ILAN PRESKOVSKY: Debunking Iran-Israel conflict myths

After nearly two years of fighting its proxies, Israel launched a full-on war against the Islamic Republic of Iran in the early hours of June 13. The “pre-emptive strike”, which has so far targeted dozens of Iranian military and nuclear sites along with some of the Islamic Republic’s top military personal, came after the Nuclear Atomic Energy Agency published a report that found Iran was at “60% purity uranium enrichment”, which put the country potentially just weeks away from developing up to nine nuclear weapons.

Inevitably, far too many people have already placed the blame for this war squarely on Israel. This is not surprising. After all, Israel has been called “terrorists” by these same people every time it has retaliated against actual terrorists. No doubt there have been civilian casualties in Iran, but Israel has demonstrably focused its attacks on strategic targets and has actively called on Iranian civilians to vacate these areas.

The Islamic Republic responded by launching hundreds of ballistic missiles, not at Israeli military sites but very specifically at civilians, causing untold damage to central and northern Israel, killing dozens of Israelis (Arabs and Jews) and foreign nationals, and injuring and displacing hundreds more.

There are those who are so venomously anti-Israel that nothing anyone says will ever change their minds. But for those who are unsure about this latest war (or, actually, the latest stage in the war) or have been led astray by bad actors, let’s do some myth-busting.     

Myth #1: This is a war between Israel and Iran 

This myth is probably the easiest to understand, but debunking it is key to representing what the whole war is about. Aside from a small and decreasing number of Iranians who are loyal to their government and have embraced its poisonous radical Islamist ideology, there is little animosity between the people of Iran and the people of Israel.

Indeed, some of Israel’s greatest supporters are Iranian expats who understand exactly what the Islamic Republic truly is and wish deeply for their country to return to its place as the cultural hub of the Middle East. Much like Israel, in fact. The mostly friendly relationship between Iranians/Persians and Jews stretches all the way back to the Babylonian exile 2,500 years ago, where Cyrus the Great encouraged the Israelites (later Jews) to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem.

Most wars are between governments, not people, but this one takes things to a whole other level. After decades of oppression and failed revolutions, the Islamic Republic is less the government of the Iranian people than their single greatest enemy. Though it’s unclear whether a main goal on the side of Israel is the toppling of the Islamic Republic, the best outcome by far would be to grant the Iranian people the opportunity to dispose of their despotic oppressors once and for all.

It’s worth mentioning that former US president Barack Obama admitted that one of the great “mistakes” of his presidency was not supporting the 2009 “Green Movement”, a mass uprising by the Iranian people against the Islamic Republic after the regime arrested, tortured and murdered a young woman named Mahsa Amini for the “crime” of not wearing her head-covering properly.

Myth #2: Israel started this war.

Again, it’s easy to get this wrong, as Friday's bombings were — by the Israeli government’s own admission — a “pre-emptive strike”, which means Israel literally struck first, even if it was to prevent a future attack. But in no way did Israel start this war. And, unlike the obviously extremely complicated Palestinian conflict, there is no moral ambiguity here on which side is “right” and which side is “wrong”.

To understand this let’s go back to 1979, when the Islamic Revolution in Iran violently overthrew the monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Pahlavi was hardly a flawless leader and Iran was no liberal democracy, but what he oversaw was a country that was, aside from Israel, the most liberal, moderate, Western and modern country in the region. And it was that country that was lost when the Islamic Republic in effect conquered Iran and turned it into a brutal, draconian theocracy, ruled by an extremist version of Sharia law, with the chant of “death to America, death to Israel” as the regime’s north star.

It immediately started sponsoring terror organisations and countries guided by that same north star, and as more and more Sunni Arab states started to modernise and clamp down on terror over the past couple of decades, it quickly became the single greatest sponsor of terror in the world. Including, of course, recent attacks on Israel by Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.   

This is what the Islamic Republic of Iran is. And it’s hard to think of anyone on Earth who would be a greater threat as a nuclear power. Say what you will about North Korea or Vladimir Putin’s Russia, their leaders understand the cost of nuclear warfare. The radical Islamists of the Islamic Republic, on the other hand, are death-cultists almost by default, who may understand the cost but are prepared to ignore it, even exalt it, in the name of eternal paradise and the destruction of “infidel society”. 

The damage the Islamic Republic has inflicted with traditional weapons is incalculable; what it would do with nuclear weapons is unimaginable. 

Myth #3: Israel “nuked” the diplomatic solutions 

Stretching back decades, there have been valiant efforts to constrain the Islamic Republic’s nuclear capabilities, first by sanctions and then — as infamously led by the Obama administration — by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action treaty that would trade the lifting of sanctions for a curtailing of nuclear enrichment. The problem with the former was that the Islamic Republic clearly had little problem diverting funds from the Iranian people for their own nefarious purposes. The second suffered from two fatal flaws: a “sunset clause” that would only curtail nuclear enrichment for a limited time; and the fact that nuclear warheads or not, lifting sanctions gave the Islamic Republic significant resources to dedicate to its Jihadist ambitions against Israel and the West.

Even as US President Donald Trump tried to renegotiate a treaty not much different from the one he ceremoniously tore up in his first term, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government decided the time for waiting was over, and that if Israel did not act now it may well be too late. So, after the 60-day period Trump gave the Islamic Republic to return to the negotiating table lapsed, Israel launched its extensive attack on the Islamist regime and its nuclear and military capabilities.

Trump’s negotiation may or may not have been a feint, but it’s clear that at the very least this war will force Iran to negotiate terms that are significantly more acceptable to Israel and the West. 

Myth #4: The whole war is a cynical ploy by Netanyahu 

Netanyahu has always been a shrewd politician, so I suppose it is possible to view such a brilliantly orchestrated (if tragically deadly) direct war with Iran as a “smart move” on his part to distract from his many political woes: a coalition government that always seems to be minutes from falling apart, historic unpopularity, and a war in Gaza that seems, even to those who support it, increasingly aimless. 

But even if it does help Netanyahu politically, it’s still the case that Iran is closer than ever to possessing nuclear bombs, that the Islamic Republic has been waging war against Israel for decades, and that it was behind Hamas’ attack on October 7 2023 and the accompanying attacks by Hezbollah and the Houthis. That it might help Netanyahu in the polls pales in comparison to the necessity of these strikes or to the net positive of a severely weakened Iran. And it says something that even Netanyahu’s fiercest political opponents support, even laud, his action against Iran. 

Yes, this is an escalation of an already horrible war that has resulted in widespread destruction and in far too many innocents dying on both sides, but surely even Netanyahu haters can see why it is necessary, and why it might just lead to a far better future for Israel, Iran, the Middle East and the world at large?

• Preskovsky is a freelance journalist.