Israel's unprovoked attack on Iran Friday has killed not only high-ranking military officials, but also six Iranian scientists, including two prominent nuclear experts. Nearly 80 civilians, including children, were also reported dead and over 300 were injured after Israeli missiles struck residential neighborhoods in Tehran.
This is not “defense.” This is the logic of state terror, executed by a nation that has for too long operated with impunity, shielded by the United States and its Western allies.
Israel’s Operation “Rising Lion” saw over 200 fighter jets rain destruction on roughly 100 sites across Iran, targeting not only military and nuclear facilities but also private homes and civilian infrastructure. The world is supposed to believe this is about "security," yet the dead are scientists, children, and ordinary people who had nothing to do with any alleged threat. The scale and brazenness of these blatant war crimes should shock even those accustomed to the violence of the region. We cannot allow ourselves to grow numb to this mechanized brutality.
Let’s be clear: killing civilians and scientists in their beds is terrorism, no matter what flag the perpetrators fly.
Israel’s claim that this is about “rolling back the Iranian threat” is the same tired justification used to excuse every atrocity committed in the name of “security” - from the occupation of Palestine to the repeated bombardment of Gaza, which has already killed over 54,000 Palestinians since October 2023. This is the logic of empire, the logic that says “our violence is justified, yours is terrorism.” It is the same logic that has fueled U.S. wars, CIA-backed coups, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is the logic of every terrorist state.
The Case for an Immediate Arms Embargo
How much longer will the world enable this madness? The United Nations, human rights organizations, and a growing number of countries have called for an arms embargo on Israel, recognizing that continued weapons sales make us all complicit in these crimes. Yet, the U.S., Germany, and Italy—the main suppliers of Israel’s arsenal—continue to funnel billions in military aid and advanced weaponry, even as the evidence of war crimes piles up.
The arguments against an arms embargo are as predictable as they are hollow. Israeli officials claim that restricting their access to weapons would mean “the destruction of Israel and a second Holocaust”. This is not only manipulative; it is an insult to the memory of real victims of genocide. The actual risk is the continued normalization of mass murder as state policy, the continued erasure of international law, and the further destabilization of an entire region.
This Madness Has to End
We must call Israel what it is: a terrorist state, no less than the U.S. in Iraq or Russia in Ukraine. The difference is only in the scale and the PR. The world cannot afford to look away or equivocate any longer. Every bomb dropped, every scientist assassinated, every child killed in their sleep is a crime not just against Iran or Palestine but against the very idea of justice and humanity.
It’s time for an immediate, comprehensive arms embargo on Israel. No more bombs, no more bullets, no more “dual-use” tech, no more collaboration in the machinery of death. This is not just a moral obligation—it is a legal one, as affirmed by the International Court of Justice and the UN General Assembly. States that continue to arm Israel are standing against humanity itself.
We Are All Accountable
History will remember who stood by and who stood up. The logic of domination and collective punishment has brought us to the brink of global catastrophe before, and it threatens to do so again.
Our task is to break the cycle, to demand accountability, and to build a world where the murder of scientists and children by a state is met not with excuses, but with outrage and action.
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