Debunking a BBC article.

On the 17th April BBC news released an article that was meant to explain the conflict between Iran and Israel after Iran had fired a barrage of missiles towards the opposing country. We believe that they didn’t do an adequate job.

In this article we will take excerpts from the BBC article and dissect it in an attempt to give the reader relevant information to understand the issue.

“Iran launched drones and missiles towards Israel after vowing retaliation for a deadly strike on its consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus.”

The BBC article starts by actually telling the truth, or at least some of it. Iran did launch drones and missiles towards Israel after their assault on the Iranian embassy in Syria. The attack in Damascus killed 16 people including a military commander. Iran’s response was to fire a barrage of different missiles at military targets killing nobody and harming few. The response from Tehran was more a show of force then the murderous destruction we are used to from Israel.

Let us make a clear distinction between targets. Israel targeted an Iranian embassy on foreign soil. The embassy is classed as a civilian object so to attack such a place is classed as war crime and violation of international law. Iran has the right to respond, as it did. Syria also has the right to defend the embassy of another country within there borders. Iran attacked a military target. The Nevatim Air Base which was considered to be where the missiles that hit the embassy came from.

Iran’s retaliation was a coordinated attack incorporating Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. The aim was to deter future attacks and further dispell the myth that Israel is this military might with an impenetrable iron dome.

Why are Israel and Iran enemies?

“The two countries were allies until the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, which brought in a regime that has used opposing Israel as a key part of its ideology.

Iran does not recognise Israel’s right to exist and seeks its eradication.

The country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has previously called Israel a “cancerous tumour” that “will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed”.”

Israel is a colonial project that began in the early 1900s. It was birthed from the ideas of the reactionary zionist organisation in 1897 created by Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist Theodore Herzl. His idea was to create a Jewish state on religious holy land of Palestine. This was gleefully supported by British colonialism to further their interests in the reason. The Balfour Declaration, which gave the zionist organisation the legitimacy it need, states:

“His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of the object.”

The Balfour Declaration was written and supported by Lord Arthur James Belfour who had already tested his mettle in colonial matters as Chief Secretary of Ireland. Here he was tasked to suppress any Irish revolt against British rule. It was rather fitting that it was Lord Belfour to sign over Palestine to the zionists as the British plan was to create a “little loyal Jewish ulster in a sea of hostile Arabism.” According to the British mandated Governor of Palestine Sir Ronald Henry Amherst Storrs.
The leading imperialist power of today, the USA, has taken over the funding and managing (to the extent an owner can manager a rabid dog) of the zionist project. The continuation of the zionist project and Israel’s importance to western imperialism has always been sacrosanct. Previous to 1979 Iran was too.

Iran lost its sovereignty to the empire when Churchill and Eisenhower came together to overthrow the elected President Mohammad Mosaddegh who had attempted to nationalise Iranian oil supplies. This enraged the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now British Petroleum, BP). The British Prime Minister when Iran first decided to nationalise was Clement Attlee who instantly created a world wide boycott of Iranian oil because they dared to take back their own resources.
When Churchill took over number 10 the decision was made to move on from the boycott to completely seizing control of Iran and installing the Pahlavi monarchy (The Shah) who were more sympathetic to the west’s need for their resources.
The Pahlavi dynasty lasted until 1979 when it was overthrown by a civil uprising and the creation of Islamic Republic of Iran. That’s where any form of alliance with Israel was dismantled alongside the western comprador regime who had ruled for the past two decades. Not because of some Islamic ideology that the BBC article points to.

The USA and Britain have never forgiven the Iranians for turning off the tap to their oil supplies and have often used Israel to target Iran in many different attacks like that of the recent assault on the embassy in Syria.

Who are Iran’s allies?

“Iran has built up a network of allies and proxy forces in the Middle East that it says form part of an “axis of resistance” challenging US and Israeli interests in the region.”

Essentially this isn’t a false statement, but the it is worded in such a way that it changes the readers understanding. Firstly, the use of the term ‘proxy’ alongside allies was inputted to make it seem as though Iran is the puppet master of all these groups when in reality these groups, like Hamas, Hezbollah and Ansar Allah (Houthi) have been created to resist the western dominance and their proxies!
This is why the Axis of Resistance is formed. To resist the domination of the USA with it’s allies and proxies.

“Iran also provides weapons and training to Palestinian armed groups including Hamas, which attacked Israel on 7 October last year”

Whether Iran provides weapons to Hamas or not is immaterial due to the fact Israel has weapons provided by, once again, the USA which Israel has used to decimate the Palestine population for decades.

One of ways that the mainstream media publications, like BBC, use to malign the Palestine struggle is to call any form of resistance Hamas or call the war Israel vs Hamas, and Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation by the west. Which isn’t something to be taken too seriously as anyone who resists the west, or its proxies are called terrorists. Either way calling the struggle Hamas is to make it seem Israel is fighting some terrorist organisation and not what it truly is. A battle for Palestinian survival.

Hamas is the elected government of Gaza, which also has a militia wing, but a member of Hamas could also be a civil servant or a hospital governor.
October 7^th, or any of the struggle before or since, was not a matter of Hamas alone but many different Palestine resistance groups such as the PFLP, DFLP, PIJ or Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

The aims of this BBC article is to make Iran looks like the aggressor. As we have pointed out it has been very disingenuous with the way it explains the reason for this conflict between Iran and Israel. Painting a picture of Iranian aggression so they can manufacture consent for any future attacks on the sovereign state. Even an attempt to create the idea that if Iran fell, then these other resistance groups would fall too.
Essentially the BBC article is a piece of western war propaganda which does not educate anyone.