Israel continues to face deadly threats from the reactionary bourgeois regime in Tehran — Hamas’ main backer — as it advances efforts to produce nuclear weapons. Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei calls Israel a “cancerous growth” that must be “uprooted and destroyed.”
Tehran launched two waves of ballistic and other missiles at Israel on April 13 and Oct. 1, 2024. Most of them were stopped by Israel’s Iron Dome and other air defenses, with some help from U.S. military forces as well as some neighboring Arab governments, causing relatively little damage. Israel retaliated, taking out a large part of Tehran’s air defense system.
Israel is only 263 miles long and 72 miles across at its widest, and its three largest cities — where both Jews and Arabs live — are within 100 miles of each other. One ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead making it through Israel’s defenses could cause another Holocaust.
At his joint press conference with President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated that Israel is committed to “ensuring that Iran never develops a nuclear weapon.”
Working people in Iran — retirees, oil workers, teachers, nurses, railroad workers, steelworkers, miners and more — have been demanding higher wages, job safety, and adequate pensions. A popular slogan has become “Stop warmongering. Our table is empty.” It’s working people of all nationalities — Persian, Azerbaijani, Arab, Kurd, Baluch and more — that are the biggest obstacle to the regime’s war moves. Opposition to its attacks on Israel is widespread.
On Feb. 4 Trump signed an executive order to restore “maxim pressure” on Iran. These punishing U.S. economic sanctions will exacerbate the economic crisis workers there face. Trump said his goal is to “drive Iranian oil exports to zero” and force Tehran to negotiate an end to its nuclear weapons program. He threatened if that failed, Washington would cause “a very catastrophic situation.”
Israel has the right to take action against Tehran’s nuclear sites to prevent it from producing nuclear weapons and launching a new Holocaust.
But Washington’s moves against Iran are aimed at defending the U.S. rulers’ own imperialist interests in the region.