Influential Republican Senator Ted Cruz justifies his support for Israel’s war against Iran by referring to the Bible and what he learned in Sunday school as a child.
During a heated conversation with former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, Cruz revealed that his stance on the conflict is based more on religious dogma than on political analysis and judgment.
– Growing up in Sunday school I was taught from the Bible, those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed, and from my perspective, I want to be on the blessing side of things, Cruz explained.
The senator emphasized that his support for Israel is rooted in the belief that the US is commanded by God to stand behind the country.
– Where does my support for Israel come from? Number one, because biblically we are commanded to support Israel… It doesn’t say the government of Israel, it says the nation of Israel. So that’s in the Bible. As a Christian, I believe that, he emphasized.
But Carlson questioned Cruz’s knowledge of the Bible and asked him to specify where in the Bible the verse can be found.
– I don’t have the scripture off the tip of my… pull out your phone, Cruz replied, to which Carlson quickly pointed out:
– It’s in Genesis. You’re quoting a Bible phrase you don’t have context for, you don’t know where in the Bible it is… that’s your theology?’
According to this US senator Christians has to be slave of Israel and he claims it is written in genesis pic.twitter.com/3Yehps9Qpp
The conversation quickly became more heated when Carlson continued to demand an answer as to why Christians must support Israel:
– We’re commanded as Christians to support the government of Israel? Define Israel. This is important. Are you kidding? This is a majority Christian country.
Cruz responded irritably:
– Define Israel? Do you not know what Israel is? That would be the country you’ve asked like 49 questions about.
Carlson pressed on:
– So that’s what Genesis—that’s what God is talking about? Is that the current borders, the current leadership, he’s talking about the political entity of Israel? Is the nation God is referring to in Genesis the same country Benjamin Netanyahu is running now?
Senator Ted Cruz demands regime change in Iran. He’s not interested in the details.
(0:00) Why Does Cruz Want Regime Change in Iran?
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(12:31) Was the Iraq War a… pic.twitter.com/iIdENogQ2T
Carlson, who had previously criticized Trump for abandoning his “America First” policy in connection with the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, then put Cruz under further pressure. The senator had previously made a surprising statement about the US’s role in the conflict.
– I’ve said we. Israel is leading them, but we’re supporting them, Cruz said when Carlson pointed out that he had previously said that the US was carrying out attacks against Iran.
Carlson reacted strongly to the fact that the US position in the conflict seems to vary depending on which politician you ask:
– You’re breaking news here. The US government last night denied… on behalf of Trump, that we’re acting on Israel’s behalf in any offensive capacity.
Cruz tried to backtrack:
– No, we’re not bombing them. Israel is bombing them.
– You just said we were. This is high stakes. You’re a senator. If you’re saying the United States is at war with Iran right now, people are listening, Carlson pointed out.
No deeper knowledge of Iran
The host also took the opportunity to reveal Cruz’s ignorance about Iran when he asked the Republican politician how many people live in Iran.
– I don’t know the population, Cruz admitted, prompting Carlson to exclaim:
– Not at all? You don’t know the population of the people you’re trying to topple?
Cruz tried to turn the question back on Carlson, who quickly replied, “92 million”.
– How could you not know that? It’s kind of relevant because you’re calling for the overthrow of the government.
Cruz also admitted that he had no deeper knowledge of Iran’s ethnic composition and conceded that he was no expert on the country whose government he wants to overthrow. He also argued that this type of detailed knowledge was irrelevant in this context.
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A majority of Donald Trump’s supporters oppose US military intervention in Israel’s war against Iran. This is according to a new opinion poll published on Wednesday.
According to the comprehensive survey by The Economist/YouGov, conducted over the weekend, 53 percent of voters who supported Trump in the 2024 presidential election want the US to stay out of Israel’s attacks.
Only 19 percent of Trump’s supporters advocate US military intervention, while 63 percent prefer the administration to try to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program.
Among all voters in the survey, 60 percent believed that the US should refrain from using military force in the conflict.
The results reflect long-standing public support for peaceful solutions to the Iran issue. An April poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs-Ipsos showed that eight in ten Americans preferred diplomacy or tougher economic sanctions to military action to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
And even if diplomacy or sanctions were to fail, many Americans prefer other methods. The same Ipsos poll showed that 60 percent could envisage US cyberattacks against Iranian systems, but only 48 percent of Americans supported air strikes against nuclear facilities.
“A terrible mistake”
Opposition to military escalation is also evident among several Republican politicians.
“This is not our war. But if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution“, Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman from Kentucky, wrote on X earlier this week. He expressed his support for an attempt to gather support in the House of Representatives for a bipartisan resolution to limit the president’s war powers.
This is not our war.
But if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution.
I’m introducing a bipartisan War Powers Resolution tomorrow to prohibit our involvement.
I invite all members of Congress to cosponsor this resolution.
Libertarian Senator Rand Paul is also a very vocal opponent of dragging the US into yet another unnecessary war.
– I will not vote to send american kids to Iran. I think its a terrible mistake, every way is not our war. Our country is bankrupting itself over our own obligations to our own people. We should not ever send one soldier to Iran and I hope I am pretty clear on that, he recently declared in an interview.
Let me be totally clear: I will not vote to send one American soldier to Iran. Not one. https://t.co/j1dC4nn6LA
Tim Burchett, Republican congressman from Tennessee, told CNN on Wednesday that he wanted to see “very little” US involvement in the escalating conflict.
– We don’t need another endless war in the Middle East. Old men make decisions and young men die, and that’s the history of war, he said.
Old men make decisions and young men die. Our men and women in uniform shouldn’t be sent to war without careful consideration by our leaders. I trust President Trump and his cabinet to make the right decision. pic.twitter.com/6djzllsr92
– We need to take a deep breath and slow down this thing and let the Israelis do their thing. We do not need a three-front war in our lifetime.
At the same time, powerful neoconservative actors and the Israel lobby are waging an intense campaign to get the Trump administration to drag the US into the war – despite popular opposition and the president’s earlier promises to be a “peacemaker” and end all wars.
For over 40 years, Israeli and US leaders have repeatedly sounded the alarm about an imminent Iranian nuclear threat, without ever producing a single piece of credible evidence. These lies have not only misled the public, they have also paved the way for repressive sanctions, assassinations, and a military intervention that is now very close to escalating into a catastrophic major war.
The Bush administration’s lies about Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons of mass destruction were used as a pretext to invade Iraq – a war project estimated to have cost between 500,000 and one million lives. In hindsight, it turned out that no such weapons existed – they were simply lies to force through a desired regime change and assert power over the region.
Today, the invasion of Iraq is considered one of the worst betrayals by Western leaders in modern times and is often cited as a textbook example of how those in power will not shy away from manipulating their own citizens or the rest of the world to get their way. Although the case of Iraq is extreme in terms of suffering and scale, the approach is by no means unique.
Forty-one years ago, during the Cold War, the British defense magazine Jane’s Defense Weekly sounded the alarm with an unexpected report. “Iran is engaged in the production of an atomic bomb, likely to be ready within two years”, it claimed. The same claims were trumpeted by the Israeli media and US Senator Alan Cranston, who insisted that Iran was about seven years away from being able to manufacture its own nuclear weapons.
However, there was never any real basis for these claims, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also dismissed the alarm as unfounded. In retrospect, it was also clear that the statements were politically motivated scare tactics rather than serious predictions. Iran did not acquire nuclear weapons, either in the 1980s or later.
The fact that the alarms about Iran’s supposedly imminent nuclear threat had no grounding in reality mattered little. The steady stream of similar pronouncements continued to pour out from high-ranking Israeli and American officials.
For more than 40 years, Israeli and American leaders have profited from alarmist claims about an imminent Iranian nuclear threat. Photo: facsimile/X
All predictions were wrong
Israel’s current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared in the early and mid-1990s, when he was a member of parliament, that Iran could be only a few years away from acquiring nuclear weapons and demanded decisive action. During the same period, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres claimed that Iran would have a nuclear warhead by 1999, and in the US, a report by the House of Representatives’ Republican Research Committee claimed that Iran was “98 percent certain” to already have all the components needed to build “two or three operational nuclear weapons”.
At around the same time, under President George H.W. Bush, the CIA assessed that Iran had all the components needed for a couple of bombs, and predicted that Iran would have nuclear weapons by 2000 – a forecast that was later postponed to 2003.
These forecasts were also completely divorced from reality. The key was to portray the Iranian regime as a global threat that must be fought – and crushed with military force if necessary. This has continued, with constant alarmist and propagandistic warnings rather than serious and objective analysis. In 1995, for example, the New York Times reported that high-ranking US and Israeli officials warned that Iran would acquire a nuclear bomb by 2000.
“Iran is much closer to producing nuclear weapons than previously thought”, the newspaper trumpeted, citing information from US and Israeli officials, and it was claimed that Iran’s atomic bomb was “at the top of the list” of dangers for the coming decade.
The warnings about Iranian nuclear bombs year after year after year have been likened to climate alarmists’ recurring warnings about global warming. Photo: facsimile/New York Times
Not yet – but soon?
When these deadlines passed without anything actually happening, the timeframes were pushed forward. In 1997, new estimates suggested that the Iranian bomb would not be ready until around 2007–2009.
During the 2000s, the warning signals and doomsday messages continued to echo. In 2005, Israel’s defense minister (Shaul Mofaz) stated that Iran would pass a “point of no return” in its nuclear weapons program within two years – which placed the critical date around 2007. In 2007, the Israeli intelligence service Mossad claimed that Iran could achieve nuclear weapons capability by 2009.
A 2009 forecast was even more alarming, claiming that Iran would be “nuclear armed” within a year. At the same time, more and more analysts began to question the credibility of the timelines and question why the forecasts were constantly being pushed forward, and why the new estimates should be more credible than the incorrect ones that had been made previously.
It’s kinda like climate change
12 years ago Sept 2012
Benjamin Netanyahu warned the United Nations on Thursday that Iran will have enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb by next summer and urged the
world the draw a clear “red line” to stop it in its tracks. pic.twitter.com/3j2Ixum83z
Despite the 2015 international nuclear agreement, leaders in Israel and the US continued to warn of Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions. In September 2012, Netanyahu made a high-profile appearance at the UN General Assembly: he held up a sketch of a bomb and drew a red line with a red pen at 90 percent enrichment, warning that Iran would reach this final stage toward a bomb by spring or summer 2013 unless it was stopped.
In 2015, Netanyahu addressed the US Congress and criticized the new nuclear agreement, saying: “It doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb, it paves Iran’s path to the bomb”.
In August 2021, it was time once again for Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz to sound the alarm that Iran was only “about 10 weeks away” from obtaining enough weapons-grade material for a nuclear warhead.
Powerful interests want to see Iran burn
This, it should be emphasized, is only a small selection of all the statements and warnings about alleged threats that have never materialized. Over the past four decades, both American and Israeli leaders have had an even stronger incentive to portray Iran’s nuclear program as an urgent, global threat. First, the threat creates a political and strategic basis for justifying massive military support for Israel and permanent US military operations in the region.
Every warning about “imminent” nuclear weapons provides justification for congressional decisions on increased defense spending, arms exports, and a military presence in the Gulf region, which benefits arms manufacturers and maintains a powerful US presence in the oil-rich region.
Furthermore, the threatening rhetoric also strengthens Israel’s demands for international support against Tehran, which consolidates the country’s position of power in the region and legitimizes “preventive” military operations against Iran. By constantly repeating that “we only have weeks or months left”, it has been possible to maintain a permanent high-risk situation that facilitates quick decisions on sanctions or military threats whenever political leaders want to take a harder line against Iran.
At the same time, political financing in the US has also played a decisive role. Many members of Congress receive large contributions from pro-Israel lobby groups such as AIPAC, which consistently advocate a tough line against Iran to protect Israel’s security and interests. The Israel lobby’s ads in US election campaigns often portray any negotiations with Tehran as a moral failure, which has pushed US foreign policy in an extremely pro-Israel and neoconservative direction.
Similarly, Christian groups in the US, especially evangelicals, have long viewed Israel’s continued existence as a religious duty, whereby “those who bless Israel shall be blessed themselves” – and constitute a significant voter base that demands a tough confrontation with Iran. For these groups, a potential major war is not only a geopolitical possibility but also a step in prophetic eschatological patterns.
All in all, there are several influential groups that, for economic, geopolitical, or religious reasons, have an interest in keeping Iran’s “imminent” nuclear threat alive – even though none of the predictions have ever come true and there is no indication that they have ever been close to doing so.
What is Trump basing his decisions on?
Many had hoped that things would be different with Donald Trump, given his claims that he would be the one to “end all wars”.
– My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier, he has confidently declared.
In reality, however, a different picture emerges, with Trump choosing to completely ignore the assessment of his own intelligence chief when the latter states that there is no indication that Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons.
– Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003, DNI Director Tulsi Gabbard recently stated, referring to the intelligence community’s collective assessment.
Trump keeps repeating that “Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon” to desensitize his base about going to war with Iran.
– I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one (nuclear weapon), Trump stated, when journalists asked him why he was ignoring the assessments of his own experts and advisors.
“I dont care what she said, I think they were very close”
President Trump’s reaction to the claims, of his own National Intelligence Chief, @TulsiGabbard
Claiming that Iran was not close to building a Nuclear Weapon. pic.twitter.com/TSek6D4ARr
The fact that IAEA chief Rafel Grossi also confirms that there is no evidence “of a systematic effort (by Iran) to move toward a nuclear weapon” does not seem to matter to the US’s top leaders either. Trump has, by all accounts, decided to follow Netanyahu’s war line – despite the fact that it has been proven false for decades.
“We did not have any proof of a systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon.” @iaeaorg Director General affirms his agency’s findings about Iran’s nuclear program. pic.twitter.com/TmHx7rtfjJ
Trump’s popularity has been largely built on promises to end expensive, protracted, and globalist wars. Now, the capricious president is dismissing his promises with vague neoconservative arguments that the US cannot become “great” as long as Iran has or could obtain nuclear weapons, and that this should therefore be the top priority for all American patriots.
During his previous term, Trump was heavily criticized for failing to deliver on his campaign promises. Many analysts explained this by saying that they were blocked by political opponents, but other critics also pointed out early on that he chose to surround himself with advisors with questionable agendas that were directly harmful to the US, such as his ultra-Zionist son-in-law Jared Kushner and the neoconservative hawk John Bolton.
This time, it would be different. Now, the administration would be made up of reliable and stable people who put the US first and prioritized what was good for the American people –not powerful special interests or foreign regimes.
That does not seem to have been the case. When it comes to Iran and the Middle East, the Americans and the world have, on the contrary, got a president in Trump who in practice may be even more belligerent than several of his despised predecessors. In recent days, his feed has been filled with warmongering neoconservative rhetoric and demands for Iranian submission.
“UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” he thunders in a post on Truth Social, among other things.
“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin”, he threatens in another.
“AMERICA FIRST means many GREAT things, including the fact that, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”, he proclaims in a third.
Trump rants about Iranian nuclear weapons. Photo: facsimile/Truth Social
Who makes the decisions?
Trump has certainly long had an eccentric public persona, but even many of his own supporters on social media are wondering what is really going on. Wasn’t Joe Biden the crazy president who was dragging the US into war and misery – not Trump?
Others cannot understand why the US president continues to shout about Iranian nuclear weapons when all relevant experts have already stated that there is no evidence whatsoever that such a threat is imminent. Where did he actually get his information from, how does he make his assessments, and why are they so irrational? These are the questions being asked. No answers seem to be forthcoming, except that the US is sticking to its line that Israel’s wishes take precedence over everything else.
Therefore, it does not matter to Trump that it is Israel – not Iran – that has illegally and in the utmost secrecy acquired a large number of nuclear weapons and used them to press for US military support or deter hostile neighbors in conflicts.
Former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon on how the president’s enemies are working to destroy MAGA with the war on Iran.
(0:00) Will the Iran War Be the Downfall of MAGA?
(6:55) Fox News’ Pro-War Propaganda
(12:42) The Never-Trumpers Pretending to Be On Trump’s Team
(15:30)… pic.twitter.com/PdUZFiUNNZ
There is widespread concern among Trump’s voter base that, despite all his promises of peace, Trump once again appears to be throwing the US into a major war based on lies and disinformation – exactly as was the case with the invasion following the fabricated chemical weapons allegations in Iraq in 2003. Many Americans are resigned to the fact that this is not at all what they voted for.
Opponents of US involvement in Israel’s war against Iran also point out that those who are most vocal in calling for another US war are power brokers who do not actually support Trump or the MAGA movement, but see the war as an opportunity to split or crush the movement that has built up around him.
The coming days and weeks will not only define Trump’s political legacy, but the future of the entire Middle East. Perhaps even the world’s.
A selection of warnings about an imminent Iranian nuclear threat:
1984 – Jane’s Defense Weekly: Iran may have nuclear weapons within two years. 1992 – Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran close to having a bomb by 1999. 1993 – Yitzhak Rabin: Iran is building nuclear weapons, the world must act. 1995 – US government: Iran's nuclear weapons plans must be stopped 1998 – Madeleine Albright: Iran is trying to acquire nuclear weapons. 2000 – Bill Clinton: Law against support for Iran's weapons program. 2002 – George W. Bush: Iran threatens with nuclear weapons plans. 2004 – U.S. National Intelligence Estimate: Iran probably moving toward nuclear weapons. 2005 – Ariel Sharon: Iran close to technical solution for bomb. 2006 – George W. Bush: Iran's nuclear plans threaten peace. 2007 – US intelligence: Iran paused its weapons program in 2003 but is rebuilding capacity. 2008 – Ehud Olmert: Iran close to irreversible nuclear weapons point. 2009 – Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran three to five years from bomb. 2010 – Barack Obama: Iran's nuclear program a major threat. 2011 – Leon Panetta: Iran could have a bomb within a year. 2012 – Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran close to the “red line” for nuclear weapons. 2013 – Moshe Ya’alon: Iran very close to the nuclear threshold. 2014 – Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran on its way to becoming a nuclear power. 2015 – Benjamin Netanyahu: JCPOA (nuclear agreement with Iran) paves the way for Iran's bomb. 2017 – Donald Trump: Iran could quickly obtain nuclear weapons. 2018 – Mike Pompeo: Iran is seeking nuclear weapons despite JCPOA. 2019 – Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran close to manufacturing an atomic bomb. 2020 – Donald Trump: Iran economically weak but nuclear threat remains. 2021 – Joe Biden: Iran must comply with JCPOA to stop nuclear weapons. 2023 – Yoav Gallant: Iran closer to the bomb than ever. 2024 – US intelligence: Iran months away from nuclear weapons. 2025 – Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran could build nine nuclear weapons. 2025 – Donald Trump: US could bomb Iran if nuclear program is not stopped.
If the Samson option really exists, it reveals much about the basis for Israel's disproportionate influence and the silence of the international community. The fact that Israel is repeatedly allowed to act without consequences is rooted in a form of blackmail, with world leaders cowering in fear that the “nuclear card” will be played.
Analysts believe that the “Samson option” means that Israel, faced with the threat of annihilation, intends to take as much of the surrounding world with it as possible—including countries in Europe.
After the G7 summit reaffirmed that Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons and that Israel has the right to defend itself, I once again express criticism of the double standards being applied and question why Israel’s nuclear capabilities do not provoke the same kind of mania. I’m reading an analysis that sheds light on this complex situation.
Although it is a fact accepted by experts around the world that Israel has had nuclear bombs since shortly before the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel still maintains a facade of deliberate ambiguity regarding its nuclear capabilities.
According to recent estimates by the independent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which has been monitoring the world’s nuclear weapons and the states that possess them since 1966, Israel appears to have at least 90 nuclear warheads that are believed to be capable of being launched anywhere within a maximum radius of 4,500 km with their F-15, F-16I and F-35I “Adir” aircraft, their 50 land-based Jericho II and III missiles, and approximately 20 Popeye Turbo cruise missiles launched from submarines.
The relevant question that arises is why the international community does not question Israel’s objectives, given that Iran has signed the international nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which Israel has refused to do.
There have been international efforts to bring all Israeli nuclear facilities under the protection of the International Atomic Energy Agency, but Israel refuses to sign an agreement to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state.
Another fact that is not disputed is that Israel has attacked Iran with the stated aim of crippling its nuclear weapons programme, which is supported by large parts of the international community, but at the same time the International Atomic Energy Agency has been unable to establish that this is not about energy. Fundamentally, Iran has the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, but not to develop nuclear weapons, and so far there is no concrete evidence to support the allegations circulating in the media.
Another unexplored question is why Israel is allowed to have nuclear weapons without having to commit to any agreements, while Iran, if it wanted to, is not allowed to possess nuclear weapons at all.
Another interesting aspect is that Israel has been in violation of UN Resolution 487 since 1981. This originated in an attack on a nuclear research facility in Iraq carried out by Israel on June 7, 1981, which was condemned by the UN Security Council as a “clear violation of the UN Charter and the norms of international conduct”. According to the Security Council, Iraq had been a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty since it came into force in 1970.
The resolution, which is still in force, called on Israel to “place its nuclear facilities under the protection of the International Atomic Energy Agency”, but as already mentioned, Israel has never complied with Resolution 487.
Israel has no nuclear power plants, but experts agree that there is a huge nuclear facility. The Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center was built in the late 1950s/early 1960s and is said to have received French assistance and was named after the former Israeli prime minister after his death in 2016. The facility is a heavily guarded complex in the Negev desert, less than 70 km from the border with Egypt.
Iran has ballistic missiles that can reach the nuclear research center about 1,500 km from Tehran, so why would Tehran attack Israeli cities in retaliation for Israel’s attempts to destroy Iran’s nuclear industry when they could instead attack Israel’s nuclear facility?
The answer probably lies in the “Samson Option”, a protocol for mutual destruction whose existence has never been acknowledged by Israel, but never denied either. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, who also investigated the Nord Stream attack, was the first to report on the Samson Option, which concerns Israel’s deterrence strategy of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons as a “last resort” against a country whose military has invaded and/or destroyed large parts of Israel. But it will not only be its enemies that are attacked, but several of the world’s major cities under the motto “we fall, we all fall”.
Israel has twice come close to using its nuclear weapons. In 2017, it was claimed that Israel had been on the verge of launching a “demonstration” nuclear explosion shortly before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in order to scare its enemies.
The plan was revealed in interviews with retired General Itzhak Yaakov, conducted by Avner Cohen, an Israeli-American historian and leading researcher on Israel’s nuclear history, which were published only after Yaakov’s death.
In 2003, Cohen revealed that during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when it once again appeared that Israeli forces were about to be overrun, then-Prime Minister Golda Meir had approved the use of nuclear bombs and missiles as a last resort. This doomsday plan, codenamed Samson, was named after the Israelite strongman who, captured by the Philistines, tore down the pillars of their temple and destroyed himself along with his enemies.
Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear engineer and peace activist, revealed Israel’s nuclear secrets back in 1986. Mordechai was lured to Rome, where he was kidnapped by Mossad agents and taken back to Israel on an Israeli navy ship, where he was charged with treason. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison and spent much of his time in solitary confinement. In April 2004, he was released but remains subject to a series of strictly enforced restrictions that prevent him from leaving Israel and speaking to foreigners.
Ahron Bregman, senior lecturer at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London’s Institute of Middle East Studies, who served in the Israeli army for six years in the 1980s, has said that everyone believes Israel has nuclear weapons and that the fact that Israel found it necessary to arrest Vanunu and put him in prison, and continues to impose strict restrictions on him, only proves this.
If the Samson option is true, it explains much of Israel’s influence and the passive attitude of the international community towards Israel. Israel’s ability to get away with carte blanche, no matter what it does, is based on a kind of blackmail where no one dares to oppose it for fear of the “nuclear card”. The few countries that have missiles capable of shooting down Israel’s missiles today are probably Russia, China, and North Korea, as their missiles are faster.
It therefore remains to be seen how this will end, but given that Trump has already given Israel his full support, I find it difficult to see how the outcome could be any different this time. And while those in power make their moves, more people will die on both sides, but the winner laughing all the way to the bank will be the war industry, which, as usual, is profiting from the ongoing chaos.
All Jenny Piper's articles can be found on her blog.
Iran’s Defense Ministry says it used a new, untraceable missile in the attack on the headquarters of the infamous Israeli intelligence agency Mossad in Tel Aviv and claims that the attack penetrated several layers of air defenses.
– In today’s attack, we used missiles that could not be tracked or shot down, said Iranian Brigadier General Reza Talaei-Nik, according to the Iranian state news agency IRNA.
He described the operation as a surprise for the Israelis and warned that they would see more.
Earlier today, Iran said its missile strikes hit a military intelligence center and an operations planning center for Mossad located in the capital Tel Aviv. Images show a column of smoke at what is believed to be the site.
🔥🇮🇷🇮🇱 Iran strikes Mossad HQ, fire breaks out inside — IRGC source via Al-Akhbar pic.twitter.com/6UBqymexT7
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) June 17, 2025
Talaei-Nik added that Israel is not prepared for a prolonged conflict.
– The Zionist regime cannot withstand a long war, he said, adding that Iran’s military has been equipped with advanced systems, some of which “have not even been put into use yet.”
At the same time, the Israeli military has introduced new strict censorship guidelines that severely restrict local media from reporting on missile and drone attacks on Israeli territory, which is believed to be a way of concealing Iran’s actual capacity to strike back and give the appearance of military superiority.
