The conflict between Israel and the mullahs’ Iran — which, at the time of writing, appears to be coming to an end — has highlighted the significance of war itself for Israel. By depriving the Islamic Republic of Iran of the means to achieve its exterminatory goals, Israel is redefining the concrete conditions for its security. This raises with even greater urgency the question of whether to continue the endless and deadly war in Gaza. But the confrontation that has just ended also calls into question Europe’s inaction in the face of the criminal threats made for decades against the State of Israel and the Jews, which is merely the other side of its indifference to the fate of the Iranian people.
The danger that the Islamic Republic of Iran poses to Israel combines two dimensions that can be clearly distinguished in the sequence of events that is now coming to an end. The intention to destroy the State of Israel; the means available to do so. The Israeli offensive, which was supported by the United States, had only one objective: to deprive the Islamist regime of the means of mass destruction it seeks to use by destroying its military nuclear potential. Despite some lingering doubts, it currently appears that this has now been achieved, with concerns limited to the possibility that Iran may have hidden enriched uranium that is difficult to trace.
It should be remembered that Iran’s intentions were not limited to fiery rhetoric about eradicating the “Zionist enemy,” even in international arenas where, as a matter of principle, such rhetoric should have been strictly forbidden. Far beyond words, it has been translated into action, including the October 7 attack, which was green-lighted by Tehran. This attack was followed by aggression from Hezbollah and then from other Iranian satellites elsewhere. The fact that these satellites are now greatly weakened does not prevent the intention from continuing, in the orbit of an Iranian center that feeds its virulence. In short, radical anti-Zionism, which expressly aims to wipe the Jewish state off the map, will not disappear from people’s minds. It is part of the reality that Israel must reckon with in its geopolitical context, even in its immediate surroundings. But once this intention is no longer backed by the means necessary to carry it out, the situation is no longer the same. An end to the fighting with Iran is essential for a new phase to begin.
An intention without the capacity to be translated into action remains a cause for concern, and to dispute the obligation of the designated target to take this threat seriously at all times is to give in to a form of irenicism that is suspicious to say the least. The fact remains that pure intentions without the means to back them up, no military action can eradicate them. We must rely on political change, which ultimately rests on the hope that, from within, the opinions held and promoted by Iran will change and that their influence will wane wherever it is felt. This must take place against a backdrop of diplomatic agreements that will undoubtedly be forged on new foundations.
Some will argue that a diplomatic agreement, rather than defeat followed by Iran’s capitulation, is yet another way of giving the regime a new lease of life, paving the way for it to resume its activities and rearm. But here we come up against a condition that cannot be waived: if a new beginning is possible in Iran, it can only be through the will of the Iranian people, not through a collapse brought about by outside intervention. There is no reason to believe that it could be otherwise, least of all the right of states committed to the self-determination of peoples and the international policy orientations that flow from it.
In this case, it can even be added that no state is more aware of this sine qua non condition than Israel. There is no modern state more viscerally committed to the principle of self-determination of peoples than one that has staked so much on it in its short history. In accordance with its foundations, the conduct of war can have no other goal for this state than security, because it links its mission of providing a home for the Jewish people to their self-determination. Since the realization of the Zionist project, Jewish security has been based on self-protection made possible by the right of peoples to self-determination in a sovereign state. After the Shoah, the reconstruction of the entire Jewish world through the polarity between Israel and the diaspora found its balance by redefining and enhancing this bond. The fact that the Israeli population overwhelmingly supported the attack on Iran, even though this attack was decided and carried out by a government that the majority of the population distrusts because of its failures and crimes in the war in Gaza, is sufficient proof of the strength of this conviction. This was also an expression, from the Israeli side, of a conviction shared by all Jews regarding the only possible basis for a just war.
In this general vision of Jewish politics, there is no place for expansionism, contrary to what the Israeli far right is trying to impose by force on all the territories occupied since 1967. Nor can there be any place for the desire to decide for others the meaning of their destiny—whether that of a people living under an intolerable dictatorship, or that of a people aspiring to political autonomy and seeking to acquire sovereignty over the land that is rightfully theirs.
In light of the war that has just ended, this is the lesson that must be learned on all fronts in Israel. If the war is justified in defense of the Jews, then it is on the condition that no national policy, as it is currently being implemented or sought elsewhere, is deprived of its own legitimacy. The policies of others concern Israel as foreign policy, which Israel had stipulated it wanted to be peaceful and cooperative in the very letter of its declaration of independence, limiting itself to claiming for itself membership of the camp of democracies and committing itself to being an example of this in the eyes of the world. That this commitment is constantly being called into question by internal and external conflicts is what creates the permanent tension under which this democratic state has lived since the defensive war it was forced to wage in the aftermath of its birth—a defensive war that was the first in a long series, the very series that the war with Iran, which is now coming to an end, is intended, at least for a time, to interrupt.
It follows that, just as overthrowing the Iranian regime could not be a goal of war, the continuation of the war in Gaza cannot be justified as the expression of an authentically Zionist policy. What can be noted, however, is that the sequence of events in the Israeli-Iranian conflict now paves the way for a completely different understanding of the overall situation in which the war in Gaza is taking place. Radical, eliminationist anti-Zionism, of which Iran remains the main source, is fortunately seeing its intangible goal slip further and further out of reach. Thus, this 12-day war, which reached the existential intensity of the 6-day war in the sense that it brought the deadly episode of October 7 to a close — without leading to a land grab and while ensuring that the dream of destroying the State of Israel has become even more unrealistic — will have succeeded in a short time in establishing the calm in Israel without which a settlement of the Palestinian question seems utopian.
Will this change be accepted by the current Israeli government, as it has already been accepted by Israeli society, on which the stranglehold is finally loosening? This is obviously the question we are now asking ourselves. In this respect, criticism of Israeli policy has been opportunely revived, thanks to the recent clarification of the situation.
But there is another lesson to be learned from the Israeli-Iranian conflict. It is undoubtedly difficult to accept, but it is nonetheless clear. The international community cannot ignore it: the murderous intent lies at the heart of the ideology of the Islamic revolution. This was expressed from the outset and has never been denied, even though the Iranian regime quickly turned into a corrupt and predatory autocracy, enriching an elite to the point of excess, trampling on freedoms and oppressing the population. Let us repeat: it is exclusively up to the Iranian people themselves to free themselves from what has coalesced under the name of the Islamic Republic of Iran, once they manage not only to reject it by a majority, but also to overthrow it. Nevertheless, the judgments made from outside on such a regime are binding on all nations, and in particular on European nations, which are a priori capable of recognizing what, in terms of rights and international relations, is clearly at odds with what they stand for.
However, retrospective self-examination on this point can only be severe. It is clear that Iranian society has received too little support from a Europe concerned with its immediate interests and always ready to take half-measures, and that relations with this regime have been maintained while the reality of the facts and the obvious meaning of the rhetoric have been swept under the carpet. The policy of Europeans towards the Iranian people and towards the exterminatory antisemitism targeting Jews and Israel – here it must be emphasized that Germany is a notable exception – are two sides of the same policy of indifference, combined with a lack of resources. Under the guise of caution, it has been nothing more than a policy of self-renunciation, of obliterating its historical conscience and ultimately its values. In this sense, this war also marks Europe’s responsibility for its inaction. Israel, Jews and Iranians, each from their own perspective, now feel this deeply. They must rebuild themselves. And Europe must change its view of what it really is.
Bruno Karsenti and Danny Trom
