Israel's attack on Iran brings the West closer to its day of reckoning

Middle East Eye

4 hours ago

Israel is no longer hiding its crimes. In Gaza, it wages open genocide - razing hospitals, schools, mosques and apartment blocks. More than 55,000 people have been killed. A total siege chokes the demolished territory.
Having walked for miles through ruins, exhausted and starving, civilians rush aid trucks for a chance at survival, only to be shot down. Some return with sacks of flour, others with the bloodied corpses of loved ones - gunned down, shelled, as they scrambled for a few grains.
And Gaza is just one front.
In Lebanon, Israel strikes at will - bombing homes, assassinating across borders, occupying villages it never left. It holds the Syrian Golan Heights, expands deeper into southern Syria, and fires missiles at the edge of Damascus.
Borders mean nothing. Laws mean less. Israel moves how it wants, kills whom it wants.
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Now it has turned to Iran.
After indirect talks between Tehran and Washington in Oman, Israel launched a sudden, unprovoked war. First, assassinations: military leaders, scientists, civilian officials. Then air strikes: on military sites, power plants, airports - even public infrastructure. The excuse? Iran's peaceful nuclear programme, which is fully monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Western hypocrisy
The hypocrisy is staggering.
French President Emmanuel Macron rushed to Israel's side, asserting that Iran's nuclear programme is a threat to global security - this from the same France that helped secretly build Israel's Dimona nuclear facility in the 1950s and 1960s, enabling the region's only undeclared nuclear arsenal, in violation of international law. No inspections, no oversight, no accountability.
Israel is now believed to possess between 80 and 90 nuclear warheads, along with second-strike capability via submarines and aircraft. It refuses inspections and has never signed the Non‑Proliferation Treaty. Yet it relentlessly bombs Iran in the name of nuclear non‑proliferation.
The goal has never changed: subjugate the region, extract its wealth, silence its people. But this time, the playbook is failing
Britain quickly followed France, sending Royal Air Force jets to the Middle East to back Israel. The US escalated further, moving two destroyers towards the Eastern Mediterranean, boosting weapons shipments, and syncing military operations with Israel in real time. Washington isn't watching; it's in the war.
The European Commission followed blindly, repeating the same line: 'Israel has the right to defend itself' - even now, when it is the aggressor, and Iran is defending itself from foreign attack.
It's the same script used to justify the genocide in Gaza; the same cover for crimes. International law and humanitarian norms are all suspended for Israel.
And so the West continues to arm it to the teeth - not to protect civilians, but to dominate the region. To ensure Israel remains the only nuclear power. To control, crush, expand.
Let's be clear: Israel was never just a state. It was created as a western settler colony to replace the retreating empires of Britain and France. Britain withdrew its troops, but not its ambitions. The US stepped in, taking over as regional enforcer by propping up tyrants, securing oil and suppressing resistance.
The goal has never changed: subjugate the region, extract its wealth, silence its people.
But this time, the playbook is failing.
Arab world enraged
Israel is now ruled by fanatics, openly and proudly. Ministers threaten annihilation. Settlers chant for genocide. Soldiers film themselves flattening apartment blocks and posing in the lingerie of the women they've displaced and killed. Families buried in concrete, children erased from classrooms - all in the name of 'security'.
In Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites, is stormed repeatedly. Israeli mobs march through the streets chanting: 'May your villages burn.' They celebrate the destruction of schools in Gaza. Genocide is no longer denied; it's declared.
And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the architect of apartheid and war, stands before the cameras claiming to defend the 'free world'.
Across the Arab world, people are watching - bitter, disgusted and enraged. Their leaders shake hands with war criminals. They normalise while Israel incinerates. The region has been paralysed, powerless.
Until now. Because this time, someone stood up.
Iran is not Gaza. It is a sovereign state of around 90 million people, stretching across 1.65 million square kilometres. Its terrain frustrates invasions, its depth absorbs attacks, and its missiles reach deep into Israel. It has been sanctioned, sabotaged, assassinated - and it still stands, still strikes back.
For the first time since 1948, Israeli cities are under sustained fire. The illusion of immunity is gone.
And Israel cannot claim victimhood - not when it holds the bombs, the nukes, the backing of every western power. Not when it has spent decades attacking others with impunity.
Reopening old wounds
Indeed, Iran's resistance has shattered illusions: the myth of Israel's invincibility, the silence of the region, the lie of western neutrality.
Even those once hostile to Iran on sectarian or political grounds are now cheering - not because Iran is perfect, but because someone finally said: no more.
And within Iran, something deeper has awakened. This war has torn open old wounds.
Most know 1953, when the CIA and MI6 orchestrated a coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh after he nationalised Iran's oil. Operation Ajax toppled a democratically elected government and reinstated Mohammad Reza Shah, a western-aligned dictator. What followed was 25 years of repression, enforced by the Savak secret police, armed and trained by the West.
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But the wounds stretch back further.
In the early 1890s, a revolt shook the empire after the shah handed a British company control of Iran's entire tobacco industry. Led by clerics like Ayatollah Shirazi, Iranians launched a nationwide boycott, and the concession was ultimately cancelled. The revolt weakened the Qajar dynasty and planted in Iran's collective memory a searing lesson: never again bow to foreign control.
That memory still lives - in every chant, every protest, every funeral.
Every missile launched today carries the weight of a century of betrayal and resistance. Now, it's raw again.
A clip has gone viral: an unveiled Iranian woman, her voice breaking with fury, denounces the genocide in Gaza, the silence of the West, and the decades of degradation inflicted on her country. Then she shouts: 'We want a nuclear bomb.'
This isn't about destruction. It's about dignity. It's about saying: we will not be broken again.
This is not just a military conflict, but a historical reckoning - a psychological rupture.
Iran isn't just retaliating. It's remembering.
And the shift is spreading.
Clinging to fantasy
Pakistan, the only Muslim-majority country with nuclear weapons, has sounded the alarm. Its defence minister has warned that the region is on the brink, and Pakistan could be next. As Israel deepens its alliance with India, Islamabad sees what's coming.
Turkey, too, is on alert. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned last year that Israel would 'set its sights' on his country if it was 'not stopped'. Then came a chilling retort from Netanyahu in the Knesset: 'The Ottoman Empire will not be revived anytime soon.' This is not a history lesson, but a warning. Turkey knows this is not about Iran alone; it is a campaign to reassert full-spectrum control over the region.
Israel, high on western backing and unchecked power, now believes it can subjugate the entire Muslim world: bomb it, starve it, fragment it, humiliate it.
Israel thought it could repeat the past: assassinate, bomb, claim victory. But now Tel Aviv, Haifa and Ashkelon are under fire
But the region is waking up. This is a war on dignity, on the very idea that anyone in this region dares to stand tall.
And still, the West clings to fantasy. The BBC interviews the shah's son, asking if Israeli strikes might help 'liberate' Iran. As if Iranians are waiting to be saved by the son of a dictator - a dictator they themselves overthrew. As if 'freedom' comes from missiles and monarchs.
Israel thought it could repeat the past: assassinate, bomb, claim victory. But now Tel Aviv, Haifa and Ashkelon are under fire.
The war has entered Israeli soil. The illusion of invulnerability is over.
And Iran can endure. It has been preparing for this moment for decades. The dream that Israel could destroy it in days is gone.
Tel Aviv has lit a fire it cannot contain. And the West? It stands behind Israel again - mask off. Arming it, shielding it, using it. Not for peace or justice, but for control.
But this time, the region is awake. And the reckoning has begun.
History is moving. And it may not move in the West's favour.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.