No War with Iran: A JVP Statement

Jewish Voice for Peace denounces the immoral and illegal war on Iran launched by the United States and Israel last night. These attacks expand the endless wars that could destroy the lives of tens of millions of people. We stand in solidarity with the people of Iran and against the U.S. and Israeli government’s imperial warmongering.

The diverse peoples of Iran have risen up in courage against their government’s brutal oppression for decades, including massive protests over the past two months against crushing economic hardship and for a future of freedom and democracy. For this, they have faced horrific repression, with reports of upwards of 20,000 killed and hundreds of thousands injured or arrested. 

But let’s be clear: The history of imperialist regime change, warmaking, violence, and crippling sanctions on Iran and the rest of the region has for decades reinforced the oppression of the Iranian regime. Democracy cannot be claimed, nor the freedom of people won, through the continuation of imperial wars, military assaults and foreign interventions. The precedent of the U.S. and Israel waging war on Iran is a terrifying threat to the safety of all peoples across the Middle East, and across the world. 

For the past two years the Israeli government has expanded its wars of aggression across the region — bombing Lebanon, Iran, Syria and Yemen — in an attempt to distract global attention from its ongoing genocide of Palestinians. Under Trump, the U.S. has bombed Iran, Iraq, Syria, Nigeria and Yemen, and enacted violent regime change in Venezuela, all while carrying out an unchecked assault on immigrants and trans people and the decimation of civil liberties.

The overwhelming majority of Americans do not want genocide and endless war. And they know that the Iranian people, the Palestinian people, and all people of the region and the world should be in control of their own futures, and not at the whims of U.S. and Israeli warmongering. 

It will take a mass anti-war movement to stop this — the time to act is now.