Communist Party of Israel MP says US-Israeli attack on Iran was based on lies and only citizens standing up for peace can stop it
THE world risks being dragged into “forever war” by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu and only citizens standing up for peace can stop it, an Israeli MP warned today.
Knesset member Ofer Cassif of the Communist Party of Israel (CPI) told the Morning Star that the US-Israeli attack on Iran was based on lies — and was already a smokescreen for intensified violence and ethnic cleansing in occupied Palestine.
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“Netanyahu wants forever war in his own interests. He’s interested in doing anything possible to keep himself out of prison, which by definition means staying in power, and he believes as long as the death and destruction in Israel doesn’t rise too high that war will help him in elections.
“Those around him, the coalition, are racist bigots — many of them, the majority are messianic and see this as part of a divine plan, and they’re bloodthirsty all right.
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US aggression has been ramped up globally since the start of the year, and there is nothing defensive about the war in Iran. After all it was Trump himself who tore up the agreement that did exist between Iran and the West on its nuclear programme — which even the chairman of the Israeli Space Agency Isaac Ben-Israel acknowledged Tehran did not deviate from “by one millimetre.”
Last year, both Trump and Netanyahu claimed to have obliterated Iran’s nuclear programme. Eight months later they say it’s a threat again. “They lie.” Indeed, their aggression makes nuclear proliferation more likely: “The majority of experts in Israel, let alone outside it, say the harbinger of an Iranian nuclear bomb is Netanyahu.”
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[T]he CPI was right to warn Israel would use the war to accelerate ethnic cleansing in Palestine.
Even before October 7, Cassif was warning Israel intended to carry out the “decisive plan” identified by its self-proclaimed fascist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, which defines Palestine’s future in three options, “subjugation, expulsion and annihilation.”
Israel’s government plans to “annex all Palestinian territory without granting basic political or civil rights to Palestinians; expel all Palestinians who do not accept that fate; and kill those who try to resist.
“We saw that in Gaza — where the strategy was genocide. We see it in Israel, in fascism and the persecution of anyone who raises a voice against the government.
“And we see it in the West Bank. There is systematic ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and since the war with Iran began, it’s worse. Entire communities are vanishing.”
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaks to soldiers at the RAF base in Akrotiri, Cyprus, during his three-day trip to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Cyprus, December 10, 2024
JEREMY CORBYN’S Bill demanding parliamentary oversight of the use of British bases for foreign countries’ wars is urgent and necessary.
Our craven Prime Minister has already given the United States permission to use British bases in the Middle East for its war of aggression against Iran.
Reversing that is essential to keep Britain out of a war we did not choose and which most British people oppose. It is also the most immediate practical step we can take to limit the escalation of the war we are already seeing across the Middle East.
Donald Trump was emboldened to start war with Iran because no US ally was prepared to stand up to his illegal aggression against Venezuela at the start of the year.
Having kidnapped the leader of one country, he has now killed the leader of another; still our government won’t acknowledge that the Trump White House is the biggest threat to peace and stability worldwide.
War crimes of the worst sort are normalised by the refusal to hold perpetrators to account. Having watched his allies make excuse after excuse for the mass murder he has inflicted on Gaza, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu fears no retaliation for incinerating 150 schoolgirls in Iran.
This impunity is dangerous: it leads the US and Israel to conclude they can do what they like. That means more atrocities and more wars.
Turning our bases into targets by allowing the US to use them to strike Iran increases the risk the war will spread.
And escalation is inherent in this war, started without defined aims or an exit strategy.
So poorly planned, in fact, that Trump himself admits the US didn’t make arrangements to evacuate its embassies in the region because “it happened very quickly” — a poor excuse in a conflict you started yourself. US Senator Elizabeth Warren, after a classified briefing, is blunt: “The Trump administration has no plan in Iran.”
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of PeaceGenocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAOrcas discuss rotting brain. Front Orca says “Wish someone would lock him up”.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio talks to reporters ahead of a congressional briefing about strikes on Iran at the Capitol in Washington, DC on March 2, 2026. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“This is the most insane and absurd definition of an ‘imminent threat’ I have ever heard in my life,” said one journalist.
“What the fuck happened to America First?” US Sen. Ruben Gallegoasked on social media Monday in response to a video of Secretary of State Marco Rubio attempting to justify President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war on Iran.
As the death toll climbed above 550 in Iran, with at least six US service members killed, Rubio told reporters on Capitol Hill that “there absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us. And we were not gonna sit there and absorb a blow before we responded.”
According to Rubio, the US Department of Defense assessed that “if we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked… by someone else—Israel attacked them, they hit us first, and we waited for them to hit us—we would suffer more casualties and more deaths. We went proactively, in a defensive way, to prevent them from inflicting higher damage. Had we not done so, there would’ve been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was gonna happen, and we didn’t act preemptively to prevent more casualties and more loss of life.”
In a follow-up post, Gallego (D-Ariz.), an Iraq War veteran, added: “So Netanyahu now decides when we go to war? So much for America First.”
The senator wasn’t alone in ripping Rubio’s remarks. Congresswoman Sarah Jacobs (D-Calif.) said that “Secretary Rubio says the quiet part out loud: This is an unnecessary war of choice. Israel forced our hand—there was no imminent threat to the United States. And instead of talking Israel out of going to war, President Trump went along with it and put US lives at risk.”
Stanford University political science professor Michael McFaul said: “Such strange logic. We had to go to war because Israel was going to attack Iran? So Bibi gets a say as to whether the US goes to war but the US Senate and the American people do not?”
Zeteo editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan declared: “This is the most insane and absurd definition of an ‘imminent threat’ I have ever heard in my life. Our ally and proxy, Israel, that we arm and fund, was about to illegally attack Iran so we joined in the attack because that illegal attack would have led to an attack on us.”
Progressive organizer and attorney Aaron Regunberg also weighed in on social media: “Quite literally—and I’ve used that word too freely in the past, but in this case I mean literally—Rubio is saying they’ve made America into Netanyahu’s bitch. We go where Bibi points, regardless of the American blood it will cost. Trump is an absolute cuck. Pathetic.”
While critics of Trump’s “Operation Epic Fury” have slammed it as illegal and clearly motivated by regime change, Rubio claimed that the Trump administration would welcome a new government in Iran, but the war—which has taken out top Iranians, including the supreme leader, Ayatollan Ali Hosseini Khamenei—is about preventing the Middle Eastern nation from developing a nuclear weapon.
A year ago, a US intelligence report said that “we continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so.” Despite that conclusion, the Trump administration bombed the country’s nuclear facilities a few months later—and, as CNN‘s Aaron Blake pointed out last week, Trump has repeatedly said that his June airstrikes “obliterated” Iran’s program.
There are now mounting calls for the Republican-controlled Senate and House of Representatives to end Trump’s assault on Iran by passing a war powers resolution. Despite the US Constitution giving Congress clear authority to declare war, several presidents have taken military action without any such declaration.
The Constitution does not require the president to notify Congress; it requires the president to get permission from Congress. https://t.co/IyAbNOygTi
Discussing the administration’s interaction with Congress about Iran, Rubio said Monday that “we notified the Gang of Eight,” which is made up of the Senate and House leaders for both major parties, as well as the chairs and ranking members of each chamber’s intelligence panel. Before taking on his current role, the secretary was the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“There’s no law that requires us to do that. The law says we have to notify them 48 hours after beginning hostilities. We’ve done that,” Rubio said, referring to a requirement in the War Powers Act of 1973. “But we can’t notify 535 members of Congress.”
“If they want to take a war powers vote, they can do that. They’ve done that. They’ve done that a bunch of times,” he added. “There’s no law that requires the president to have done anything with regards to this… No presidential administration has ever accepted the War Powers Act as constitutional—not Republican presidents, not Democratic presidents.”
Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) responded: “Dear Secretary Rubio: There is a law. It’s called the frickin’ Constitution of the United States.”
Separately on Monday, the State Department urged Americans to leave a list of Middle Eastern countries.
The @SecRubio@StateDept urges Americans to DEPART NOW from the countries below using available commercial transportation, due to serious safety risks. Americans who need State Department assistance arranging to depart via commercial means, CALL US 24/7 at +1-202-501-4444 (from… pic.twitter.com/vdplAik2Sq
— Assistant Secretary Mora Namdar (@AsstSecStateCA) March 2, 2026
Lieu responded: “Dear Secretary Rubio: You told Americans to depart now via commercial means when you know many airports/airspace are closed. YOU MUST IMMEDIATELY SCHEDULE US GOVERNMENT EVACUATION FLIGHTS FOR THE STRANDED AMERICANS IN DANGER. Maybe you should have thought of a frickin’ plan first.”
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US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a press conference on US military action in Iran at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on March 2, 2026. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
The defense secretary suggested that “the US went to war because Iran has ballistic missiles and drones it has used as a deterrent or to respond to US/Israeli attacks,” said journalist Jeremy Scahill.
In the Trump administration’s first public remarks to reporters on the strikes the US and Israel launched in Iran over the weekend, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth blamed the Middle Eastern country for the attacks that have killed at least 555 people there as well as at least four US soldiers—and suggested Iran posed an imminent threat because of its defensive military capabilities.
Hegseth said the strikes that began early Saturday morning and included deadly attacks on children attending school were “retribution” for Iran’s “savage, one-sided war against America” that has played out for “47 long years” as the country has waged proxy attacks on the US.
“We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump we’re finishing it,” said Hegseth.
Despite the fact that hours before President Donald Trump announced the US and Israeli attacks, the Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi reported that diplomatic talks he was mediating were making significant progress toward a peace deal, Hegseth asserted that Iran had a “conventional gun to our head” and suggested the US had no choice but to wage war.
Pentagon officials said in a congressional briefing Sunday that Iran had not been planning to strike any US military targets in the region unless it was attacked first, according toCNN.
The defense secretary also claimed Monday that Iran was “not negotiating” and said it was “stalling” in the talks with the aim of rebuilding missile stockpiles.“
“To be clear,” said journalist Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News, “he is claiming the US went to war because Iran has ballistic missiles and drones it has used as a deterrent or to respond to US/Israeli attacks.”
Iran has weapons that exist to defend itself that are conventional, just normal military capability. By this logic, any country with a military has a gun to America's head. He's admitting the US considers any defensive capability in anyone else's hands unacceptable.
Drop Site noted that Hegseth made no mention of “the 1953 US-backed coup in Iran,” US support for autocratic rule there from 1953-79, “or that the US and Israel launched the February 28 strikes.”
On the UK talk radio show “Leading Britain’s Conversation,” British journalist Jon Sopel said Hegseth was making “the exact argument that [former President] George W. Bush made in 2003 with the weapons of mass destruction and ‘They could be launched in 45 minutes.’”
Promises to end the US government’s penchant for embarking on endless regime change wars, added Sopel, were part of “what propelled Donald Trump to the presidency, and yet Donald Trump and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu have launched these strikes against Iran.”
‘“America didn’t start this.” Well, yes, you did.’ @jonsopel unpacks the US narrative shift on the war in Iran, a familiar playbook from Iraq in 2003. pic.twitter.com/uGhn5zP4G9
The defense secretary attempted to contrast the operation in Iran—dubbed Operation Epic Fury by the US military—to protracted wars like those the US has waged in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The conflict will not be an “endless war,” Hegseth said.
He claimed at one point in the briefing that the clear-cut objective of the attacks is to “destroy the missile threats, destroy the navy, no nukes” and scoffed at a reporter’s question about Trump’s Sunday statement in which he said he expected the conflict to be resolved in “four weeks or less.”
“President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or not take. Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could move up, it could move back,” said Hegseth.
Hegseth spoke alongside Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, who appeared to temper expectations of a quick resolution to the war started by the US and Israel.
“To be clear… this is not a single overnight operation,” Caine said. “The military objectives [US Central Command] and the Joint Force have been tasked with will take some time to achieve, and in some cases will be difficult and gritty work.”
Caine added that the military objective is “to protect and defend ourselves, and together with our regional partners, prevent Iran from the ability to project power outside of its borders.”
Law professor Jennifer Taub denounced Hegseth’s remarks as “utter nonsense” and condemned his claim that the US and Israel are hitting military targets “surgically.”
“Shameless,” she said. “We or Israel bombed a girl’s school on Saturday when school was in session, killing 175.”
Along with Hegseth’s claim that Iran was to blame for the strikes launched by the US and Israel, his comment that the US will expedite the operation by not getting bogged down in “stupid rules of engagement” alarmed observers.
Hegseth: No stupid rules of engagement, no nation building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win and we don't waste time or lives. As the president warned, an effort of this scope will include casualties. War is hell and always… pic.twitter.com/7Zpg2UkcrO
“’No stupid rules of engagement’ means no Geneva Conventions or other international humanitarian laws, which the US signed and supported for more than a century,” said journalist Mark Jacob. “Hegseth and Trump are pro-war crimes.”
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Israeli MK Ofer Cassif
