Amid the global security crisis in the Middle East, which effectively began on October 7, 2023, following the Iran and Hezbollah-supported Hamas attack on Israel, it is often heard—at least at demonstrations where chants about "Palestine from the river to the sea" are made—that the "countdown" for the Jewish state has begun. This is because after 2023, it is losing support in the West, even among a significant number of Americans. And if Israel has no allies in the West, the question of its elimination will be a matter of time.

But the main falsehood in this assertion is the timing of when the countdown began. In reality, it did not occur on October 7, 2023, but on May 14, 1948, when David Ben-Gurion announced the creation of the State of Israel. For the war of the Arab countries against this new state began on that very day.

And since then, Israel has lived precisely in this logic—and thus in a security deficit. For a long time, there was an attractive illusion that if peace with the Arab states was achieved, it would solve the problem of this deficit. Now, the new illusion is that security can be obtained through victory over Hamas and the destruction of the regime in Iran.

But true security is achieved not just through interstate agreements and force. It is achieved through the will of societies. Israel has no peace agreement with any democratic Arab entity. When Egyptians, after the collapse of the "eternal" military dictatorship, had the opportunity to participate in truly free elections, they voted for a candidate who cooperated with Iran and dreamed of Israel's collapse, not peace with Israel. When Palestinians, in the first free elections after agreements with Israel, had the opportunity to form their own government, the majority voted for Hamas.

In this situation, Israel's security can only be based on an unguaranteed partnership with the USA—because the enthusiasm of Trump could be replaced by the detachment of his successors—and on strength, as any diplomacy appears to be a temporary phenomenon. And it is not surprising that the first democratic state in the Middle East increasingly resembles societies in terms of escalation and non-acceptance. This is also the logic of the eternal countdown.

Of course, it would be much better to hope for a "new Middle East," which Shimon Peres once dreamed of. But for this new Middle East, Israel's right to exist must appear in the minds of its neighbors, not just on paper documents. In the minds of workers and soldiers, not just kings and military dictators. And the likelihood of this decreases with each new stage of the development of military technologies, as there is hope that in future confrontations, those with large demographic and territorial resources will survive. That is, finally, the categories that were hoped for back in May 1948 will have decisive significance.

The same is true for Ukraine. There may be an impression that the "countdown" for our country began on February 24, 2022—most Ukrainians are still convinced of this. However, in reality, this countdown began on August 24, 1991, the day of the declaration of independence, because in Moscow, from the first day, this decision was not perceived as established. The question was only in the timing and methods of absorption. At the same time, linking the very idea of eliminating the Ukrainian state with the name of President Putin would be a mistake. The 30th anniversary of the creation of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, which was agreed upon during the times of President Yeltsin, clearly illustrates what model of coexistence was proposed by Moscow even when the war between Russia and Ukraine was perceived as fantastic.

Thus, both states, which found themselves at the epicenter of the largest conflicts since World War II, are doomed to live in the logic of the countdown for the next decades. This, at least, needs to be realized. And with the realization of the inevitability of threats will come the realization of reformatting the ways to solve them. Of course, the best guarantee of Israel's future is a "new Middle East," whose inhabitants agree on the possibility of Israel's existence. And the best guarantee of Ukraine's future is a democratic Russia that renounces imperial ambitions.

  However, if neither of these options is visible in the near historical perspective, and the capabilities of military technologies are improving, we are left only with the logic of the countdown. 

Only the possibility of restraining the beast and at the same time (which is no less difficult) not turning into a beast oneself.