Israel

US Progressives Say Stop Supporting ‘Rogue Genocidal Regime’ as Israel Wages Illegal War on Iran

Spread the love

Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Rescue workers comb through the ruins of a residential building bombed by Israel on June 13, 2025 in Tehran, Iran. (Photo: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

“Trump must act immediately to suspend all military support to Israel and stop allowing U.S. arms to fuel war crimes, mass civilian death, and regional collapse,” said one critic.

Progressive U.S. lawmakers and human rights defenders demanded an end to unconditional American armed and diplomatic support for Israel after it launched a series of attacks on Iran early Friday, reportedly killing senior military officials and civilians including nuclear scientists, women, and children in a dramatic escalation that Iranian leaders vowed to avenge.

Israeli forces carried out at least five waves of airstrikes targeting not only Iran’s nuclear facilities but also its military leadership and capabilities, Al Jazeera reported. In addition to airstrikes, Israeli and international media reported that operatives from Mossad, Israel’s foreign spy agency, also conducted assassination and sabotage attacks in Iran.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander-in-Chief Major Gen. Hossein Salami and Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major Gen. Mohammad Bagheri were assassinated, as were numerous Iranian nuclear scientists.

IDF attacks targeted cities including the capital Tehran, Natanz, Isfahan, Arak, Tabriz, and Kermanshah. Iranian television reports showed bombed-out apartment towers and said that an unknown number of civilians including women and children were killed in the strikes.

The attack on Natanz—home to Iran’s primary nuclear enrichment facility—sparked fears of radiological contamination.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack—dubbed Operation Rising Lion—a “preemptive strike,” a dubious form of warfare previously waged by forces including imperial Japan during the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the George W. Bush administration in Iraq.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the attacks were meant to “neutralize an immediate and existential threat to our people,” an apparent reference to Iran’s nuclear program. Successive U.S. administrations including President Donald Trump’s have concluded for decades that Iran is not trying to develop nuclear weapons.

During his first term, Trump unilaterally abrogated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal.

Last year, Israel and Iran carried out limited tit-for-tat attacks following the former’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, who led the Lebanon-based resistance group Hezbollah, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

This time, Iranian leaders vowed “severe punishment,” with fears that the U.S. could be targeted due to its staunch support for Israel as it wages what the international community increasingly views as a genocidal war on Gaza. While U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed that his country was not involved in the attacks, Israeli officials insisted there was close coordination with the Trump administration.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Friday that “in the early hours of today, the Zionist regime extended its filthy and bloodstained hand to commit a crime in our beloved country, exposing its vile nature more than ever by targeting residential areas.”

“With this crime, the Zionist regime has prepared a bitter and painful fate for itself—and it will undoubtedly face it,” Khamenei added.

As the world braced for Iran’s response to the attacks, U.S. progressives called for a diplomatic solution and an end to American support for Israel.

“The Israeli government bombing Iran is a dangerous escalation that could lead to regional war,” Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said on social media.

Tlaib asserted that Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and is facing a domestic criminal corruption trial, “will do anything to maintain his grip on power.”

“We cannot let him drag our country into a war with Iran,” she added. “Our government must stop funding and supporting this rogue genocidal regime.”

Referring to negotiations on a new Iran nuclear deal, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said: “Just as talks with Iran were set to resume, Netanyahu launches a strike and declares a state of emergency. He is provoking a war Americans don’t want.”

“We should not allow ourselves to be dragged into yet another conflict, against our will, by a foreign leader pursuing his own agenda of death and destruction,” Omar added.

The U.S.-based peace group CodePink—some of whose members held an emergency protest outside the White House in Washington, D.C.—said that it “strongly condemn[s] Israel’s unprovoked and reckless attack on Iran, which risks igniting a catastrophic regional war.”

“This dangerous escalation threatens millions of lives across the entire Middle East,” the group added. “The U.S. must not continue to support and enable this illegal act of aggression.”

CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin said: “It’s horrific that Israel is bombing yet another country. And Trump calls himself a peace president? He knew this was coming and stood by. This is entirely out of step with the will of the American people.”

“The whole world is desperate for peace in the Middle East, and instead, Israel decides to move the region closer to World War III,” Benjamin added.

Noting that nuclear talks with Iran were set to resume this weekend, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) said that “this is an attack on peace and diplomacy.”

“Israeli political officials have demonstrated that U.S. diplomacy and a peaceful resolution with Iran is what they consider to be the true threats,” NIAC asserted.

“This much is clear: This is a war of choice, and an illegal and unprovoked attack,” NIAC added. “Trump must weigh in to stop this conflict before it spirals out of control, and to preserve the chance of maintaining diplomatic offramps.”

Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, Israel-Palestine director at the advocacy group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), contended that “Israel deciding to launch a war against Iran at the very same time it faces unprecedented international isolation and pressure over its genocide in Gaza is a nightmarish outcome of impunity.”

DAWN executive director Sarah Leah Whitson said that “Israel has committed an unlawful, unprovoked attack on Iran to undermine the growing global efforts to sanction it for its illegal occupation and to disrupt Trump’s efforts to independently pursue America’s interests via diplomacy.”

Nihad Awad, national executive director at the Council on American Islamic Relations, issued the following statement:

We condemn Israel’s offensive strike on Iran and the broader pattern of aggression it represents. Netanyahu is using American weapons and taxpayer dollars to launch illegal and destabilizing wars across the region. President Trump must act immediately to suspend all military support to Israel and stop allowing U.S. arms to fuel war crimes, mass civilian death, and regional collapse. Secretary Rubio’s statement confirms what we already knew—Israel is acting recklessly, and the U.S. is letting it happen.

CodePink noted that “in the past month and a half alone, Israel has bombed Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran.”

“There is no other choice,” the group added, “ARMS EMBARGO NOW!”

Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingUS Progressives Say Stop Supporting ‘Rogue Genocidal Regime’ as Israel Wages Illegal War on Iran

‘Diplomacy, Not Catastrophe’ Needed as Israel Appears Poised for US-Enabled War on Iran

Spread the love

Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

An Israel Defense Forces F-15 fighter takes off in this photo posted on the IDF’s website on May 19, 2025. (Photo: Israel Defense Forces)

“It would be a catastrophic mistake to be led into a war by the same neocons that claimed the Iraq war would be a cakewalk,” warned one group.

Israel is likely preparing to bomb Iran even as the Trump administration works toward a nuclear deal with Tehran, stoking fears of Iranian retaliation against U.S. military bases and other American or allied sites in an already inflamed region, and prompting calls for urgent diplomacy to avoid war.

U.S. and European officials told Western media Thursday that Israel is preparing to unilaterally attack Iran as negotiations between Washington and Tehran draw closer to a preliminary framework for an agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear development. The government of fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes any such deal.

“If this escalates, innocent lives will be caught in the crossfire in Iran and across the region.”

American intelligence agencies have periodically concluded over the past two decades that Iran—which has not started a war since the 19th century but supports proxy attacks on Israel—is not developing nuclear weapons.

While President Donald Trump—who has repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran if a nuclear deal is not reached—has publicly opposed an Israeli attack on Iran, numerous observers are warning that Tehran and its proxies would very likely view the U.S. as complicit in any such action.

“If Israel does strike Iran in the next days or hours, and even if they do so in defiance of Trump’s warnings, the likelihood that the Iranians will perceive it as an independent act by Israel in defiance of Trump is essentially zero,” Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said Wednesday on social media. “There is no plausible deniability.”

Vahid Razavi, an Iranian American advocate for human rights and ethics in technology and founder of ParentsPlea.com, told Common Dreams Thursday that “Israel will only attack Iran with the support and blessing of the United States.”

“The ‘good cop/bad cop’ game that Trump and Israel are playing in the region is a distraction,” Razavi added. “There is no substantial difference in U.S. and Israeli policy toward Iran.”

Iran has threatened an “unprecedented response” if Israel attacks.

“In case of any conflict, the U.S. must leave the region because all its bases are within our range, and we will target all of them in the host countries regardless,” Iranian Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said Thursday during a televised address.

Nasirzadeh’s remarks followed a Wednesday threat by an official from Ansar Allah that the Yemeni rebel group also known as the Houthis is “at the highest level of preparedness for any possible American escalation against us.”

“Any escalation against the Islamic Republic of Iran is also dangerous and will drag the entire region into the abyss of war,” the unnamed official toldNewsweek.

The Trump administration stands accused of war crimes in Yemen amid an escalation of the decadeslong U.S. bombing of the country as part of the so-called War on Terror. Successive U.S. administrations also backed a Saudi-led war on Yemen that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, while Israeli and British forces have bombed the country since 2024 in retaliation for Houthi missile attacks on Red Sea shipping and Israel.

Last October, Iran launched a limited missile strike on Israel in response to the assassinations of Hassan Nasrallah, who led the Lebanon-based resistance group Hezbollah, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. This prompted retaliatory Israeli attacks on targets in and around Tehran, including the headquarters of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The prospect of another Israeli attack on Iran prompted the U.S. on Wednesday to order the evacuation of some diplomats from Iraq and call for the voluntary departure of American military families from the region.

Meanwhile, numerous observers stressed the need for a diplomatic resolution to avoid a wider war in the Middle East—and possibly beyond.

“We must face the reality: if this escalates, innocent lives will be caught in the crossfire in Iran and across the region, and at home there may be new, dire threats to the civil liberties of our community,” the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) said in a statement Thursday.

“We are working to ensure our leaders hear us loud and clear: We need diplomacy, not catastrophe,” NIAC added. “We are organizing multiple actions in the coming days against a potential war and in support of peace and ask for your support to fuel this vital effort.”Former Democratic Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner succinctly said Wednesday: “No war with Iran. No war, period.”

Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Thousands Across US Send Message to Trump: ‘No Threats, No Bombs, No War With Iran’

Continue Reading‘Diplomacy, Not Catastrophe’ Needed as Israel Appears Poised for US-Enabled War on Iran

Shameful U-turn as UK and France abandon plans to recognise Palestinian state at peace conference

Spread the love

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech in front of humanitarian aid destined to Gaza, at the Egyptian Red Crescent warehouse in Egypt’s northeastern city of Arish in the north of the Sinai peninsula, about 55 kilometres west of the border with the Gaza Strip, on 8 April 2025. [LUDOVIC MARIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images]

Plans by the UK and France to recognise a Palestinian state at an upcoming international peace conference in New York this month have been shelved, marking yet another U-turn just weeks after both governments signalled support for Palestinian self-determination in response to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and ongoing ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank.

The three-day conference, scheduled between 17-20 June and co-sponsored by France and Saudi Arabia, was initially framed as a diplomatic breakthrough that could see major Western powers recognise Palestinian statehood as a matter of principle. However, diplomats have now confirmed to the Guardian that the event will instead focus on vague “steps towards recognition.”

The reversal comes despite recent pledges by both London and Paris to re-evaluate their approach in light of Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza, which has killed over 55,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and the aggressive settlement expansion in the illegally occupied West Bank. Israeli officials have recently approved 22 new settlements, in what Defence Minister Yoav Gallant described as “a strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

Read: US warns UK, France against recognising Palestinian State

French President Emmanuel Macron had previously declared Palestinian statehood a “moral duty and political requirement,” but according to officials who briefed Israeli counterparts this week, recognition will no longer be announced at the conference. Instead, it is being repositioned as a distant outcome contingent on a series of conditions, including a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, the release of Israeli captives, and the restructuring of the Palestinian Authority to exclude Hamas.

The UK government, which has faced increasing pressure from MPs to take stronger measures against Israel, has taken a similar position.

According to the Guardian, British and French officials now view recognition not as a moral position or legal obligation, but as a reward contingent on the compliance of Palestinians with a framework shaped largely by Israel’s priorities. The Israeli public, however, has largely abandoned the idea of a two-state solution. According to figures cited by the Guardian, just 20 per cent of Israelis support the creation of a Palestinian state, while a staggering 56 per cent of Jewish Israelis back the “transfer” of Palestinian citizens of Israel to other countries, an explicit endorsement of ethnic cleansing.

Meanwhile, public support for Palestinian statehood continues to grow across Europe. Ireland, Spain and Norway formally recognised Palestine last year, and several Conservative MPs in Britain, including former Attorney General Sir Jeremy Wright, have broken ranks to endorse recognition.

Read: Labour MPs push Foreign Office to back Palestinian statehood at French-Saudi UN summit

Saudi Arabia, the conference’s co-host, has repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, and there appears little prospect of Riyadh normalising relations with Tel Aviv. Analysts note that France’s vision of mutual recognition, Western states recognising Palestine in exchange for Arab normalisation with Israel, is rapidly collapsing in the face of Israeli escalation and public outrage across the Arab world.

Palestinians and their supporters are likely to view this latest shift as yet another instance of Western duplicity, offering rhetorical support while continuing to shield Israel from accountability. The Elders, a group of former global statesmen, urged Macron in an open letter to treat recognition as a “transformative step toward peace,” and not to view the self-determination of Palestinians as a chip to be negotiated with Israel.

Read: 80% of Israeli Jews support US President Trump’s proposal to ethnically cleanse Gaza, survey finds

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Continue ReadingShameful U-turn as UK and France abandon plans to recognise Palestinian state at peace conference

Israeli forces take control of Gaza aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg

Spread the love

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/09/gaza-aid-boat-madleen-israel-greta-thunberg-freedom-flotilla-coalition

Crew of activists making symbolic attempt to deliver aid expected to be held in port until deportation hearings

A boat seized by Israel’s military as it tried to break the blockade on Gaza was towed into an Israeli port after sunset on Monday, with the crew of activists including Greta Thunberg expected to be held there in advance of deportation hearings.

The Madleen was attempting to bring a symbolic shipment of aid to Gaza, which faces a looming famine after more than 11 weeks of total siege and ongoing severe restrictions on food entering the territory.

In recent days Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians and injured hundreds more as they tried to reach a handful of sites where a US- and Israeli-backed logistics organisation is handing out limited supplies.

Thunberg and the other 11 members of the Madleen crew, including the French MEP Rima Hassan and the Al Jazeera journalist Omar Faiad, have been out of contact since Israeli forces took control of the boat in the early hours of Monday morning.

The legal adviser to the Israeli navy told the rights group Adalah, which is representing the detainees: “To the best of our knowledge, none of them are injured or currently require medical treatment.”

…

Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/09/gaza-aid-boat-madleen-israel-greta-thunberg-freedom-flotilla-coalition

Israel’s Seizure of Gaza Freedom Flotilla Called a ‘Blatant Act of International Piracy’

Continue ReadingIsraeli forces take control of Gaza aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg