Kasra Aarabi and Saeid Golkar
Middle East Forum, Dec. 4, 2024
“The ballistic missiles Iran’s regime has been firing are called Khaybar Destroyers—in other words, “Jew destroyers.”’
With the murder of Rabbi Zvi Kogan, an Israeli rabbi who helped provide kosher food in the United Arab Emirates, now confirmed as terrorism, the Iranian regime’s involvement is likely. The murder followed the killing of Arvin Ghahremani in Kermanshah prison on November 4, 2024, the first Iranian Jew executed by the Islamic Republic regime in 30 years. Even though many Western officials remain in denial, both deaths reflect the reality that the Islamic Republic of Iran has ramped up its war on Jews.
In the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, many Western leaders and academics have attempted to rationalize and even justify Tehran’s growing attacks on Israel, whether by proxy or, in April and October 2024, directly. Much of the legacy media embrace their view that two factors drive Iranian leaders: first, support for Palestinians and, second, as an act of deterrence against Israeli aggression.
In reality, regime propaganda drives such narratives to divert from the Islamic Republic’s true motivations. A fortnight ago, Javad Zarif, Iran’s vice president for Strategic Affairs and a former foreign minister, said the regime opposes only Zionists, not Jews. Nothing he said, however, reflects how the regime views its war with Israel.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps … both hint at the extermination of the Jewish people.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) see themselves in a religious-ideological war against Jews. Both hint at the extermination of the Jewish people. Consider “Operation True Promise,” the name the IRGC bestowed on its latest missile barrage against Israel. To Westerners, this name has little meaning, but it is a direct reference to Imam Sadegh, the sixth Imam in Shi’a Islam, who promised the total destruction of Jews. In essence, the name is not arbitrary but carries the same deadly connation as the “Final Solution.”
The regime’s military doctrine is also important. Hossein Salami, commander in chief of the IRGC, declared that Hezbollah’s war with Israel is based on its Ashura’i doctrine, a reference to Imam Hussein’s battle death on the plains of Karbala, the consummate sacrifice in the name of religion. This, in turn, highlights how ideology and religion, not cost-benefit analysis, govern Iranian Islamist thought. …SOURCE
