Why Israel needs Iran: The existence of Israel as a Jewish state is justified by the presence of the Islamic Regime in Iran

When addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations in late September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referenced the Bible. He cited the “timeless choice that Moses put before the people of Israel thousands of years ago.” In the same breath, he reminded the assembly that Israel’s enemies “seek not only to destroy [them], they seek to destroy our common civilization.”

Throughout the genocide in Gaza and the war on Lebanon, Israeli officials have similarly used biblical analogies to rationalize and justify their military strategy and political aspirations. When announcing Israel’s ground invasion into Gaza, Netanyahu invoked the Amalekites from the Book of Samuel, wherein God instructs the Jews to “go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” Nearly 70% of the dead in Gaza so far have been women and children, and over 70,000 houses have been destroyed. There is no data to quantify the killing of animals, pets, and flock.

Evidently, Netanyahu heeded the scriptures.

Basing foreign and domestic policy on the Book of Genesis is inconceivable in any modern state. The last major religious war fought by the West, the Thirty Years War, ended in 1648. Meanwhile, in Israel, every war is given a religious pretext. The keenest researcher would be hard-pressed to find a conflict where the Israeli side did not make use of biblical allegories with the same commitment with which they deploy Merkava tanks and drones.

While Orthodox Jews may believe their return to Jerusalem is the unfolding of biblical ordinance, the feasibility that the British government offered the Jewish people a Middle Eastern homeland to play a role in the fulfillment of messianic prophecy is highly improbable. Britain is a constitutional democracy; it was a political decision. The paradox of Israel’s legitimacy and its Western support lies in its claim to be a contemporary democracy but its existence is legitimized by a 3,000-year-old divine promise, and biblical rights which pre-date the Roman Empire.

The use of Biblical and Talmudic references by government and military officials to justify government policies has been standard practice in Israel since its inception. Israel’s first right-wing government came into power in 1977. Despite being responsible for the terrorist bombing of the King David Hotel, the first Likud Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s government was widely popular. He won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1978, and invaded Lebanon in 1982. He would later be succeeded by a series of right-wing administrations, culminating in today’s Likud government.

Basing foreign and domestic policy on the Book of Genesis is inconceivable in any modern state. The last major religious war fought by the West, the Thirty Years War, ended in 1648. Meanwhile, in Israel, every war is given a religious pretext. The keenest researcher would be hard-pressed to find a conflict where the Israeli side did not make use of biblical allegories with the same commitment with which they deploy Merkava tanks and drones.

The religious and conservative elements of the Likud party ceaselessly promoted Jewish oriented politics; like the homogeneity of a Jewish ethno-religious state. In 2018, the Knesset passed a bill stating that the right of self-determination was exclusive to the Jewish population, relegating non-Jewish Israelis, including Druze and Christian populations, to second-class legal status. Meanwhile, Western countries are constitutionally forbidden from discriminating on the basis of religion, while Israel was built on, and sustains itself, by discriminating on the basis of religion. Today, Israel is the West’s greatest regional ally, the only Middle Eastern country whose values are ostensibly an extension of their own.

The theological foundation on which Israel was built, and the ‘right of return’ being exclusive to the Jewish people, surely precludes Israel from any modern or secular distinction. Yet, Israel’s advantageous location in the Middle East is crucial to its continued portrayal as a Westernized nation bordering what the West believes to be ‘backwards’ nations led by religious zealots whose democracies are often accused of being stagemanaged or coerced.

Two years after Begin’s government came to office, the Islamic Revolution overthrew the Shah, and the new regime took over Iran. The extremism and ultra-Orthodoxy of Begin’s government was suddenly lost beneath the shadow cast by Ruhollah Khomeini and his government of Shiite hardliners. From first glance, the average Westerner may find it difficult to differentiate between the Taliban and the government of Tehran. In this comparative framework, Israel suddenly gives the impression of being the lone wolf in the region. Now, the two governments would be repeatedly compared side by side in the international media. Liberal Tel Aviv, regressive Tehran, secular Israel, fanatic Iran. The Islamic Republic's use of religion to explain government decisions allowed Israel’s own tendency to pull out the bible to have its policies ignored. The Islamic Revolution justified Israel’s continued political shift towards the right.

Conversations about Jewish extremism, and Zionist fanaticism, became a memento of the past; no longer relevant when discussing the new Middle East. The spread of Khomeinism among the Shiite populations of the Middle East further increased this view worldwide: that the source of religious extremism in the region was Iran alone. The assassinations of British officials by Israeli armed groups have been forgotten. Even the attack of the USS Liberty ship, which led to the deaths and injuries of American soldiers, got lost to the footnotes of history.

After the biblical Exodus, it was the Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great who allowed the Jews to return to Canaan. Today, it is the legacy of the Persian Khomeini that allows the reality of the Israeli state to go undetected, maintaining its illusion of being a Westernized, secular democracy. Iran’s support for Shiite groups Hezbollah and the Houthis, as well as its support for Hamas, aids Israel. The existence of Shiite and Sunni fundamentalist groups provide legitimacy for Israel to remain an ethno-Jewish state. Surrounding Israel with democratic, modern countries, whose governments are unaffiliated with religion, would not be in the interest of Israel, a country which self-identifies and legitimizes itself through divine intervention. Otherwise, Israel risks losing Western support and the misleading “Westernized” and “secular” identification that it clings to today.

But the only Middle Easterners the West and Israel appear interested in allying themselves with, or against, are Muslim monarchs, and religious governments. While pan-Arab Presidential Republics were scrutinized, the last remaining absolute monarchs, the Arab Kings, are the West’s foremost allies. Pan-Arab nationalist Gamal Abdel Nasser ruled a secular government by popular vote, restrained the Muslim Brotherhood, and nurtured the secular left in Egypt, but proved an unpopular ally for the West. Other secular, pan-Arab leaders have been considered dictators and authoritarian rulers by the West. Over the course of history, secular, democratic pan-Arabism disappeared, averted by Western opposition. Arab nationalist leaders could not exist; they were either assassinated, or their countries were flung into chaos through US or NATO intervention, leaving a political vacuum which has been filled by religious fanaticism and totalitarianism.

After the biblical Exodus, it was the Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great who allowed the Jews to return to Canaan. Today, it is the legacy of the Persian Khomeini that allows the reality of the Israeli state to go undetected, maintaining its illusion of being a Westernized, secular democracy. Iran’s support for Shiite groups Hezbollah and the Houthis, as well as its support for Hamas, aids Israel. The existence of Shiite and Sunni fundamentalist groups provide legitimacy for Israel to remain an ethno-Jewish state. Surrounding Israel with democratic, modern countries, whose governments are unaffiliated with religion, would not be in the interest of Israel, a country which self-identifies and legitimizes itself through divine intervention. Otherwise, Israel risks losing Western support and the misleading “Westernized” and “secular” identification that it clings to today.

The creation of a Jewish state in the Middle East introduced a new element of religiosity into regional politics. Once the Likud party came into power in Israel, and Israeli politics was suddenly ruled by Jewish fanatics and ethno-fascists, the regional religious dynamic became unbalanced. But the double-standards applied to Israel are now all too apparent. The religious, fascist, right-wing government of Israel has waged an Old Testament war, armed and funded by the modern democracies of the day. How the West, specifically the US, and Germany in its quest to rid itself of historic guilt, has continuously shielded Israel as it commits a genocide in Gaza and kills thousands of civilians in Lebanon, has awakened a shared Arab consciousness throughout the region. The reawakening of the Middle East must be redirected inwardly, and Arabs must finally ask themselves if religious fanaticism and sectarian politicization has any place in the world of today, as only Israel may wage its religious battles unsanctioned.

* The views and opinions expressed in Opinion and Blog articles are those of the author’s, and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Raseef22