The U.S.–Israel War on Iran Is a Strategic Necessity

Dear Editor:

In the current debate surrounding the military campaign undertaken by the United States and Israel to dismantle Iran’s nuclear weapons infrastructure, a number of voices have expressed alarm about escalation and geopolitical risk. While such concerns are understandable, they must be weighed against a far more consequential reality: the grave danger posed by a radical regime that has spent decades pursuing nuclear capabilities while simultaneously exporting terror and repression. In my view, the joint U.S.–Israel effort to neutralize Iran’s nuclear ambitions is not only justified but indispensable to the long-term security of the free world.

For more than four decades, the ruling authorities in Tehran have demonstrated a consistent pattern of hostility toward democratic nations and their allies. Their leadership has invested enormous national resources in ballistic missile development, nuclear enrichment programs, and the financing of militant proxies operating across the Middle East. These groups—whether in Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, Iraq, or Yemen—have been armed, funded, and directed by Tehran to destabilize the region and to threaten civilians far beyond Iran’s borders.

A regime that openly declares its intention to destroy another sovereign nation, while simultaneously striving to acquire nuclear weapons, cannot be treated as a normal international actor. Allowing such a government to obtain the means of nuclear warfare would constitute a catastrophic failure of global leadership. The consequences would not be confined to one region; they would reverberate across continents, emboldening extremist movements and accelerating nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East.

Equally important is the moral dimension of this conflict. The Iranian people themselves have long been victims of the very regime that claims to represent them. Despite possessing vast natural resources and a highly educated population, Iran’s citizens often endure economic hardship, political repression, and the suppression of fundamental freedoms. Billions of dollars that could otherwise be used to improve living standards, modernize infrastructure, and foster prosperity have instead been diverted into weapons programs and the sponsorship of militant organizations abroad.

It is therefore entirely appropriate to recognize that dismantling Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure is not merely a matter of strategic defense—it is also an act that could help open the door to a different future for the Iranian people. A nation with Iran’s rich cultural heritage, intellectual capital, and economic potential should not be condemned to isolation and poverty because of the ideological obsessions of an authoritarian leadership.

History has shown that when oppressive regimes lose the tools of intimidation and militarized expansion, the possibility of reform and renewal can emerge. The international community should hope that the weakening of Iran’s nuclear apparatus ultimately empowers the Iranian people to pursue a government that reflects their aspirations rather than suppresses them.

The world is undeniably safer when nuclear weapons are kept out of the hands of regimes that openly threaten annihilation and sponsor global terror networks. The decisive actions taken by the United States and Israel reflect a recognition of that reality. Preventing nuclear proliferation while standing in solidarity with the Iranian people is not only prudent policy—it is a moral imperative.

Sincerely,
Elisheva Kuharetz
Brooklyn, NY

Rewriting Jerusalem’s History

Dear Editor:

Israel’s temporary wartime restrictions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, “follow tensions as Jewish activists increasingly encroach on the contested religious site,” a subheadline in the New York Times asserted this week.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “encroach” as “to enter by gradual steps or by stealth into the possessions or rights of another.” The encroacher is intruding on someone else’s property.

Yet Jews never enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque. What they do is pray, in small numbers, in a different part of the 36-acre Temple Mount plaza. What the Times was saying, in effect, is that the very presence of Jews anywhere on the Mount constitutes “encroaching,” because the entire Temple Mount plaza is Arab property.

By what right does it belong to the Arabs? The Times doesn’t say. It just presumes.

The Jews built the First Temple, under the direction of King Solomon, around 960 BCE. The Muslims conquered the Temple Mount in 638 CE. So the Jews were there 1600 years before the Muslims.

And that wasn’t the only egregious misrepresentation of Jerusalem’s history in the New York Times article.

Describing contemporary instances of tension at the site, the Times article claimed that a visit to the Temple Mount by Israeli cabinet minister Ariel Sharon in 2000 ”prompted a bout of violence that led to a deadly Palestinian uprising known as the second Intifada.”

But that’s not what Palestinian Arab officials have said about the causes of the violence.

Mahmoud Nofal, a senior adviser to Yasser Arafat, told the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur on March 1, 2001—five months after the violence began—that “a few days before the visit” by Sharon, “Arafat asked us to get ready to initiate the conflict.”

The Palestinian Authority’s minister of communications, Imad Falluji, remarked during a visit to Lebanon on March 3, 2001, that the Second Intifada “was planned since Arafat’s return from Camp David, and his rejection of the American President Bill Clinton’s proposals,” according to the Associated Press.

And here’s what Arafat’s widow, Suha Arafat, said about the origins of the Second Intifada, on PA Television on November 12, 2011: “Arafat sent us far away [before it began]…He said: ‘You have to leave Palestine, because I want to start an intifada.’…He ordered us to leave because he had already decided to carry out the intifada following the Oslo Accords and the failure of Camp David (in July 2000).”

Sincerely
Prof Rafael Medoff