Montréal (Special to Informed Comment; Featured) – As missiles fly across West Asia, I recall my trip to Iran where, in 2016, I discovered a fascinating country and a vibrant Jewish community. I enquire every day about the safety of people close to me in both Israel and Iran. What goes on there is tragic and criminal.
Many reproach Israel for not following the wisdom of the Jewish tradition of seeking to turn an enemy into a friend. Some cite Zacharia (4:6): “Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit” or Samuel “it is not by strength that man prevails “(Samuel I 2:9). This reproach is as unfair as it is irrelevant. Albeit pretending to be a “Jewish state”, Israel was born from a revolution against Judaism, whatever the prominence of kippah-wearing Jews in the current government. It naturally follows the logic of all colonial powers that believe solely in power and domination. No wonder, Israel’s attack enjoys solid support from G7, all of them countries with the recent past of brutal colonial masters that continue to enjoy the wealth plundered from the natives.
Israel’s brutal and unprovoked aggression against Iran, just 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 of Independence in 1948:
- “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.”
This warning came from Hannah Arendt who understood the perils of establishing a state against the will of local inhabitants and all the surrounding nations. Secular and religious thinkers alike had feared that eliminationist version of Zionism would endanger both physical and spiritual survival of the Jews.
Nowadays, when no Arab state poses a military threat to Israel it is Iran that came to be presented as an imminent danger. Unlike Israel, Iran has not attacked another country for centuries. True, Iranian leaders have denounced the apartheid nature of the Israeli state and supported resistance movements opposed to it. But allegations that Iran sought physical destruction of Israel have been plainly fake. The ruling minority often perceives equality with the natives as an existential threat.
“Samuel I 2:9,” Digital, ChatGPT, 2025
For decades, Netanyahu has repeated equally fake allegations that Iran is weeks away from making nuclear weapons, allegations have been regularly debunked by Israeli and American intelligence estimates. Israel, a state possessing hundreds of nuclear weapons, assaulted a non-nuclear state thousands of kilometers away. Moreover, Iran was in the middle of negotiations with the United States (which may, in fact, be part of Israel’s ploy).
Israel used a biblical verse to dub 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) Seemingly, it fairly reflects Israel’s intent. Israel commits a brutal surprise attack on another country, yet – as usual – plays the victim. This brings to mind the first part of another verse mentioning a lion: “The wicked flee though no one gives chase, but the righteous are as confident as a lion.” (Proverbs 28:1). Just as Arendt prophesied, there may be no end to “existential threats” if Israel stays her course of equating safety and security with repression and domination.
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