HANDS OFF IRAN: Rally announcement and analysis
The Palestine Solidarity Committee at IU supports the upcoming rally by the Indiana University Divestment Coalition against war on Iran. The rally convene at the Courthouse Square in Bloomington on Friday June 27th at 6pm. It will also include a march to The Mill to highlight Bloomington’s cooperation with NSWC Crane.
A single phone call stands between the world and a halt to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.
Two weeks of explosive conflict have rocked West Asia. Israel, with weapons, intelligence, and permission of the United States, launched a long-range war against Iran. As typical, Israel adopted the so called ‘Dahiya Doctrine’, a strategy where civilian targets are struck and military targets with many potential civilian casualties are prioritized, in a bid to put popular pressure on the government. This strategy has killed at least 657 Iranians and wounded 2,000. Tens of thousands of people were displaced as they fled population centers.
Israel’s flimsy justification, that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon, was subtly sidelined by Israeli politicians and military leaders. Soon the airwaves were blanketed with talk of regime change, informing the thousands of victims of the war that they were being bombed for their own benefit and to bring about peace. In some cases, Israelis even called to threaten individual Iranian scientists and their families.
Scholars of international law agree: Every strike Israel made in this war was illegal under international law, and many strikes, particularly those targeting scientists, civilian officials, and their families, may constitute war crimes. It goes without saying that Iran has a right to defend itself under such circumstances.
Gaza And Iran
Similar to Iraq, Libya, and Syria, the agents of western imperialism hope for nothing more than to fracture and de-develop Iran as a stop on the road to Palestine’s full colonization, whatever the cost in human misery. The deep connection between this war and intensifying genocide in Gaza was made evident by international responses to Israel’s surprise attacks.
The UN security council canceled a meeting to discuss the situation in Gaza. Governments in Europe, which have been slowly increasing pressure on Israel to wrap up its war in Gaza, lined up to praise the strikes and repeat Israel’s bogus justifications. While Israel and Iran traded blows, the IOF murdered hundreds more Palestinians by opening fire on them as they congregated at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites to collect food. Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq all have the same fundamental rights to self defense and to fight their own occupation, as confirmed in the UN charter. Iran is under attack now simply for partially supplying the means for them to realize that right.
US politicians and media institutions have worked for decades to degrade the solidarity between Americans and Iranians that ought to exist. That work kicked into overdrive since the outbreak of direct war on June 12th. Americans have been bombarded from every direction with propaganda about Iran; that the country wishes death on us, that they are moments away from creating and using nuclear weapons against Israel or America, and so on.
Some propagandists even make the Orwellian argument that bombing Iranians somehow benefits them and argue the US should topple the Iranian government. One need not support Iran’s domestic policies to recognize the twisted and incoherent logic at play. While the Iranian government has condemned the attacks and responded militarily, domestic opposition groups have also uniformly condemned the attacks and stated the obvious: bombing Iranians doesn’t help them or any opposition movement. People around the world must see through the propaganda and renew our call to end the war in Gaza.
As of writing, a fragile ceasefire has taken hold between Israel and Iran. Credible reporting indicates that the entire campaign played out within the bounds set by President Donald Trump. He gave permission for the strikes, vetoed certain tactics, and encouraged others. The US even committed a direct act of war by striking Iranian nuclear sites on June 21st. After doing so, he ordered and enforced a ceasefire on Israel, which was moments from breaking the agreement in a more serious way. This underlines the absolute dependence Israel has on the US.
That dependence could be used to end the war.
One simple phone call could end the genocide in Gaza and surge aid to the long-suffering people there. Trump’s policies have at times been contradictory, oscillating between acquiescence to the neoconservative influence in his administration, his love for the spectacle of military power, and commitment to avoid the appearance of ‘nation building’ projects.
As the Palestine Solidarity movement develops, we can build popular pressure to take advantage of these fractures in ruling class politics. A rally is just one step on this path.
In the local context, our work remains the same. Our universities must be held to account for their complicity with an increasingly desperate apartheid regime. Our cities must not cooperate with a military industrial complex that profits from conflict. Above all, we need to focus on Gaza and supporting our brothers and sisters facing unimaginable violence.
We can’t let up until Palestine is free.