ICCEHS Participates in High-Level Roundtable at the French Parliament
Dr. Nidal Shoukeir: “No Sustainable Peace in the Middle East
Without a Revolution in Discourse”
Paris, 28th of April 2026
Dr. Nidal Shoukeir, Executive Board Director of the International Committee on Countering Extremist and Hate Speech (ICCEHS), participated in a high-level roundtable held at the French Parliament and organized by the Institute for European Perspective and Security Studies (IPSE), under the patronage of Bruno Fuchs, Member of Parliament for Haut-Rhin and President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly.
The event brought together legislators, security experts, and civil society leaders to examine how the attacks of October 7, 2023, and the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran of February 28, 2026, are reshaping what many describe as a “new Middle East.”
In his address, Dr. Shoukeir emphasized that sustainable peace in the region cannot be achieved through military or political agreements alone, but requires a fundamental transformation of public discourse.
Framing the two dates as defining geopolitical ruptures, he stated:
“Two dates. Two fractures. Two moments when the world did not simply inform itself—but held its breath. These events speak of strikes, attacks, and escalation. But if we are honest, they reveal something deeper and more alarming: the failure of words… before the crash of weapons.”
Dr. Shoukeir warned that conflicts are rooted long before they erupt: “No war begins the day bombs fall. It begins earlier—in expressions repeated without being challenged, in hatred tolerated because it seems distant, in narratives that gradually strip the other of their face, and then of their humanity.”
He also issued a stark assessment of the international community’s failure to recognize the power of language: “We believed words were mere opinions—that they belonged to debate and would fade on their own. But others have turned them into weapons—silent, invisible, yet devastatingly effective. Weapons that prepare minds to accept the unacceptable.”
Describing today’s conflicts as unfolding within a “cognitive, emotional, and narrative battlefield,” Dr. Shoukeir called for a strategic shift from reactive crisis management to proactive prevention.
He also underscored one of ICCEHS’s flagship programs—an international campaign for responsible communication—designed to counter the normalization of hate speech and to promote dignity, responsibility, and coexistence as foundational principles of public discourse.
“If we truly speak of a ‘new Middle East,’ then we must be clear: it will not be built solely through political agreements or military balances. It will be built—or it will fail—in the words we choose today,” he stated.
Dr. Shoukeir also highlighted France’s unique role in advancing this vision, noting that: “Security cannot exist without dignity. And dignity begins with how we speak about others.”
He concluded with a call for global responsibility: “There will be no sustainable peace in the Middle East without a revolution in discourse—a silent but essential revolution that replaces hatred with recognition, fear with understanding, and exclusion with coexistence.”
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