Photo: Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, lit in the colors of the American flag. (Photo via Amit Segal on X)

June 22, 2025

JCRC applauds the just and necessary strikes by the United States to dismantle key elements of Iran’s nuclear program. We are grateful to President Trump and to the brave men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces for their decisive leadership in confronting one of the gravest threats to global peace and security.

The crux of this war is simple: Israel wants to exist. Iran’s regime wants Israel destroyed.

There are multiple layers to this war, which began 625 days ago—on October 7, 2023—when Iran’s proxy Hamas invaded southern Israel, murdering, raping, and kidnapping Israelis. Other jihadist proxies soon joined: Hezbollah to the north, the Houthis via the Red Sea, and finally, Iran itself, launching a direct attack on Israel last year. 

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Iran’s campaign of terror is not limited to targeting Israelis, as President Trump noted during his address to the nation.

American patriots remember the cost of Iran’s brutality—from the 1979 U.S. embassy hostage crisis in Tehran, where 52 Americans were held for 444 days; to Hezbollah’s 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 American servicemembers; to the Iranian roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan that maimed and murdered thousands, including members of the Minnesota National Guard.

The regime’s investments in terror have damaged and stolen the lives of so many—Americans, Israelis, Arabs, and Iranians alike.

Over the past nine days, Israelis have weathered an unprecedented barrage of Iranian missiles. These massive weapons have struck Israeli homes, hospitals that serve Jews and Muslims alike, and even a mosque. Just last week, an Iranian strike killed four Palestinian Israeli women from the same family.

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No serious observer believes Iran’s nuclear program was ever peaceful. Its purpose is not energy—it is domination and destruction. The regime deploys “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” not as slogans but as strategy. The lesson of October 7 is this: when a regime says it plans to destroy you, believe it.

As Yossi Klein Halevi warned today, this moment is not without hazards:

“There will almost certainly be painful repercussions to America’s attack. We shouldn’t minimize the Iranian potential for retribution, especially through global terrorism. Israelis are paying a painful price for this war. And Jews around the world are now even more vulnerable. Israel—and ‘the Jews’—will be widely blamed, by both right and left, for ‘dragging America into war.'”

And as analyst Haviv Rettig Gur noted today, despite the self-serving claims of Israel’s enemies, Israel is not dependent on America.

It is Israeli–American interdependence that has enabled this moment—reminding us of the true nature of the U.S.–Israel alliance: by harnessing the ingenuity of an open yet threatened society, the local partner does the heavy lifting, fighting its own battles with American weaponry. Then, at the “rare moment when strategic alignment and operational momentum converge,” as Sir Niall Ferguson and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant wrote last week, only America could finish the job.

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The moral burden of this moment belongs to a world that enabled Iran’s rise—through appeasement, delay, and silence. For decades, the free world watched as Iran marched steadily toward this disastrous endpoint. That silence—more than any strike—brought us here.

Iran is a great and ancient civilization, taken captive by a radical regime that rules through fear and repression, and which is resented by most of its own people. May the American strikes bring us one step closer to a future where Iranians can live for their children—not for the destruction of Israel, the United States, or the West.

As always, JCRC is actively coordinating with law enforcement and community partners to ensure the safety and preparedness of our local Jewish community. We remain vigilant—and committed to truth, justice, and peace.