Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

The Middle East is On Fire Because Israeli and U.S. Imperialism Lit the Match
Black Alliance For Peace
18 Jun 2025
🖨️ Print Article
Israel bombing Iran

Decades of U.S. military aid and Israeli occupation created the conditions for the attack on Iran in an unbroken chain of imperial violence.

Originally published in Black Alliance for Peace.

Overnight, the zionist entity of Israel escalated its war of aggression against Iran by launching unprovoked attacks on the Islamic Republic. The notion that a rogue ethnostate that is currently carrying out a genocide believes that it possesses the right to determine which countries can and cannot develop a nuclear weapon is both bizarre and egregious as well as brazenly hypocritical, and further demonstrates that the State of Israel operates firmly within the structures of white “supremacy” ideology, colonialism, and imperialism. Iran, like all sovereign nations, has the right to defend itself from aggression and uphold its security in the face of repeated threats and acts of war. This stands in stark contrast to Israel, which operates a settler colonial occupation of Palestine, as well as portions of Lebanon and Syria.

The idea of Israel, the zionist occupation, claiming a moral position is absurd. And the fact that the international community continues to give Israel any credibility is a dereliction of duty and forms a vacuum of morality for all of those who do not stand resolutely against its genocide in Palestine and its attacks on Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iran. Israel’s immunity granted by Western colonial nations is a further reflection of the moral gulf between these states and the vast majority of humankind that subscribes to values that uphold People(s)-Centered Human Rights, self-determination, and dignity. 

Israel’s unprovoked attack is another example of the lawlessness that is fully supported by the U.S. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) rejects the notion that the U.S. was unaware of this attack. The U.S. had the ability to stop this attack if it was serious about containing Israel’s perpetual war crimes and disregard for international law, which is a major threat to any form of true peace. The combination of Israel’s continued genocidal assaults and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people, and its bombings and occupations of portions of the sovereign nations of Syria and Lebanon prove that Israel and the U.S. are the most dangerous nations in the world. Their power must be dismantled. 

To conflate Israel’s actions with Jewish values is the height of antisemitism. Zionism, an ideology of white “supremacy,” must be wholly separated from Judaism’s teachings of justice, human rights, and inclusivity. Israel is no more a “Jewish state” than the U.S. is a “Christian state.” Both are violent constructs of ethnonationalism. BAP firmly rejects the conflation of Judaism with the barbarism of zionism, just as we denounce the antisemitic trope that equates zionism with Judaism itself.

Israel’s militarism further threatens global stability by spiking the price of oil by 8 percent in one night. This economic shockwave further demonstrates why we must continue linking the devastation of war with the devastation associated with the climate catastrophe that is fueled by capitalist war profiteering interests of fossil fuel cartels and the military industrial complex who both benefit from the Israeli war machine at the expense of human life and the ecosystems necessary to sustain it. Israel’s aggression is capitalism’s credit card with an unlimited spending limit. 

History will remember this moment and Israel’s barbaric acts as an indelible and ignominious stain on international “law” and cooperation, people(s)-centered human rights and the basic tenets of human dignity. 

In Response, BAP Demands that : 

  • The UN Security Council and European Union impose immediate sanctions and consequences for Israel’s illegal acts, and institute an arms embargo.

  • The international community must expel Israel from the United Nations. It has no place among fraternal nations.

  • The international community categorically reject Israel’s fraudulent claims to jurisdiction over Iran’s lawful nuclear energy program.

  • The IAEA investigate Israel’s unregulated nuclear program with the same rigor applied to others.

  • U.S. lawmakers enforce laws prohibiting military aid to human rights violators by cutting off all arms transfers to Israel or face prosecution at the ICC and ICJ for complicity in war crimes.

  • The ICC indict and prosecute Israeli and U.S. officials for continued war crimes throughout West Asia and the lawlessness of genocide perpetuated against the Palestinian people.

  • All anti-imperialist, anti-war, pro-peace movements and organizations support Iran's right to sovereignty, self-defense, and self-determination against Israel’s murderous aggression.

No Compromise! No Retreat!

The Black Alliance for Peace, Coordinating Committee

Israel
Iran

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Belen Fernandez
Israel’s Lebanese Land Grab
21 October 2026
Under the guise of a farcical “pilot zone” project to restore Lebanon’s sovereignty, Israel is pursuing a scorched-earth strategy whi
Gerald Perreira
October 7, 2023: The day that changed the world
21 October 2026
October 7, 2023, was not an isolated attack, but the culmination of generations of Palestinian imprisonment and resistance in Gaza, comparable
Edward Rhymes
What Changes For Palestine?
21 October 2026
Disregard for Palestinian rights is a feature of Israeli politics rather than a bug.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
An open letter to the honorable people of the United States of America
07 October 2026
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has issued a letter addressed to the American people, outlining its views on recent developments a
Dr. M. Reza Behnam
Three Years of Genocide: How ‘Never Again’ Lost Meaning in Gaza
07 October 2026
If international law and justice are buried in the rubble of Gaza, the global community will ultimately be digging its own grave.
Sami Al-Arian
Why Hamas believed the status quo was more dangerous than its 7 October gamble
07 October 2026
Three years into Israel's genocide in Gaza, the consequences of a decision driven by siege, settlement expansion, and assaults on Al-Aqsa are s
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Defending a Non-Existent International Law
30 September 2026
The Hague Group’s goal is to “. . .
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
The U.S. Determination to Achieve Full Spectrum Dominance is Not In Decline
23 September 2026
The trope of the United States being in a state of decline is a common one, but it should not be accepted without scrutiny. The U.S.
Jacqueline Luqman
The Perfect Victim Narrative Applied To Foreign Policy Only Keeps U.S. Imperialism Alive
23 September 2026
The demand to call out alleged crimes in Iran or Cuba while those countries face annihilation from the U.S.
Roberta Rivolta
Western Activism and the Axis of Resistance
23 September 2026
Western pro-Palestinian activism isolates Palestine from its regional allies, depoliticizing its struggle and reinforcing colonial

More Stories


  • Gerald Horne
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Gerald Horne Discusses His New Book on Armed Struggle in California in the 1960s and 1970s
    02 Aug 2024
    Dr. Gerald Horne talks to us about his latest book, “Armed Struggle: Panthers and Communists, Black Nationalists and Liberals in Southern California, Through the Sixties and Seventies.”
  • Abandon Biden campaign poster
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The Abandon Biden Campaign Continues
    02 Aug 2024
    Hudhayfah Ahmad joins us to discuss how and whether the Abandon Biden campaign will change in the wake of Biden’s departure from the race and the elevation of Kamala Harris to the role of…
  • Baraka Iversen show
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist , Kim Iversen
    Observer On The Ground In Venezuela Says US Is Threat To Global Democracy
    31 Jul 2024
    Ajamu Baraka, Chair of the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace, and columnist and editor at the Black Agenda Report, is on the ground in Venezuela and joined The Kim Iversen Show…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    How to Protest for Sonya Massey
    31 Jul 2024
    Sonya Massey’s brutal murder at the hands of the police has resulted in anguish and anger but no difference in how state violence is protested. Instead, we see surrender to the crumbs of condolences…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: In Our Hands: Thoughts on Black Music, Bernice Johnson Reagon, 1976
    31 Jul 2024
    For the late Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Black music was a tool in the struggle for Black liberation, and not what it has mostly become today: a retrograde appendage to neoliberalism and white power.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us