What the Media Won’t Tell You About the Israel-Iran War
This war isn’t about politics. It’s a moral reckoning.
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The Israel-Iran war has entered a new and dangerous phase, with Israel launching decisive strikes deep inside Iranian territory — in what many are calling a historic military campaign.
Yet, as usual, the mainstream media has reduced this complex and consequential conflict to headlines devoid of context, nuance, and basic truth. The result: a dangerously misinformed public.
Here are seven critical facts about the Israel-Iran war that mainstream media outlets have largely ignored, but you shouldn’t.
1) Many Iranians support Israel — because they know the true nature of the Iranian regime.
Across the West, Iranian exiles are taking to the streets — not to chant for jihad, but to support Israel and denounce the Islamic regime that stole their country. These are not radicals or professional agitators. They are doctors, artists, engineers, mothers, and students — many of whom fled in the 1980s during the largest brain drain in modern Middle Eastern history.
They remember what the world seems to have forgotten: that before 1979, Iran and Israel were not enemies, but allies. Under the Pahlavi monarchy, Iran sold oil to Israel, Israeli scientists helped develop Iranian infrastructure, and both nations shared a vision for regional peace and prosperity. Their partnership wasn’t just transactional; it was rooted in a mutual respect for history, innovation, and progress.
That shared story goes back far deeper than the modern era. Over 2,500 years ago, Cyrus the Great of Persia liberated the Jews from Babylonian captivity and enabled them to rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem. The Book of Isaiah calls him “God’s anointed.” The Book of Esther is set in the Persian royal court. Jews didn’t just survive in Iran; they flourished. The Jewish community in Iran is one of the oldest in the world.
But the Islamic Republic has tried to erase all of this. Since 1979, the regime has waged war not just on Israel, but on its own heritage. It buried Iran’s pre-Islamic identity, repressed religious minorities, reduced women to second-class citizens, and replaced national pride with ideological rage. It replaced Persian pluralism with revolutionary purity. It doesn’t just hate Israel; it fears the memory of a freer, more tolerant Iran.
That’s why so many in the Iranian diaspora support Israel, not out of spite, but out of memory, out of hope. They know the difference between the regime and the people. They carry in their bones the memory of a nation that once stood for human dignity, religious coexistence, and enlightened leadership.
For them, regime change in Iran isn’t about foreign policy; it’s about reclaiming their future. And they understand something the West still struggles to see: A free Iran and a secure Israel are not enemies. They are natural allies. Together, they could anchor a future Middle East built not on bloodshed, but on shared prosperity.
Prior to 1979, Iran was wealthy, modernizing, and poised to become a regional powerhouse. Its GDP stood at $90 billion, more than four times Israel’s $22 billion. It had oil, a young workforce, and a future.
Then came the Islamic Revolution. The Ayatollahs overthrew the Shah, seized power, and replaced pragmatism with jihad. In an instant, Israel went from ally to enemy. Diplomatic ties were severed. “Death to Israel” became a national slogan. A theocracy that glorified martyrdom and messianic violence replaced one of the region’s most promising societies.
The results speak for themselves. Today, Israel (with no oil, surrounded by enemies, and under constant threat) has a GDP of over $500 billion and ranks among the most innovative countries in the world. Iran, despite its vast natural wealth, limps along with a GDP of around $400 billion, choked by inflation, corruption, and sanctions. The GDP per capita in Israel is over $53,000. In Iran? Just $11,700.
While Israel built, Iran bled. Israel spent the last 46 years building a startup nation. Iran spent the last 46 years perfecting the machinery of repression.
Even inside Iran, many citizens are openly critical of the regime’s obsession with Israel. For them, Israel’s strikes aren’t acts of war; they are acts of hope. The enemy of their oppressor is not necessarily their enemy.
2) Iran fears peace more than war, especially between Muslims and Jews.
While the world obsesses over missiles and military strikes, what truly terrifies the Islamic Republic of Iran is peace — particularly peace between Israel and its Muslim neighbors. That fear became reality in 2020 with the signing of the Abraham Accords.
For decades, Iran built its regional strategy around the false narrative that Israel was a foreign invader hated by all Muslims. It justified its terror proxy network — from Hezbollah to Hamas to the Houthis — as “resistance” on behalf of the Muslim world.
But when the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan signed peace and normalization agreements with Israel, that myth collapsed. Muslims and Jews were shaking hands, launching joint ventures, building embassies, and praying together. Iran’s jihadist regime watched in horror as it became the isolated outlier in a region increasingly ready to move forward.
But Iran’s hatred of Israel isn’t just political; it’s theological. The Islamic Republic is governed by an extreme Shia ideology that believes the world must descend into chaos to usher in the return of the Mahdi, a messianic figure who will lead a final battle between good and evil.
In this apocalyptic framework, Israel is not a nation; it is a cosmic enemy. Peace is not just a political problem; it is a spiritual threat. Because peace implies legitimacy, and legitimacy for Israel contradicts Iran’s entire religious worldview.
That’s why Iran doesn’t just oppose the Abraham Accords; it seeks to sabotage them. It funds terror cells in Jordan. It destabilizes countries like Bahrain. It floods the Palestinian Territories with weapons. And it exerts enormous pressure on Arab leaders to walk back their normalization steps. To Iran, Muslim-Jewish peace isn’t a diplomatic setback; it’s blasphemy.
The Abraham Accords didn’t just redraw regional alliances. They exposed the truth: Israel is not the problem, Iran is. And the more the region embraces normalization, prosperity, and coexistence, the more desperate the Iranian regime becomes.
3) Iran’s military is getting crushed because it bet on terror, not defense.
The Islamic Republic spent decades building terror networks. Israel spent decades building an army. The results are now visible in real time.
Iran is facing devastating precision strikes on its soil — from air bases to missile depots to nuclear facilities — and it has little to no ability to stop them. Why? Because for over 40 years, Iran didn’t invest in defending its own people or territory. Instead, it poured billions into terrorist proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis. It built missile factories in Lebanon, trained militias in Syria, and spread jihadist ideology across four Arab countries.
It funded death. It neglected defense.
While Iran funneled resources into its rogue nuclear program — at enormous cost to its economy — its air defenses remained outdated and vulnerable. While its generals plotted attacks abroad, they failed to build a modern, resilient military at home. The result is a hollow regime with an inflated sense of power and a crumbling defense infrastructure.
Israel, by contrast, has invested relentlessly in readiness: world-class cyber units, elite special forces, next-generation missile defense systems, and one of the most sophisticated air forces on Earth. Israel didn’t just prepare for the next war; it prepared to win it.
Iran’s military now finds itself exposed, overextended, and humiliated. Its leaders are being eliminated. Its nuclear dreams are in ruins. Its proxies are desperate for a new sponsor. And its so-called “deterrence” (built on threats and bluster) has collapsed under the weight of Israeli resolve.
4) Israel has repeatedly chosen peace. Iran has repeatedly chosen war.
Despite the media’s insistence on portraying Israel as the aggressor, the historical record tells a very different story. Over the decades, Israel has made painful, strategic sacrifices in pursuit of peace.
Iran, by contrast, has offered nothing but blood and fire. Its stated goal remains unchanged since 1979: “Death to Israel. Death to America.” That is not a slogan. It is policy. And Iran has pursued it relentlessly, not only by arming terror proxies that continue to destabilize the Middle East, but by directing terror attacks and assassination plots around the globe.
In 1992, Iranian-backed operatives bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people. Two years later, they struck again, bombing the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (a Jewish community center) and murdering 85 civilians, at the time the deadliest antisemitic attack since the Holocaust. Iranian fingerprints have also been found on plots in Thailand, Bulgaria, India, Kenya, and Cyprus.
Even within Israel’s borders, Iran’s long arm has reached through its terror proxies and intelligence networks. In 2012, Israeli intelligence uncovered a plot to assassinate former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, while he was in Washington.
Iran doesn’t oppose a particular Israeli policy; it opposes Israel’s existence. It doesn’t want borders redrawn; it wants Israel erased. That is the fundamental asymmetry of this conflict: One side wants to live in peace, the other wants to ensure it never lives at all.
5) Israel’s nuclear arsenal is a shield. Iran’s would be a sword.
Israel’s nuclear program wasn’t born from a desire to conquer, intimidate, or reshape the region; it was born from necessity. In the 1960s, Israel was a tiny state surrounded by hostile regimes that openly declared their aim to wipe it off the map. The Holocaust had ended barely two decades earlier. No one would save the Jews a second time. So Israel quietly adopted a doctrine of deterrence: a final safeguard against annihilation in a region where the threats weren’t rhetorical, but existential.
Since then, Israel has stood as a responsible, restrained nuclear power. It has never brandished that capability, never used it to bully neighbors or demand territory. In fact, Israel has gone in the opposite direction:
It returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in exchange for peace.
It unilaterally withdrew from Lebanon and Gaza.
It offered the Palestinians a state — multiple times — including painful compromises on Jerusalem and the ancestral heartland of Judea and Samaria.
Israel has demonstrated, again and again, that its strength is not a tool of empire but a shield of survival.
Now contrast that with Iran. Without even possessing a nuclear weapon, Iran has already destabilized the region — propping up dictators, funding terror, and turning Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen into collapsed states or militia-run outposts. Imagine that regime with nuclear weapons. Imagine what the world would look like if a government that chants “Death to America” and “Wipe Israel off the map” had the same capabilities as Israel.
The question isn’t whether Iran would act like Israel if it had nuclear weapons. The question is: Why would anyone assume it wouldn’t act far worse?
6) Bomb shelters tell the truth about this war.
In Iran, civilians don’t need bomb shelters because Israel doesn’t target civilians. Admist its precision strikes against nuclear and military infrastructure, Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian casualties, even when striking deep inside enemy territory.
In Gaza, civilians don’t have bomb shelters, not because they’re too expensive, but because Hamas chooses not to build them. Instead, Hamas constructs tunnels and bunkers for its fighters while embedding rocket launchers in homes, schools, and hospitals. Civilian suffering isn’t collateral; it’s part of the strategy.
In Israel, civilians depend on bomb shelters because Iran and its proxies (from Hamas to Hezbollah to the Houthis) deliberately aim for homes, schools, buses, and playgrounds. Israel’s enemies don’t distinguish between soldiers and civilians. In fact, they prefer the softest targets. That’s why Israel has invested billions in sirens, shelters, and missile defense: to protect its people from those who would rather see them dead than defeated.
This isn’t just a difference in tactics; it’s a difference in morality. One side builds to protect life, the other builds to exploit death.
Mind you, Iran has not killed a single Israeli soldier since Israel’s opening act started last week. They have only killed Israeli civilians, deliberately.
7) Israel’s fight is humanity’s test.
This war is not just about borders or bombs. It’s about truth versus lies, civilization versus barbarism, life versus death.
Iran’s regime doesn’t fear Israel because of its military strength; it fears Israel because it represents everything the regime despises: freedom, innovation, pluralism, and Jewish survival. Israel’s resilience is a living refutation of the Islamic Republic’s apocalyptic vision. And that’s why Israel must be attacked, delegitimized, and, in the regime’s eyes, destroyed.
If Israel loses, it’s not the end of the Jewish story; it’s the end of Western civilization’s ability to defend itself. Iran doesn’t want peace. It wants supremacy. And if it gets the bomb, Tel Aviv will not be its final target, just its first.
But Israel won’t lose. The Jewish People have survived empires, inquisitions, and genocides — not by luck, but by grit, memory, and moral clarity.
And, after 3,000 years of being hunted, exiled, and underestimated, we know a thing or two about survival.
Simple truths, eloquently expressed and summarized. Not a wasted word. Thank you!
I am very proud of Israel, not because of military victories but in spite of the war, because of its message to the world, a message of life, a message of freedom, a message of creativity and a message of ethical concerns in spite of war.