Armed conflict in the Middle East arises from some of the most potent identity-based disputes in global politics. These conflicts over the status and nature of the state system in the Middle East played a role in founding and shaping the many minority populations of the region. The early construction of the post-colonial state system both benefited and punished minorities, and set the stage for internal competitions between tribal, ethnic, and religious groups that persist to this day. For many minority populations, the fragile nature of the postcolonial state system set in motion efforts to secure their own community within new borders. Many minority populations found that the very actions they took to ensure the security of their communities, by controlling or shaping the nature of the state, were threatening to their neighbors. Neighboring communities therefore responded with their own efforts to take power or to influence state institutions. Over time, this competition over the internal resources of the state in the hands of ethnoreligious groups became a self-perpetuating spiral of insecurity, or “ethnic security dilemma”. Ethnic security dilemmas have fueled ongoing conflict in states such as Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, and they persist today in the form of competitive forms of sectarianism. The structural constraints of the ethnic security dilemma often drive minority communities inexorably toward conflict. In many cases, there seems little choice but to engage in competitive nationalistic forms of organization, resulting in armed conflicts over territory, the state, or for mere survival. Even so, minority communities can and do resist the structural constraints of divided societies, seeking to transcend the ethnic security dilemma and transform their divided societies to create pluralist forms of social organization. In this paper, I consider several past and ongoing conflicts that are rooted in an underlying ethnic security dilemma, using both primary and secondary sources from documentary and interview research over several years. In each case, the prevailing logic of insecurity forces members of minority communities into drastic and typically violent actions to maintain their place within the larger society. Nevertheless, it is possible for minority communities to shake the sectarian impulse. I conclude by demonstrating that though the ethnic security dilemma frames the actions of many minority communities, some minority communities have resisted the urge to descend into competitive sectarianism.