With the murder of Rabbi Zvi Kogan, an Israeli rabbi who helped provide kosher food in the United Arab Emirates, now confirmed as terrorism, the Iranian regime’s involvement is likely. The murder followed the killing of Arvin Ghahremani in Kermanshah prison on November 4, 2024, the first Iranian Jew executed by the Islamic Republic regime in 30 years. Even though many Western officials remain in denial, both deaths reflect the reality that the Islamic Republic of Iran has ramped up its war on Jews.
In the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, many Western leaders and academics have attempted to rationalize and even justify Tehran’s growing attacks on Israel, whether by proxy or, in April and October 2024, directly. Much of the legacy media embrace their view that two factors drive Iranian leaders: first, support for Palestinians and, second, as an act of deterrence against Israeli aggression.
In reality, regime propaganda drives such narratives to divert from the Islamic Republic’s true motivations. A fortnight ago, Javad Zarif, Iran’s vice president for Strategic Affairs and a former foreign minister, said the regime opposes only Zionists, not Jews. Nothing he said, however, reflects how the regime views its war with Israel.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ... both hint at the extermination of the Jewish people.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) see themselves in a religious-ideological war against Jews. Both hint at the extermination of the Jewish people. Consider “Operation True Promise,” the name the IRGC bestowed on its latest missile barrage against Israel. To Westerners, this name has little meaning, but it is a direct reference to Imam Sadegh, the sixth Imam in Shi’a Islam, who promised the total destruction of Jews. In essence, the name is not arbitrary but carries the same deadly connation as the “Final Solution.”
The regime’s military doctrine is also important. Hossein Salami, commander in chief of the IRGC, declared that Hezbollah’s war with Israel is based on its Ashura’i doctrine, a reference to Imam Hussein’s battle death on the plains of Karbala, the consummate sacrifice in the name of religion. This, in turn, highlights how ideology and religion, not cost-benefit analysis, govern Iranian Islamist thought.
Finally, Khamenei, the IRGC, and its entire terrorist militia network—the so-called “Axis of Resistance”— compare their conflict with Israel to the 628 CE Battle of Khaybar, a reference to when the Prophet Muhammad’s forces laid siege to Khaybar, a stronghold of Jewish tribes in Arabia. After winning the battle, Imam Ali—the first Shi’i Islam—personally killed more than 700 male Jews in Medina and enslaved females, essentially exterminating the Jewish population.
The ballistic missiles Iran’s regime has been firing are called Khaybar Destroyers—in other words, “Jew destroyers.”
This story, learned by heart and propagated through the Islamic Republic, reflects the lens through which clerical and military leaders view the current conflict with Israel as part of a historical struggle against Jews. Indeed, while Khamenei’s eulogists openly refer to him as imam and try to resonate and equate him with Imam Ali, IRGC propaganda states that the “sword of Ali will conquer Khaybar again.” Likewise, the ballistic missiles Iran’s regime has been firing are called Khaybar Destroyers—in other words, “Jew destroyers.”
But this extremist narrative is not confined to the Middle East. One of the slogans participants chant at weekly marches in London, Amsterdam, and Brussels, which bring an amalgamation of woke liberals and Islamists onto the streets, has been “Khaybar, Khaybar.”
When Westerners rush to the ayatollah’s defense to say Iran’s regime is, in fact, anti-Zionist, not anti-Jewish, they effectively become the Iranian regime’s useful idiots. Indeed, just this week the IRGC’s commander openly stated on Iranian state television that the regime is at war with “the evil Jews” and that there is no difference between Zionists and Jews, stating that “the root of Zionists are Jews.”
It is condescending to infantilize Iranian regime leaders and re-interpret their statements; Khamenei says what he means. Lower-ranking officials like Zarif are simply paid to obfuscate. So long as the antisemitic, Islamist regime exists in Iran, another October 7 will be around the corner.
