Progressive U.S. politicians, antiwar activists and human rights defenders called for a diplomatic solution and an end to American support for Israel following Israel’s attacks on Iran.
Buidlings in Tehran destroyed by Israeli strikes on Friday. (Tasnim News Agency/ Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 4.0)
By Brett Wilkins
Common Dreams
Progressive U.S. lawmakers and human rights defenders demanded an end to unconditional American armed and diplomatic support for Israel after it launched a series of attacks on Iran early Friday, reportedly killing senior military officials and civilians including nuclear scientists, women, and children in a dramatic escalation that Iranian leaders vowed to avenge.
Iran, later on Friday, reportedly fired hundreds of ballistic missiles toward Israel, and smoke was seen rising from the city of Tel Aviv as Tehran began its retaliation for the large-scale attack that Israel’s military committed just hours earlier.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wrote on social media that “all of Israel is under fire.” Minutes later, the IDF said that the “Iranian attack is ongoing,” noting that “dozens of additional missiles were launched toward Israel.”
The Israeli military instructed residents across the country to “remain close to protected spaces” and minimize “movement in public areas” until an all-clear is given. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Unnamed U.S. officials told the Associated Press that American military assets were being used to help the Israelis intercept incoming missiles from Iran, though the sources, according to the AP, “did not say how the U.S. provided assistance.”
Iran’s retaliation followed at least five waves of Israeli airstrikes targeting not only Iran’s nuclear facilities but also its military leadership and capabilities, Al Jazeera reported. In addition to airstrikes, Israeli and international media reported that operatives from Mossad, Israel’s foreign spy agency, also conducted assassination and sabotage attacks in Iran.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander-in-Chief Major Gen. Hossein Salami and Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major Gen. Mohammad Bagheri were assassinated, as were numerous Iranian nuclear scientists [and key nuclear negotiator Ali Shamkhani.]
Israeli attacks targeted cities including the capital Tehran, Natanz, Isfahan, Arak, Tabriz and Kermanshah. Iranian television reports showed bombed-out apartment towers and said that an unknown number of civilians including women and children were killed in the strikes. [The New York Times cites Iran’s Fars news agency’s report of at least 78 deaths and 329 injuries.]
Israel Strikes Residential Areas in Tehran in Early Morning Attackhttps://t.co/Y5ttBaIFor pic.twitter.com/H0vv2tR1X3
— Fars News Agency (@EnglishFars) June 13, 2025
The attack on Natanz — home to Iran’s primary nuclear enrichment facility — sparked fears of radiological contamination.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dubbed the attack a “preemptive strike.” [A New York Times report treated that characterization skeptically, noting “no immediate indication that Iran was planning to attack” while many analysts roundly rejected it, including the London think tank, Chatham House.] Preventive strikes are a dubious form of warfare previously waged by forces including imperial Japan during the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the George W. Bush administration in Iraq.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the attacks were meant to “neutralize an immediate and existential threat to our people,” an apparent reference to Iran’s nuclear program. Successive U.S. administrations including President Donald Trump’s have concluded for decades that Iran is not trying to develop nuclear weapons.
[While Israeli politicians described the strikes in defensive terms, some observers depicted Israel’s real objective alternately as disrupting U.S. nuclear talks or starting a regional war that would draw in the U.S. on Israel’s side.
Murtaza Hussain, in his article “Israel Attacks Iran, Promising Full-Scale Military Operation” for DropSite News, described some analysts’ view that the real goal of the attack is
“simply to fire the starting gun for a larger regional war with no determined endpoint. Such a war would potentially drag the U.S. in as a participant, including to defend Israel from Iranian retaliation, even at a time when segments of the Trump administration and its domestic political base are expressing intense frustration over fighting continued conflicts in the Middle East.”]
During his first term, Trump unilaterally abrogated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal.
Trump announcing U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, on May 8, 2018. (White House/Wikimedia Commons/ Public Domain)
Last year, Israel and Iran carried out limited tit-for-tat attacks following the former’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, who led the Lebanon-based resistance group Hezbollah, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
This time, Iranian leaders vowed “severe punishment,” with fears that the U.S. could be targeted due to its staunch support for Israel as it wages what the international community increasingly views as a genocidal war on Gaza.
While U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed that his country was not involved in the attacks, Israeli officials insisted there was close coordination with the Trump administration [a view shared by Iran’s Foreign Ministry.]
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Friday that “in the early hours of today, the Zionist regime extended its filthy and bloodstained hand to commit a crime in our beloved country, exposing its vile nature more than ever by targeting residential areas.”
“With this crime, the Zionist regime has prepared a bitter and painful fate for itself — and it will undoubtedly face it,” Khamenei added.
Ahead of Iran’s response to the attacks [and as the U.S. repositioned war ships in the Middle East and many U.S. lawmakers expressed support for Israel] U.S. progressives called for a diplomatic solution and an end to American support for Israel.
“The Israeli government bombing Iran is a dangerous escalation that could lead to regional war,” Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said on social media.
Tlaib asserted that Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and is facing a domestic criminal corruption trial, “will do anything to maintain his grip on power.”
“We cannot let him drag our country into a war with Iran,” she added. “Our government must stop funding and supporting this rogue genocidal regime.”
Referring to negotiations on a new Iran nuclear deal, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said: “Just as talks with Iran were set to resume, Netanyahu launches a strike and declares a state of emergency. He is provoking a war Americans don’t want.”
“We should not allow ourselves to be dragged into yet another conflict, against our will, by a foreign leader pursuing his own agenda of death and destruction,” Omar added.
The U.S.-based peace group CodePink — some of whose members held an emergency protest outside the White House in Washington, D.C. — said that it “strongly condemn[s] Israel’s unprovoked and reckless attack on Iran, which risks igniting a catastrophic regional war.”
“This dangerous escalation threatens millions of lives across the entire Middle East,” the group added. “The U.S. must not continue to support and enable this illegal act of aggression.”
NOW: We’re protesting outside the White House to say NO WAR WITH IRAN!
Israel says these are “preemptive strikes,” but the only thing they are preempting is a peaceful dialogue between the United States and Iran to come to a nuclear deal.
STOP BOMBING IRAN! pic.twitter.com/lbaub5vA3g
— CODEPINK (@codepink) June 13, 2025
CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin said: “It’s horrific that Israel is bombing yet another country. And Trump calls himself a peace president? He knew this was coming and stood by. This is entirely out of step with the will of the American people.”
“The whole world is desperate for peace in the Middle East, and instead, Israel decides to move the region closer to World War III,” Benjamin added.
Noting that nuclear talks with Iran were set to resume this weekend, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) said that “this is an attack on peace and diplomacy.”
“Israeli political officials have demonstrated that U.S. diplomacy and a peaceful resolution with Iran is what they consider to be the true threats,” NIAC asserted.
“This much is clear: This is a war of choice, and an illegal and unprovoked attack,” NIAC added. “Trump must weigh in to stop this conflict before it spirals out of control, and to preserve the chance of maintaining diplomatic off-ramps.”
Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, Israel-Palestine director at the advocacy group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), contended that “Israel deciding to launch a war against Iran at the very same time it faces unprecedented international isolation and pressure over its genocide in Gaza is a nightmarish outcome of impunity.”
DAWN executive director Sarah Leah Whitson said that “Israel has committed an unlawful, unprovoked attack on Iran to undermine the growing global efforts to sanction it for its illegal occupation and to disrupt Trump’s efforts to independently pursue America’s interests via diplomacy.”
Nihad Awad, national executive director at the Council on American Islamic Relations, issued the following statement:
“We condemn Israel’s offensive strike on Iran and the broader pattern of aggression it represents. Netanyahu is using American weapons and taxpayer dollars to launch illegal and destabilizing wars across the region. President Trump must act immediately to suspend all military support to Israel and stop allowing U.S. arms to fuel war crimes, mass civilian death, and regional collapse. Secretary Rubio’s statement confirms what we already knew—Israel is acting recklessly, and the U.S. is letting it happen.”
CodePink noted that “in the past month and a half alone, Israel has bombed Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran.”
“There is no other choice,” the group added, “ARMS EMBARGO NOW!”
Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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This should be a no-brainer, for the sake of Dog!
Especially stop all MILITARY aid including any contractual maintenance c and soon as it became obvious Israeli leadership intended to kill everyone in Gaza.
The U.S. must send a message to Israelis in no uncertain terms to cut the bull shit but they will not agree to anything. It wouldn’t matter if they did. They would have a reason for acting against the rules of any agreement. It’s who they, are and h ow they conduct themselves. No contracts for American proved maintenance.
But it will not happen, unless Israelis take charge and remove Benjaman!
I have my doubts that Israel is “dragging” the U.S. into a war with Iran. President Trump’s own statement immediately following Israel’s initial attack shows indisputably that he was well aware of the plan in advance and did nothing to stop it (just as he has done nothing to stop the genocide in Gaza). The attack was carried out with American weapons, and in all likelihood, with American targeting data. So is Israel a tail wagging the dog, or is it the dog’s tail, just as Ukraine is NATO’s tail?
Your point is well taken! NO MOTHER OF ALL BOMBS for Israel either!!
We have an antiwar movement in this country? It sure isn’t a part of the Democratic party. Maybe a small wing of the Republican party. Both parties seem to filled with profiteers.
Canada ?
The 51st State ?
lol
Israel is the USA’s 51st State
The Zionist Power Configuration in all its paranoia, hegemonic ambitions, and bloodlust has gone berserk. Wesley Clark described in 2001 all the nation-states it wanted to regime change; it’s looking like its sick plans have probably been successful. All of this paid for by hard pressed American taxpayers with the full approval of a bought off legislature!
It’s noteworthy right now to put down the bottom line: the pro-Israel power bloc in Washington dictates Middle East policy to Washington. The hot takes and gotchya questions being bandied about currently regarding what specific role Trump played — Did he have prior knowledge? Did he or Netanyahu order the attacks? — miss the entire point: Miriam and the Palantir boys are running Middle East policy, period. Any other speculation that fails to acknowledge this is a distraction.
We have a Spartan state in the Middle East that provides free healthcare coverage to all its citizens (of whom 80% have essentially no problem with the Gaza genocide) while the US pays for it all and itself is filled with tens of millions of its own citizens full of healthcare debts that can lead to bankruptcy or suicide.
We are now left with the most religio-ethnic exclusionary state armed to the teeth that ignores international law and devalues gentile life.
What’s to be done? Lenin’s prescient question looms.
It appears Tehran has seen the light and has launched missiles into Tel Aviv. Something I’ve advocated for years, bc unfortunately it’s the only possible move that might (might) stop the genocidal Israeli machine.
The single most important fact to know about the Mideast is this: Other than having stolen the name, 1948 “Israel” is NOT a contemporary Biblical Israel!