SAJR webinar on Iran war interrupted by incoming missiles

The title of the SA Jewish Report’s webinar, “Israel & Iran WTF!” on Monday, 16 June, proved apt when the live interview was abruptly cut short by its Israeli guests having to head to bomb shelters as sirens warned of an imminent attack from Iranian missiles.

Colonel Miri Eisin, the former deputy head of the Israel Defense Forces combat intelligence, and Dr Michael Barak of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University had to shut down their Zoom interviews not even half an hour into the webinar. SA Jewish Report Chairperson Howard Sackstein warned at the beginning of the webinar that circumstances in Israel might compromise the full session, and it did.

However, Eisin was able to explain that prior to the Iranian revolution in 1979, Iran and Israel were “really good friends”.

“The revolution of the Islamic regime in Iran brought Islamic ideology into play. A cardinal element of the ideology influencing Israel and Iran’s relationship is Quds Day.” Quds Day was added to the Muslim anniversary calendar in 1980, and is observed on the last Friday of Ramadan.

“This is significant as it symbolises the liberation of Jerusalem, the liberation of Palestine, and the destruction of Israel by viewing [Israel] through religious eyes as not being able to exist and viewing us as Western colonisers,” Eisin said. “[Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei always said that they view themselves as being the oppressed against the oppressor.”

She said these terms, honed for the past 46 years, have caused a dramatic change in the relationship between Israel and Iran. She also reminded the audience not to go down the path of believing that Iran was a free democracy before the revolution, and that the Shah, the Iranian monarch, was good.

Sackstein asked whether it was high up on Iran’s practical and ideological agenda to destroy Israel. “Ideologically absolutely,” Eisin answered. “When it comes to ideology, it’s at a point where the Islamic regime – but I don’t think the people of Iran – views the existence of the Zionist entity as the cancer of the world.”

Proof, Eisin said, is in the Islamic regime’s top decision makers, including Khamenei; the president of Iran; and the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, “call(ing) for [Israel’s] annihilation and destruction as a cancer in the world”.

“Ideologically it’s a rallying point,” she said. “On the practical side, since the 1990s, Iran’s agenda has been furthered with different types and capabilities of a state. In practical terms, the Islamic regime has established units and armed proxies. By connecting to other terror organisations and entities that want to destroy Israel by supplying them with weapons, Iran has ensured that the ideology and practicalities connect. Iran has armed its proxies with weapons that have been used against [Israel], not just on 7 October, but through connections with organisations such as Hezbollah and the Houthis.”

Barak said that what we are witnessing right now in the Middle East is the result of a long-term strategy of Iran building influence in weak, unstable states across the region.

“We witnessed several historical events in the Middle East including the Arab Spring in 2011, and in 2003, the American invasion of Iraq. This was a golden opportunity for Iran to base its establishments in the region, particularly in Iraq and Lebanon in the 1980s,” he said.

“Iran was building extensive infrastructure in those states. Iran was also increasing its influence in the region to deter Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the United States and Israel from interfering in its internal affairs.”

Said Barak, “Israel isn’t willing, and it’s not its job, to interfere in the internal politics and affairs of its neighbouring states. There are global mechanisms which are meant to ensure that there aren’t any terrorist establishments in these areas. But Israel wasn’t sleeping and was doing things below the radar.” He said Israel took a serious approach to Iran attempting to establish power in Syria to have a closer base to attack Israel.

“Israel took measures against Iran building these extensive proxies on Israel’s borders. Iran isn’t interested in sending its own troops against Israel. Iran sacrifices cheap meat to them by using the Houthis and the pro-Iranian Shia militias in Syria. Iran uses its proxies to do the dirty work, but there was under-the-radar action by Israel, other Western states, and Gulf states to foil the Iranian agenda of establishing this wide network,” Barak said.

When asked about claims of Iran’s nuclear status and its denial of such claims, Eisin said, “The International Atomic Energy Agency, not Israel, has for the past 20 years said that Iran is trying to go down an illegal nuclear-weapon path.”

Iran is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and is under supervision when it comes to the prediction of nuclear weapons, she said. Inspectors in Iran have said multiple times that Iran is deviating from the path of civil nuclear capabilities. Over the past 20 years, negotiation tactics were used in Libya by the international community to quietly halt nuclear capabilities, as well as the tactic used by Israel to attack nuclear facilities “before they become hot”, Eisin said. Prior to Israel’s attack on Iran, Israel attacked the Iraqi nuclear facility in 1981, and the North Korean-built Syrian nuclear facility two months before it went “hot” in 2007, she said.

“There are many paths to nuclear fusion,” Eisin said, “and just a few grams are used for medical and scientific research. However, Iran was enriching uranium to a degree that could only be heading in the direction of military grade nuclear weapons.

“In the agreement that was signed in 2015, it required supervision only of some of the sights in Iran. Iran has always denied everything at every stage along the way. If it complied and shut down some facilities, it would have taken a different path and tried another way to arrive at nuclear-fusion material with its very advanced technological capabilities,” Eisin said.