Israel was reborn to ensure that Jews would never again be passive victims of history’s storms. The lesson of Jewish sovereignty is not that power corrupts, but that powerless virtue is not enough.
There are moments in history when states must act not only to defend their borders, but to uphold the moral clarity that underpins civilization itself. The question of whether Israel should strike the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program is not merely one of security—it is a question of survival and of historical necessity.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is not a “normal” nation-state pursuing power in the way other states do. It is a revolutionary theocracy that views war not as a failure of diplomacy, but as a sacred obligation. Its ideology is not rooted in pragmatism, but in eschatology. It is a regime built not to govern, but to redeem the world through fire. And the fire it promises begins with the Jews.
From its founding in 1979, the Islamic Republic has tied its legitimacy to a perpetual jihad against the West, with Israel as its metaphysical obsession. “Death to Israel” is not a slogan. It is the regime’s theological mission statement.
To imagine that the world can tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran is to misunderstand both the regime and the nature of history. The West, exhausted by its own self-doubt and post-colonial guilt, views the nuclear issue as a matter of “containment,” “deterrence,” and “engagement.” But the ayatollahs view the possession of the bomb as a divine right. They do not wish to join the world—they wish to outlast and outwit it. The mullahs do not want to be accepted at the table of nations—they want to set the table on fire.
To understand this, we must listen to what they actually say. From Supreme Leader Khamenei to the Revolutionary Guard’s generals, the message has never wavered: Israel must be wiped off the map. That is not hyperbole—it is a stated goal. Israel’s very existence is the threat. A Jewish state in the Muslim world is to the Islamic Republic what a lit match is to gasoline.
And so we return to the core point: Israel has no choice.
The world will not stop Iran. It has tried. It has negotiated, begged, bribed, and appeased. The 2015 nuclear deal, hailed by Western diplomats as a diplomatic triumph, was in fact a Faustian bargain in which the West traded temporary quiet for long-term peril. Billions were handed to Tehran in exchange for unverifiable promises and sunsets clauses. And what did the regime do with the money? It armed Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. It built tunnels in Gaza and uranium enrichment facilities in Fordow.
There is no deal to be made with those who sanctify martyrdom and dream of Armageddon.
This is why the responsibility now fell on Israel. This is not a matter of hawkishness or bravado. It is the burden of a people whose very existence is a refutation of the Islamist project. A strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities will be costly. It will provoke further war. It will invite condemnation from the salons of Europe and the editorial pages of American newspapers. But the cost of inaction is greater. To wait is to gamble with genocide.
History is not kind to those who ignore the threats of fanatics. The Jews, more than anyone, understand this. If the world trembles before men who openly fantasize about nuclear martyrdom, Israel does not have the luxury of waiting for that world to grow a spine. There is a time for diplomacy and a time for resolve. When a regime builds missiles inscribed with genocidal slogans, funds armies to encircle your citizens, and enriches uranium in defiance of every international agreement—it is no longer a question of if you should act, but when.
Israel was reborn to ensure that Jews would never again be passive victims of history’s storms. The lesson of Jewish sovereignty is not that power corrupts, but that powerless virtue is not enough. In the face of existential threat, moral clarity demands action. The Islamic Republic must never be allowed to possess the bomb. But if the world will not act, Israel must. And history will now remember that it did.