Iranians have expressed mixed emotions about Israel's airstrikes on their country and regime
When Israel launched its sustained assault on Iran's nuclear programme and military leaders on Friday, Sareh began cycling through a range of emotions.
'I felt happiness,' the Iranian woman said, at the deaths of leaders who had long repressed the country's people.
'Then disbelief,' she continued from her home in
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For 20 months, Israel's government and occupation forces have pursued a campaign of genocide in Gaza, interspersed with destruction and land grabs in the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria. Now Israel has indulged its long-held desire to attack Iran, a nation of 92 million people. Israel claims that this was a pre-emptive attack, a necessary act of self-defence to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. US State Department intelligence findings flatly contradict that claim. While it calls Iran a nuclear threat, Israel is the only Middle Eastern state with nuclear weapons – undeclared, uninspected, and therefore all the more dangerous. We, Jewish groups in 19 countries, believe that Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu acted to divert attention from Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza and its daily attacks and land seizures in the West Bank, and to extend Israel's imperial domination over more of the Middle East. He further seeks to extend his own rule (and evade jail). Netanyahu has long wanted to lure the US directly into war against Iran. Ultimately, he seeks to bring down the Iranian government, in denial of the right of the Iranian people to chart their own way forward. Shortly before it attacked Iran, the IDF virtually cut Gaza's last communications and imposed a complete siege on the West Bank. Hourly, it pursues genocide in darkness. On June 20, Al Jazeera counted over 170 Palestinians killed in Gaza this week, while they were trying to obtain the food that they have a right to obtain. It is too easy to condemn only Netanyahu, who is already on trial domestically and wanted internationally for crimes of genocide. The problem is wider. This regional war-crime spree is inherent in the logic of Zionism. Since 1947, the Zionist project has systematically expelled and murdered Palestinians. It has pursued territorial expansion and regional domination inspired by Western imperialism, while claiming victimhood as a persecuted Jewish collective. Israel's role remains dependent on the full support – diplomatic, military and economic – of Western powers. Donald Trump, ever ready to claim destruction as his own, openly refers to Israel's attack as an action 'we' undertook. The German Chancellor says that Israel is 'doing dirty work for all of us.' Global Jews for Palestine rejects Israel's atrocities and its racist narrative. This widening suffering and chaos will continue until all countries make it end. Governments must cease arming and justifying Israel's crimes, and instead they must impose effective sanctions on Israel. As the world's highest court has advised, we call on our governments to stop normalising and start bringing this disaster to its only credible end: ceasefire, accountability, and justice which realises the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. We, Jews from around the world urge all governments to abandon the racist, reckless project of Zionism and start the urgent work of justice. We pledge to continue and intensify our efforts to end occupation, genocide and the wider military adventures which threaten to engulf us all. MORE ABOUT GLOBAL JEWS FOR PALESTINE We are Jews from many countries, who are members of local, national and international networks and organizations. We are multi-ethnic and multigenerational and our members embrace a broad range of viewpoints on Jewish religious and ethical traditions. We are connected by our involvement in the struggle for Palestinian rights, and by our determination to work for justice. We oppose Zionism and all forms of racism and colonialism. We believe that it is our particular responsibility to challenge Jewish organizations whose alliances and actions undermine Palestinian human and national rights, promote Jewish exceptionalism, and overturn Jewish social justice traditions. At the heart of our work is the fight for Palestinian liberation and the struggle for a world free of racial and ethnic hierarchy, colonial domination, and unbridled militarism.
