God Wills It: The Ancient Story Behind Wars in the Middle East

As the testosterone inflamed chest thumping gains traction in the latest war in the Middle East, the trumpets are sounding the call for a “Holy War.” Appalled as we may be, this is a repetition of a very old pattern.

The Middle East—once the cradle of civilization – has been the stage for nearly continuous conflict for at least four thousand years. Empires have risen and fallen like tides: Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Ottomans—each leaving their bones in the same narrow corridor of land between Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Today the bombs fall again, and the headlines tell us it’s about oil or regime change. But history whispers something deeper: this land has been caught in a cycle of power and conquest that began long before our modern nations were born.

Being a geo-political crossroad of countries and continents explains part of it—but myth may explain even more.

You see, the Middle East was once the stronghold of ancient Goddess traditions. As civilization emerged and the earliest cities formed, worship of the Goddess moved from forests and fields into established temples. Here the Great Mother rocked us in the cradle of civilization as humanity struggled with the evolutionary task of learning to live together—as one people with different languages, customs, and ways of life.

The oldest written myth known to humanity tells the story of the goddess Inanna, who brought the “Holy Me” (sacred principles) down from the Heavens, to establish the sacred order of things in ancient Mesopotamia. When Inanna went to the Underworld to visit her sister, her husband, Dumuzi, took over her throne. Many of the myths that followed repeat a similar story: a Goddess supplanted.

The God, Marduk, slays the primordial mother, Tiamat, and stands on her dead body declaring a new order of men– a myth that was celebrated in Babylon as part of the rites of spring for well over a thousand years – from 1800 BCE to the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539..

Hades rapes the maiden Kore and abducts her into the underworld where she becomes Perspehone, queen of the dead, while other traditions tell of the separation of the World Parents—the original unity of God and Goddess, sending one to heaven and the other to hell.

Zoroastrianism began with the battle of two brothers, one good and one evil, racing to get out of their mother’s womb. The evil brother managed to emerge first, giving rise to an endless conflict between these archetypal realms. Yet Goddess traditions had no concept of evil.

In regions where Goddess traditions persisted longer—such as Crete and Mycenae—archaeological evidence suggests societies were less militarized and honored a sacred order and continuity with nature.

The Unholy War

Now the sacred unity has been lost and it’s war that is called holy.

It’s not like we didn’t have warning. The Department of Defense was renamed the Department of War. Pete Hegseth, the current Secretary of War, has framed this as a holy war. Upon his body is tattooed the words from the Crusades: Deus Vult, or “God wills it.”

The phrase itself has an eerie history. During the First Crusade in 1095, crowds rallied to the cry as they amassed their forces against Muslims in the name of the Christian God. The words swept through Europe like wildfire, sanctifying violence in the name of the divine.

When war becomes holy, compromise becomes heresy, and killing becomes righteousness.

What followed were the Dark Ages and the Inquisition, a period of mass cruelty and ignorance, where very little was accomplished and almost nothing significant invented.

As we witness today, this mindset did not end with the Crusades. Whenever humans believe they possess the exclusive will of God, the door opens to a holy war. Today we see echoes of that mentality across several forms of religious fundamentalism—from militant jihadists who frame their violence as divine mandate, to the growing movement of Christian nationalism that speaks openly of reclaiming territory and culture “for God.”

The language is all too familiar: God is on our side and anyone opposed becomes an enemy of divine order. Its subtext puts men in charge, and women’s role as subservient. It builds society as a military hierarchy.

Perhaps the deeper task before humanity is not merely to negotiate ceasefires, but to remember a different balance of power—one in which the feminine face of the sacred returns to the center of our story.

Countries with more women in charge spend less on military and have fewer international conflicts. When women are part of the peace process, the peace lasts longer and is more accepted by the people.

To enter an era of peace, ruled by the heart, balance is essential. If we are to spread the wings of a heart-based civilization, that bird can only fly with two wings—masculine and feminine, power and compassion, strength and care.

When one wing dominates, we spiral into conquest and domination. When the other is restored, we return to the sacred balance that makes life possible.

It isn’t war that’s holy, but the peace that comes when natural order is restored.

To learn more about this history, check out two of my books: The Global Heart Awakens, and Goddess.

Part 2 of the blog on the Epstein files is coming, but this unholy war broke out in the meantime and I had to address it. Such times!