Liberal Backs Israel’s Strike on Iran
An open letter to my fellow justice-seekers who believe in peace — but not suicide
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Liberal Backs Israel’s Strike on Iran
I was in the car with a close friend, headed to a fundraiser to support Black high school students wanting to attend college. The BBC played softly in the background — just ambiance at first — until the anchor shifted into a scathing critique of Israel’s strike on Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure.
The mood changed instantly. The car fell silent.
“Do you support this war?” my friend asked, already guessing my answer.
That was the morning after Israel launched its attack — just days after international, not Israeli, nuclear watchdogs confirmed that Iran had enriched uranium to near-weapons grade levels.
In the hours and days that followed, other friends in the social justice world — people I’ve marched with, organized with, mourned with — saw a few of my posts calling out Iran’s destabilizing role and genocidal threats toward Israel.
They were surprised. Disappointed. Some asked how I could possibly support a military strike. “You?” one said. “A peace guy?”
It’s a fair question.
I abhor violence. I’m devastated by the lives lost in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Sudan, in Ukraine, Myanmar, Gaza, and here in America — where police violence continues to claim Black lives. I don’t care if a child is Palestinian, Jewish, African or Ukrainian — every life is sacred.
Every innocent death is a tragedy.
But I’ve always parted ways with the late Gandhi on one point.
The great apostle of nonviolence believed you should never raise your hand, even in self-defense. He once said that Jews should have gone to their deaths under Hitler’s reign rather than lift a finger in resistance. That never made sense to me.
Judaism, the tradition I come from, teaches a different lesson. “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill them first.” Not for vengeance. Not for politics. For survival.
Which brings us to Israel and Iran.
This isn’t about Iran’s right to exist or have its own state. This isn’t even about Gaza. Iran is a thousand+ miles from Israel. And yet, it funds Hamas, which carried out the October 7 atrocities. It arms Hezbollah, which launched rockets into Israeli towns. It backs the Houthis, who’ve rained missiles on Israel and Saudi Arabia.
None of that caused Israel to retaliate directly against Iran.
What changed? The nukes.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, not the oft-lying Netanyahu who told us Iran was close to the bomb since the 1990s, confirmed that Iran had enriched uranium to 60% — close enough that, with just a bit more refinement, it could produce multiple nuclear bombs within days. This, from a regime whose leaders have repeatedly, publicly vowed to annihilate Israel and the Jewish people.
This isn’t hyperbole. Iran has hosted Holocaust denial conferences. The Ayatollah’s foundational treatise Islamic Government refers to Jews as the eternal enemies of Islam. Iranian state clerics routinely preach that it is a divine obligation to wipe Israel off the map.
Let me say it plainly: A regime that funds global terror, teaches genocide, and dreams of Jewish extinction should not be handed a nuclear arsenal.
That’s why over 90% of Israelis — across the political spectrum, including those who fiercely oppose Netanyahu — support the strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. That’s why a majority of liberal American Jews do, too. Not because we’re war hawks. Not because we’ve lost our moral compass. But because we know history. And we mean it when we say: Never Again.
I still believe in love. In peace. In justice. I still believe Black lives matter. Palestinian lives matter. Iranian lives matter.
But Jewish lives matter too.
And peace isn’t peace if it means lying down in front of a nuclear-armed executioner.
All of this!
Peace isn't peace if you lie down in front of a nuclear executioner