South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP) expresses its profound horror, and unequivocal condemnation regarding the recent military aggression launched by the United States and Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
We are devastated by the reports emerging, such as the bombing of a girls’ primary school and the killing of more than 200 people, including 153 schoolchildren. Targeting children in their place of learning is a crime that defies conscience. We extend our deepest solidarity to the families of the victims and to the people of Iran, who possess an inalienable right to self-determination, peace, and security. While we support those brave Iranians who have risen up against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s dictatorial regime, the assasination of Khamenei by the US was an unacceptable and illegal act. Freedom for the Iranian people cannot happen under conditions of imperial domination and foreign bombardment. We call for the US and Israeli governments, who are responsible for initiating this unjustifiable and senseless war, to be held accountable before international law.
This war of aggression against Iran is not a spontaneous reaction to recent events; it is the culmination of a thirty-year strategic blueprint. It is the direct realization of the 1996 policy document, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” authored by a study group led by neoconservative Richard Perle for then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That document explicitly advocated for the destruction of the Oslo peace process and the “clean break” from the paradigm of land for peace, seeking instead to impose a new reality of total Israeli regional dominance through regime change and settler-colonial expansion.
What we are witnessing today is the violent fruition of that plan—a paradigm shift achieved not through diplomacy, but through full settler conquest and military devastation. This as Trump’s regime continues to lash out at nations across the world, creating chaos and instability not only in Iran but in Venezuela, Cuba and other countries, and continuing to enforce its colonial goals through the absurd imperial Board of Peace, which seeks to determine the future for the Gazan people without any input from them whatsoever.
We reject the fraudulent legal and moral claims being used to justify this assault on Iran. The concept of a “pre-emptive strike” is not a valid legal concept under international law, which strictly prohibits acts of aggression outside the framework of immediate self-defense against an actual, ongoing armed attack. Iran made it absolutely clear that it would not attack US military bases or Israel, unless attacked first. The bombing of sovereign Iranian territory constitutes a grave violation of the UN Charter.
This escalation could easily spiral into a conflict across the Middle East and beyond. Already, US bases in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan are seeing fire, while rockets are being fired at Israel in retaliation. This newest US/Israeli war will keep no one safe and we call on all US and Israeli citizens to see through the lies that are used to justify the neverending aggressive pursuit of imperial power.
We are dismayed by the abject hypocrisy of Western governments, media and commentators. For years, many have claimed to support the Iranian people’s legitimate struggle for freedom and human rights. Yet, when a school filled with young girls is bombed, and when an entire nation is subjected to collective punishment, these same voices are either silent or loudly cheer for war. One cannot claim to stand with the Iranian people while endorsing—or remaining mute in the face of—the bombing of their children. This selective outrage reveals that their concern was never for Iranian lives, but for geopolitical dominance.
Israel has actively pushed for this war for three decades, viewing military confrontation as a strategic necessity. This apartheid regime, with its history of occupation and ethnic cleansing, requires perpetual war to justify itself. War is not merely a tactic for Israel; it is a condition of its existence as a supremacist state. Netanyahu, Trump and the US neocons are taking the Middle East and the rest of the world into an extremely dangerous moment, threatening to ignite a regional conflagration with catastrophic consequences for all humanity.
Meanwhile, as all eyes focus on Iran, Israel has once again shut all border crossings into Gaza, continuing to violate the ceasefire in Gaza and working towards the full annexation of the West Bank. While speaking out against the war on Iran, we should not forget how this is connected to the struggle for the total liberation of the Palestinian people.
As South African Jews, we draw from our own history’s hard-won lessons about the nature of oppression and the brutality of those who seek to dominate others. We refuse to be silent while our identities are used to justify mass murder. We stand firmly with the people of Iran and with all those across the region resisting militarism and imperialism.
Not in our name.
Freedom for the Iranian people.
End the aggression.