The lesson Iranian Jews could have taught Israeli officials | The Hill
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
by Nazee Moinian, opinion contributor - 01/08/24 3:30 PM ET
In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei listens to a speaker in a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. Khamenei warned that Israel's continuing offensive in Gaza would cause a violent reaction across the region. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
For years we have known that Iran, a state moonlighting as a terrorist group, has been supporting Hamas, a terrorist group vying to be a state. The relationship between the Islamic regime and Hamas has evolved to be so highly synchronized, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) indoctrinating, funding and training Islamic militants, that Israeli military officials consider Iran a bordering enemy state and not an ideological adversary over a thousand miles away.
On Oct. 7, Hamas made the ideological, operational. Dismissing early warning signs of the militants' training as "an imaginary scenario" senior Israeli intelligence officials were caught underprepared for Hamas's capabilities and overconfident that they knew their enemies' intentions. In fact, Oct. 7 should have been foreseeable as the culmination of decades of collusion between Tehran and its proxy. So why was Israel surprised?
As a Jew growing up in the Shah's Iran and witnessing the Islamic revolution up close, I remember the slow and steady rise of Islamism in Tehran's neighborhoods. From merchants and bazaaris, to artists and intellectuals, to the upwardly mobile and the lowly peasant, the calls of "Allah-o-Akbar" were enough to send chills down one's spine. It did not matter if the chants were made from steel high-rises or mud rooftops, Iranians were gripped in an Islamic fever and fueled by Ayatollah Khomeini's powerful propaganda. The leader of the Islamic revolution did not mince words about his enmity towards Israel and the West, and the Iranian Jewish community took him both literally and seriously and emigrated in droves.
Just as it did to Iranian Jews, Oct. 7 should serve as reminder that when our adversaries tell us their intention we need to listen and take action. In the 1920s, Adolph Hitler published "Mein Kampf " laying out his plans to establish a Thousand-Year Reich and eradicate the Jews. In 1996, Osama bin Laden published a fatwa declaring war on the West. In 2021, Vladimir Putin published a 7,000-word manifesto stating his intention to reunify Ukraine with Russia. Yet in each case, we did not believe our enemies as they openly told us their plans — and were then surprised when they did exactly what they said.
Iran and Hamas made their objectives just as clear as Hitler, Bin Laden and Putin before them. All the warning signs were there in the articles of the 1988 Hamas Charter and the anti-American, anti-Israel, and antisemitic sermons of the Ayatollah Khomeini — the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Compiled in 22-volumes of Khomeini's writings and speeches, and his treatise Islamic Government, the founder of the Islamic Republic declared that "the vicious Zionist regime and Amrika [America] intend to destroy our Islamic virtues, corrupt our lands and rob our youths' minds." "The Islamic nation is the follower of the school of the oppressors vs the oppressed," and "Islam is the religion of the militant individual," whose "greatest sin is running away from war, [and who must] strive to wipe Israel off the map."
The unmistakable parallels between Khomeini's perverted version of Islam and Hamas' charter are hard to ignore. Just as Khomeini railed against "colonial establishments" of America and Israel, and accused them of having robbed Muslims for centuries, Hamas's charter blames the "vicious colonial invasion of Zionism" for its aim of "undermining societies, destroying values… and annihilating Islam." And just as Khomeini mandated war against "infidels," article 15 of the original Hamas charter states that Jihad is "the individual duty of every Moslem" to fight back against Israel's "usurpation" of Muslim lands.
More recently, Khomeini's successor, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Israel a "cancerous tumor" that "will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed" and posted a graphic on his website calling for a "final solution" for Israel.
The only thing that unites Shia Tehran and Sunni Hamas is their shared goal of destroying their common enemies: Israel and the United States. For Iran, that has meant keeping Iranians devoted to Khomeini's worldview by hyping real or perceived grievances against the United States and Israel internally, while pushing back against American-led forces and influence in the Middle East externally. It has also meant brutal crackdown on Iranian protesters who the regime considers agents of foreign powers, massive human and capital investments in disinformation campaigns both at home and abroad, brazen denials of historical truths, rejecting the liberal world order and creating havoc in neighboring countries.
Tehran's calculus of employing provocative language and initiating prolonged proxy wars may have been a cynical attempt to place the regime at the vanguard of Muslim leadership and the de facto speaker for the world's "oppressed." But success has a cost and the inhumane attacks of Oct. 7 — inspired, supplied and funded by Tehran — may sooner or later backfire.
It is significant that Saudi Arabia has not repudiated that peace initiative with Israel in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. Indeed, for the Saudis, the Abraham Accord countries and other Gulf states, already nervous about Tehran's fangs, the Iranian-Hamas attack underscores the importance of Israel as a check on Iran's ambitions for the region. If Israel destroys Hamas and once the fighting subsides, these nations may seek accommodation or further strengthening of military and economic ties with Israel. And Israel and the United States may sharply step up their overt and covert operations against the Islamic regime and its long regional reach.
The Oct. 7 attacks should serve as a wake-up call to the world of the murderous obsession of Hamas and the Islamic regime with wiping a whole land of its Jewish citizens. Their violence is not merely a slogan shouted at rallies; it is a strategic objective and an operational commitment. If there is any doubt, Hamas leaders have told us in no uncertain terms that they intend to repeat the carnage of Oct. 7 "again and again" because "Israel is a country that has no place on our land."
The destruction of the state of Israel was the first step in Khomeini's vision of a global Islamic government. What country is next on the Islamic regime's target and what militant group would be funded and trained to do its bidding? As Tehran has become the ideological and financial reservoir for Islamist militants, perhaps it is time to take the regime's words both literally and seriously, and act accordingly.
Nazee Moinian holds a PhD in Iranian Studies from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. She is an adjunct fellow in the Middle East Institute and is currently working on her book on narratives of grievance in Iranian foreign policy.
Tags Adolph Hitler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Hamas Hamas-Israel conflict Iranian proxies October 7 Vladimir Putin
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The author has the credentials and is worth listening to.
Certainly, we the US, and most of the world have ignored the words to their distress.
A great article - thanks for posting it.
Sadly, for decades the world's governments have ignored the bigger problem, which is Iran. The only country that recognized this was Iraq, and the US made a mess of that.
I don’t disagree, but there are a lot of Iranian appolgists here on NT.
Where? Where has anyone apologized for the Iranian regime?
If there are "lots" of "Iranian Apologists" then where are they?
Go back to 2013-2016.
No, point us to the "Lots of Iranian apologists" on this site!
I wasn't even active on this site eight to ten long years ago.
Quit casting evil aspersions on "lots of" the members here!
Why do you call the JCPOA deal evil?
That is a ridiculous comment.
I've not seen a lot of Iranian apologists on NT. I have seen some, myself included that do not think that Israel's current tactics are going to the winning formula for long term peace or some, again myself included that are trying to get a dialogue open between NT members to have what this site was started for and that is discussion. That does not mean we/them/I are Iran apologists or Hamas supporters.
The author makes a very good point, IMO. If someone/country tells you want they are going to do believe them do not live in a fancy world of ''oh there are just blowing smoke''...
The other thing to remember this current war has the making to spread throughout the Middle East, and the recent moves by Israel, and Hezbollah are pointing in that direction.
So, I'll reject your ''lot of Iranian apologists on NT'' and go with having discussions on what could be a huge turning point in ME history.
Please define what makes an "...Iranian apologist..." instead of talking in circles
Someone who apologizes or justifies or minimizes Iran's regional behavior or human rights abuses.
OK. I don't think that you will find many of them here. They may contextually place some actions, like the Iran nuclear deal, as good though. That is not an Iranian apologist IMO.
makes you wonder if the rest of the world thinks all americans are trumpster dipshits, huh?
.
The Iran/Iraq war was a disaster for both sides. Eight years and hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides, suicide attacks by Iran zealots but the arms industries did well.
find a way to arm the iranian women and the old religious fanatics running the place will start disappearing.
Indeed, I'm sure that they would enjoy taking part in that action.
those women have basically the same problem american women have...
worthless religious morons trying to tell them what to do...
Exactly, it is so much the same. Our government is now the mirror image of Iran’s. You have keen insights into how the world works. Were you a career State Department worker?
no. do they still make regular army iron camo fatigues?
These warnings to Israel seem to be premised on the idea that Israel is so friggin' stupid that the Israeli government doesn't understand any of this. You know, Israel has been very dependent upon foreign aid, primarily from the west, and that has required appeasing the west. Money has tied Israel's hands so that the real threat from Iran and Iran's proxies couldn't be confronted. The west has expected Israel to be the victim (for domestic political purposes?) and has used foreign aid to influence Israel's politics and diplomacy.
This time Israel is not playing by the rules of the status quo. Trump moving the US embassy to Jerusalem seems to have cracked the status quo and laid a sufficient foundation for the Abraham Accords which has been more significant than acknowledged.
abrahamic extremists are behind most of the needless blood letting of the innocent on this planet. it may be time to discuss isolating them all together somewhere and then let those religious wackos of humanity run out their end days on each other.
What an astonishingly ignorant comment. Abrahamic religions did not invent human sacrifice, slavery, honor killing, mutilation, bigotry, or a number of other questionable practices. The pagans were doing all that long before Abraham entered the human lexicon. Today's secularism seems to be reviving many of those pagan traditions. too.
build colosseums, breed lions...
If they did not invent each reference of yours they advanced them to a higher level and along the way invented new crimes to fit their needs since they were far more advanced than the Pagans.
The Crusades, The Spanish Inquisition, Colonisation, the Thirty Years War and the French Wars of Religion to name a few were of course wars started by the Abrahamic religions. I think you should probably read the bible again to gain a better understanding of the violence in its pages. Your comment stretches the bounds of reality.
no wonder their heavenly father drowned all but a handful of them...
You totally missed the meaning of this:
laid a sufficient foundation for the Abraham Accords which has been more significant than acknowledged.
Throughout history there has been wars, slavery and other types of horrendous actions by various groups-- my guess is that if you went back far enough in human history you would find at some point most groups did horrendous things. (There have been exceptions).
But the mention of the "Abraham Accords" here is not trying to stereotype the Abrahamic religions in a negative or positive way. rather, it was meant to be an extremely positive thing.
These 3 religions have at various times been enemies, fighting each other. The purpose of these accords was to finally make peace between Islam, Christianity, and Judaisim.
It was making amazing progress-- but then Hamas (backed by Iran who didn't want peace) attacked Israel. This effectively stopped the progress of The Abraham Accords-- at least for the present..
Do you think the Pagans were were significantly less violent than other religions/spiritual practices?
Since I wasn't there I don't know, but what I do know and have experienced at the hands of the Big Three. If this is ones choice to defend it is simply your opinion.
the enforcement of the accords seems a bit lopsided...
any religion that enforces a dress code is bullshit...
Exactly, like the federal facility where I work.
which religion has a federal facility? oh wait, nevermind. nobody cares...
Federal Prison, all members wear uniforms and all have stripes.
some disparity in pay rates...
... but DADT still applies.
But it didn't stop Israel from bombing (and destroying) the nuclear reactor being built in Iraq (near the start of the the Iraq-Iran War).
Interesting bit of trivia: Iran attempted to destroy it, but were afraid radiation would spread to Iran so they only took out, IIRC, some control instruments-- that only delayed the construction of Iraq's reactor.
So-- even though Iran and Israel were enemies, Iranian and Israel agent(s) met secretly in Paris--to discuss elimination of Saddam's reactor that was under construction.
In a daring raid (that crossed over both Jordan and Saudi Arabia) Israeli jets bombed and destroyed Saddam's reactor).
Many countries "breathed sighs of relief"-- but everyone (including the U.S,) publically condemned the Israeli attack.
Many years later a nuclear reactor was being built by Syria. Naturally Israel destroyed that one too. Few if any casualties-- except some North Koreans who were, strangely enough, supposedly "tourists" visiting an unidentified tourist site under construction in the area.
(Yes, it was a nuclear reactor under construction).
Some interesting details:
The attack reportedly followed Israeli top-level consultations with the Bush Administration . [ After realizing that the US was not willing to bomb the site after being told so by U.S. President George W. Bush , Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided to adhere to the 1981 Begin Doctrine and unilaterally strike to prevent a Syrian nuclear weapons capability, despite serious concerns about Syrian retaliation.
The raid was carried out by Israeli Air Force (IAF) 69 Squadron F-15Is , [19] and 119 Squadron and 253 Squadron F-16Is , [20] and an ELINT aircraft ; as many as eight aircraft participated and at least four of these crossed into Syrian airspace. [21] The fighters were equipped with AGM-65 Maverick missiles , 500-pound (230 kg) bombs, and external fuel tanks . [5] [22]
One report stated that a team of elite Israeli Shaldag special forces commandos arrived at the site the day before so that they could highlight the target with laser designators ,
The Israeli attack used sophisticated electronic warfare (EW) capabilities, [24] as IAF's EW systems took over Syria's air defense systems, feeding them a false sky-picture [24] for the entire period of time that the Israeli fighter jets needed to cross Syria, bomb their target and return. [25]
On 6 March 2017, the Kibar nuclear site was captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces – a U.S.-backed coalition of Kurdish and Arab militia fighters – from a retreating ISIL force in northern Deir Ezzor province.