Montréal (Special to Informed Comment; Featured) – With missiles flying across West Asia, I am reminded of my trip to Iran in 2016, when I discovered a fascinating country and a vibrant Jewish community.* Every day, I ask about the safety of friends and loved ones in both Iran and Israel. The situation there is tragic and criminal.
Many criticise Israel for not heeding the Jewish tradition of seeking to turn enemies into friends. Some cite Zechariah (4:6): ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit’ and Samuel ‘it is not by strength that man prevails’ (Samuel I 2:9). However, this criticism is both unfair and irrelevant. Although it pretends to be a ‘Jewish state’, Israel was born from a revolution against Judaism, regardless of the prominence of kippah-wearing Jews in the current government. Israel naturally follows the logic of all colonial powers that believe solely in supremacy and domination. It is no surprise, then, that Israel’s attack enjoys solid support from the G7 — all of which are countries with a recent history of brutal colonialism that continue to enjoy the wealth plundered from the natives.
Israel’s brutal and unprovoked aggression against Iran, as well as the ongoing genocide in Gaza, reflect a fundamental sense of insecurity. Several Jewish thinkers had warned of this predicament. One of them prophesied during the war triggered in 1948 by the practice of ethnic cleansing on the part of Zionist militias :
- “And even if the Jews were to win the war, […] [t]he “victorious” Jews would live surrounded by an entirely hostile Arab population, secluded inside ever-threatened borders, absorbed with physical self-defence. […] And all this would be the fate of a nation that – no matter how many immigrants it could still absorb and how far it extended its boundaries – would still remain a very small people greatly outnumbered by hostile neighbours.”
Hannah Arendt issued this warning, as she understood the perils of establishing a state against the will of the local inhabitants and all the surrounding nations. Both secular and religious thinkers had feared the eliminationist nature of Zionism would endanger the physical and spiritual survival of Jews.
Nowadays, while no Arab state poses a military threat to Israel, Iran has come to be presented as an imminent danger. Unlike Israel which commonly bombs and invades its neighbours, Iran has not attacked another country for centuries. It is true that Iranian leaders have denounced the apartheid nature of the Israeli state and have supported resistance movements that oppose it. However, allegations that Iran seeks the physical destruction of Israel are plainly false. The ruling minority often perceives equality with the natives as an existential threat.
“Samuel I 2:9,” Digital, ChatGPT, 2025
For decades, prime minister Netanyahu has repeatedly made the false allegation that Iran is weeks away from developing nuclear weapons despite this allegation being consistently refuted by Israeli and American intelligence estimates. Israel, a state that possesses hundreds of nuclear weapons, attacked a non-nuclear state thousands of kilometres away. Furthermore, Iran was in the midst of negotiations with the United States, which may have been part of Israel’s strategy.
Israel used a biblical verse to name the current assault on Iran: ‘Lo, a people that rises like a lioness, leaps up like a lion, rests not till it has feasted on prey and drunk the blood of the slain’ (Numbers 23:24), which seems to fairly reflect Israel’s intent. Israel has committed a brutal surprise attack on another country, yet, as usual, is playing the victim. This brings to mind another verse: ‘The wicked flee though no one gives chase’ (Proverbs 28:1). As Arendt predicted, there may be no end to ‘existential threats’ if Israel continues to equate safety and security with repression and domination.
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*Slightly revised 6/20/25.
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