the brink of doomsday? Has the routine of wars become part of our nightly rituals? Have we become this accustomed to the idea of annihilation on the altars of grand schemes?
A harsh irony
These videos — along with a flood of sarcastic comments — do not elicit laughter but sorrow. They reveal a harsh irony: We rejoice in war or at least act as if it’s a cause for joy.
The Arab mood is divided. One group is cheering Iran’s bombing of Israel, as revenge for Gaza, compensation for a sense of helplessness, and a temporary reclaiming of a dignity shattered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrogance and brutality. And another group applauding Israel’s strike on Tehran out of spite for Iran, for its authoritarian militia symbolism at home and for the havoc it has wrought in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
Neither Israel nor Iran represents a project of liberation.
Amid the noise between schadenfreude and celebration, the bigger question is absent: What does this war mean for the region? What does it truly mean for Iran and Israel to slip into an open confrontation?
The attacks on Iran’s oil and industrial facilities all signal that Netanyahu will not stop at stripping Iran of its nuclear program. Israel says openly that it seeks to topple the regime — or at the very least deprive it of its defensive capabilities and shatter its image as an unchallenged power. What will we gain if this path prevails? And how will a direct war between Israel and Iran affect us after years of proxy battles?
Caught between missiles
What is dangerous about the current scene is not only the missiles, destruction, death and mutual threats but also the way each side tries to justify the unjustifiable. Israel claims to be defending itself and the world from an Iranian nuclear weapon — and finds in Washington’s silence or tacit support an open mandate to strike at will. Iran responds under the slogan of “responding to aggression” — but at the same time seizes the moment to assert that it is a regional player that cannot be violated without cost.
These duels — whether presented as national security defenses or displays of “divine” power — are not our battle, the battle of the people caught between missiles. Neither Israel nor Iran represents a project of liberation. Both regimes possess arsenals of violence and archives of repression and destruction — domestically and abroad — and the irony is that both speak the language of defending values and justice while spreading ruin.
Yes, it is a charged moment where calm assessment disappears, while the need to dismantle sectarian or nationalist narratives grows — narratives that make us cheer a missile simply because it was launched from “our side” toward “our enemy.”
The issue is more complex than a narrative — it concerns the fate of the region. More militarization, more destruction of what remains of national states and more marginalization of the people.
The region’s fate
Talk about Iran’s nuclear weapons cannot be separated from the reality that Israel possesses an undeclared nuclear arsenal — unaccountable to anyone. But at the same time, one cannot ignore that the Iranian regime seeks nuclear weapons as a tool to cement its influence and regional ambitions — not merely as a deterrent.
In both cases, we are facing a nuclear arms race that is driven by an authoritarian religious mindset on one side and a racist settler-colonial mindset on the other.
Who represents the peoples of this region?
There is no joy in this scene: no victory, no real dignity, no horizon. There is only the illusion that someone represents us in this clash; the truth is, no one does.
It is naive for our positions to remain stuck between cheering and gloating in a conflict of axes fighting over the ruin of the region. We must return the debate to its root: Who represents the peoples of this region? Who defends their right to freedom, not to arms? To life, not to shelling? To independence, not to allegiance to warring powers?
Until we find that voice, we will keep dancing on the mouth of the volcano and counting missiles to the rhythm of songs.
