The mission of Issues in Perspective is to provide thoughtful, historical and biblically-centered perspectives on current ethical and cultural issues.

What motivates the rulers of Iran?  Why do they invest billions of dollars in arming themselves and their proxies (e.g., Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis of Yemen, etc.) against Israel?  Is it simply to destroy the growing acceptance of Israel by several Arab nations?  Was the 7 October genocidal attack designed to thwart the seemingly imminent recognition by Saudi Arabia of Israel? Or was it something more egregious, more dastardly?

Reuel Marc Gerecht, resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Ray Takeyh, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, make this observation:  These questions ignore “a fundamental motivation of Iran’s theocracy: anti-Semitism. At least three generations of radical Iranian clerics have viewed Israel as illegitimate, usurping sacred Islamic lands in the name of a pernicious ideology advanced by history’s most devilish and stubborn people. Using the language of French Marxism, they call Israel a Western ‘colonial-settler state,’ and they believe Jews guide American imperialism in the Middle East. In this struggle between good and evil, Muslims have a religious obligation to resist Israel and global Jewry.”  They continue:

• The founder of the revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, set the standard for the Islamic Republic of Iran. In his book Islamic Government, he wrote, “From the very beginning, the historical movement of Islam had to contend with the Jews, for it was they who first established anti-Islamic propaganda and engaged in various stratagems, and as you can see, this activity continues down to the present.” He depicted Jews as distorters of the Quran, financial hoarders, and agents of the West.
• “Khomeini’s anti-Semitic themes were picked up by his two most important disciples, former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the ‘pragmatic’ cleric par excellence, and the current supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Rafsanjani published a book, Israel and Beloved Jerusalem, claiming that resistance to the Jewish state was the sacred duty of ‘every Muslim and anyone who believes in God.’ Judaism for Rafsanjani was irretrievably ‘immersed in colonialism’ and ‘Zionism is the essential partner of global arrogance [America].’  Messrs. Rafsanjani and Khamenei green-lighted the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994, which left 85 dead and 300 wounded.
• “Holocaust denial is a natural consequence of this mentality. Mr. Khamenei has been the regime’s most imaginative inventor of such odious tales. ‘There are documents showing close collaboration of the Zionists with Nazi Germany, and exaggerated numbers relating to the Jewish Holocaust were fabricated to solicit the sympathy of world public opinion, to lay the ground for the occupation of Palestine, and to justify the atrocities of the Zionists,’ Mr. Khamenei said in a 2001 speech, Iran’s state television reported. He has even turned Holocaust denial into a free-speech issue, saying in a 2002 address: ‘All politicians, all reporters, all intellectuals, all officials, all experts in the West should bow their heads to commemorate the gas chambers. That is, they should all endorse a tale the authenticity of which is not clear.’  For four decades, the Islamic Republic has created a propaganda machine of hate. Iranian state agencies have routinely published an infamous booklet—The Protocols of the Elders of Zion—and other anti-Semitic tracts. The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting airs anti-Semitic documentaries and TV series. Regime leaders, including Mr. Khamenei, have met routinely with Western Holocaust deniers at state-sanctioned conferences in Tehran. The International Holocaust Cartoon Contest, which Mr. Khamenei began in 2006, awards a prize to anti-Semitic art.”
• “Western statesmen and journalists have often seen the Iranian theocracy’s anti-Semitism as anti-Zionism, something turned on and off for Arab audiences by more sophisticated Persians. Many have consistently tried to isolate the regime’s anti-Semitism to a group of Iranian ‘hardliners’—even though these same men have always held power. Obviously it is easier for Barack Obama and Joe Biden to envision their nuclear diplomacy with Tehran as stabilizing and possibly transformative when Iran’s rulers aren’t seen as diehard, lethal anti-Semites . . . Western policy toward Iran’s theocracy should see the regime as Mr. Khamenei does. Anti-Semitism isn’t adventitious, a passion that can be compartmentalized as pragmatism requires. Iranian expansionism—its support to radical militias throughout the Middle East—is impossible to understand properly without seeing the world as Iranian leaders do. They believe they are fighting a Jewish conspiracy that controls the West and intends to humble Muslims everywhere. Hamas’s war against Israel is part of that struggle.”

Thomas Friedman adds that “I believe the chokehold that Iran’s Jew-hating clerical regime is putting on Israel from the west, north and south is an existential threat to Israel. All Iran needs to do is have Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis launch one rocket a day at Israel, and tens of thousands of Israelis will refuse to go back to their homes along the border areas that are under fire. The country will shrink — or worse . . .  If Iran gets away with this, its appetite for squeezing any rival with its landcraft carriers will only grow. Israel can put up a strong fight and is capable of striking deep in Iran. But ultimately, to break Iran’s tightening stranglehold, Israel needs allies from the United States and NATO and the moderate Arab states. And the United States, NATO and the moderate Arab states need Israel.”

The Economist comments on another aspect of the Israel-Hamas war that is quite profound:  “Now the war in Gaza is radicalizing and horrifying the Muslim world. The Palestinians have global attention fixed on their plight after years of neglect. Hamas may claim that as a success of sorts. But many blame the Islamist terrorist group for bringing down Israel’s hellfire.  The fallout shows that Muslims stand at a critical juncture in the evolution of their faith. Huge religious, political and social transformations are changing the Middle East and its 400m people. The question is whether Hamas’s attack reverses this revolution by stoking Islamism’s embers. Anti-Israeli and anti-Western fervor could agitate its grassroots anew.”

“To understand why such an outcome would be so harmful, consider how much Muslim attitudes to religion had shifted in the years leading up to the attacks of October 7th. Religious practice has changed from a political mobilization for communal salvation, as espoused by Islamists, to a more personal quest for spirituality. The upshot is that for many Muslims Islam has become increasingly depoliticized.”

Most importantly, The Economist details the impact on Iran:  “This trend is clear in Iran. Since the revolution in 1979, It has been led by a Shia cleric. It calls itself an Islamic republic and officially, 99.5% of its 89m people are Muslim. But in 2021 an online poll by Gamaan, a Dutch research group, claimed that about half of its 50,000 Iranian respondents said they had lost or changed their religion. Fewer than a third identified as Shia, the ruling Muslim sect. And despite the country’s ban on proselytizing, interest in the country’s non-Muslim faiths, like the Zoroastrian and Baha’i ones, is soaring. Evangelicals in Iran say that Christianity is growing faster there than in any other country. Iran is ‘the first post-Islamic society’, believes Shahriyar Ahy, a pundit from the country.”

Iran’s war against Israel is driven by a deep-seated anti-Semitism that matches the horrors of Nazi anti-Semitism.  It energizes Iran’s proxies as well.  But Iranian Islam is changing.  The younger Muslims are turning away from political Islam to seek a deeper spirituality.  For that reason, as The Economist article demonstrates, many are turning to evangelical Christianity. In the midst of egregious evil, God is at work building His church for His glory.

See Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh, “The Real Reason Iran Hates Israel” in the Wall Street Journal (27 November 2023); Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times (29 November 2023); and The Economist (2 December 2023), pp. 51-52.