The War on Iran: Immoral allies, False claims and Unnecessary Bloodshed
Ilan Pappe on US and Israeli immorality and why Palestine lies at the heart of the war on Iran.
When Iranian exiles living in the West celebrate the death of the supreme leader, waving the Israeli and American flags and shouting thank you to Netanyahu and Trump, you know that untangling emotion and political wisdom in struggles for justice is as ever a huge task.
The murdered leader oversaw a system of oppression and ruthlessness that claimed the lives of many Iranians in the last year or so. These systems unfortunately still prevail, be they theocratic or secular, in many other parts of the world. Anyone with a modicum of decency in them will show solidarity for those demanding justice and freedoms under these systems.
The current campaign masquerading as a struggle for democracy, economic and social justice is carried out by an American administration and an Israeli government that themselves violate these principles on a daily basis and have openly showed their disrespect and overt hostility to international law and to the principles of sovereignty and the right of self-determination of other peoples in the world.
Donning yourself with an Israeli flag while demonstrating for freedom in Iran is a travesty: this a flag that today represents a genocidal state led by war criminals. Equally, waving the American flag shows identification with an administration that executes violent policies informed by economic greed, Islamophobia, racism and overt imperialism.
I can understand pragmatic alliances. It is not always possible to be purist when one builds an alliance against injustice, but there must be red lines that cannot be crossed even in the face of calamity. Choosing unsavoury allies in a struggle for justice is bad enough, glorifying them in the process is beyond comprehension.
The credibility of this alliance should be questioned further when we know that its main advocate is the former Shah’s son, a scion of a monarchy which was as oppressive as the regime that replaced it.
Why has he been chosen? This could be an issue of historical amnesia. Reza Shah Pahlavi’s regime was authoritarian and repressive, sustained by cruel secret police that terrorized, tortured and executed dissents. It was plagued by corruption and policies of economic and social discrimination. Its best allies were the United States and Israel. Hardly a legacy to be proud of, unless it goes well together with relying on Israel’s Netanyahu and America’s Trump for salvation.
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Choosing him can also indicate the absence of organized opposition. After all, the Islamic republic would not have come into being without help from an organized coalition that included intellectuals from the left, trade unionists and reformist Islamic scholars collaborating with hard liners such as Ayatullah Khomeini. Iran is a diverse society – ideologically, socioeconomically and ethnically – that does not necessarily desire to bring back royalty nor share the same visions for the future. It can only once more build a coalition from the inside the country rather than relying on American intervention motivated by a Trump’s greedy desire for extracting more dividends from Iran’s share in the world’s oil reserves, as much as his wish for reprieve from his declining political fortunes. He has a prefect ally in Netanyahu seeking a diversion from his trials and discomfort from the ongoing trauma in Israel after the October 7 attack.
Here is a probable scenario: since these are the individuals involved in running the “rescue” operation of the Iranians and facing the alleged existential threat to Israel, the USA and the West, it is very likely that after the mutual bombing now spreading all over the region will subside, all involved will face the same challenges as before the launch of the American-Israeli assault on Iran.
Palestine and the Palestinians will still be the most important issue facing Israel and its allies in the region and in the world. Americans will be left with a president that destroys their economy, their international standing and social cohesion and it is very likely that Iran will still be ruled by the same regime, be it weakened or more challenged. The political map of the region will not change much, neither will its social nor economic predicaments.
This scenario is not one offered by the official narrative spun by the pro-Shah exilic media or by those who chanted songs of praise both for Bibi and Donald. They seem to believe that the unholy alliance they are cherishing between a massive movement for change from within, Israel and the Trump administration will succeed.
No less troubling are some of the pundits appearing in the mainstream media in Britain. They do share the overall unease of the Democrats in America and most of the EU governments with such a violation of the international law. Nonetheless at the same breath they, and quite a few people on the right in Britain and Europe, endorse uncritically two false claims made by Israel and the Trump administration.
The first claim is that the United State and Israel were coming to help a regime change for the sake of the people and their freedoms. The second is that Israel has launched a pre-emptive attack to prevent an imminent Iranian onslaught on Israel as part of the Republic’s wish to destroy the Jewish state.
So, firstly, we are to accept that the timing of the American Israeli attack was a response to an urgent call for help from the Iranian demonstrators. Previous calls were not heeded; not by those who demonstrated in 1999, 2009 nor 2019. Only those who demonstrated now deserved an Israeli American involvement.
It seems more reasonable to argue that the timing had to do with the issues faced at home by both Trump and Netanyahu. Trump timed this attack on the day that he could have been politically devastated by the revelations released in the Epstein files and Netanyahu needed a war of any kind since he was losing significantly his popularity due to his criminal record and his responsibility in the eyes of his society for the traumatic Hamas attack in 2023.
Even beyond the narrow world of Trump and Netanyahu, both Israel and the United States (and at times also Britain) care much more about the loyalty an ally regime than about its human rights record. We have been there before when American and British politicians explained to us why it was necessary to invade and destroy Iraq. Although, at least this time we can draw some optimism in the midst of this ugly episode from the fact that the bi-partisan American public opinion does not back this venture, while remaining in a less sanguine mood when we realise that the Israeli society is fully behind Netanyahu, including the so called opposition, which does not bode well for the 2026 election in Israel, regardless of who comes out on top.
As for the second claim that the attack came at the last moment before Iran was about to destroy Israel and the West, it is good not be confused by the facts. All the exchanges of fire between Iran and Israel were initiated by Israel. I am not underestimating the seriousness of the existential fear that Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons may conjure among Israelis, especially when it is accompanied by a discourse of the need to destroy Israel.
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Similarly, one cannot underestimate the danger to Iran and the region from an Israel that already possesses, unlike Iran, a huge number of nuclear weapons. An Israel that right now is run by an ideological messianic elite that knows no moral boundaries in its attempt to resurrect an imaginary biblical kingdom over historical Palestine and far beyond in its boundaries. Willing in the process to genocide Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, ethically cleanse those living in the West Bank and terrorise those who are citizens of Israel. They also do not spare the lives of people in south Lebanon in the process either.
This Israel, armed to the teeth with conventional and non-conventional weapons, is not really as worried about a nuclear Iran as it is an existential threat – its armed forces are there to police the millions of Palestinians under its rule. The neighbouring Arab states went to war for Palestine in 1948 but never since. The unprovoked attacks on the Iranian embassy in Damascus, the assassination of leaders and scientists in Iran was hardly reciprocated by Iran. When Iran retaliated it was done so in a symbolic way as sign of warning and deterrence against the continuation of these policies. Iran was content with phony wars; Israel craves the real war.
The war against Iran is an Israeli battle for regional hegemony, as is the Israeli nuclear programme producing hundreds of atomic bombs. Unlike Israel, Iran was willing to take part in the attempts to deescalate the danger of nuclearisation in the region; an effort advanced by Obama in 2015 until it was foiled by Netanyahu and Trump.
Iran, Israel claims, also threatens its security through proxy groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. These two movements were not historically engaged in a struggle against Israel on account of Iranian directives. Hezbollah began its life in a campaign to end Israeli occupation of Lebanon, and the Hamas emerged as an alternative to the failure by the secular liberation Palestinian movement to end Israeli colonisation and occupation.
These movements do not have the same international backing Israel enjoys from the US and the West, neither do they possess a highly developed military industry. So, they relied on whoever they could, first Syria, sometimes Turkey but most Iran. There is a religious affinity of Shi’ite Hezbollah to Iran, but it should be remembered that Hamas is a Sunni Islamic organization; therefore, the idea that is all a Shi’ite plan to take over the Middle East is farcetched.
Israel by no means is the only threat to the region’s stability and peace. Alongside a fanatic Israel there are other destabilisers. Fundamentalist Iran, militant wings of legitimate liberation movements, a megalomanic American president, cynical multinational corporations, military and securitisation industries, white Islamophobic, supremacist leaders and their movements are all exemplifying how decolonisation has not fully unfolded in the Middle East.
At the heart of the problem is still Palestine. A just and lasting solution to the 120 years of the colonisation of Palestine and the incremental dispossession and oppression of its people will significantly reduce any impulse for Iran to use Palestine as a pretext for oppression or aggression, for the Americans to interfere destructively in the affairs of the regime and for authoritarian regimes to justify their autocratic rule.
Such a breakthrough will also allow the mashreq – the Levant in Arabic – to build a fresh political set up based on economic and social justice, replacing the shaky political system built by the colonial powers after the First World War.
The nature of that solution will impact its chances of influencing the entire region. Only a democratic, decolonised and indeed de-Zionised Palestine, pushed for and built by the Palestinian national movement and organically reconnected to the mashreq, will achieve this. The allies for this vision would not be tainted by the immorality and cynicism of the one that now claims to be saving the Middle East.
