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New Feature: By Our Rabbis
Each week, we will showcase an Op-Ed, blog post, column or sermon written by one of our colleagues about the issues that are the focus of ZRC's work. We invite you to submit your piece to be highlighted in an upcoming week.
This week we feature a column written by our colleague and member, Rabbi Stuart Gershon.
Click Here to submit your column for publication
Why US Military Action Against Iran is Justified Under International Law
For nearly half a century, the Iranian regime has called for “death to America” and targeted Americans through terrorism, direct assaults, and proxy attacks. From the 1983 bombing that killed 241 American Marines in Beirut, to the Khobar Towers attack on US personnel in 1996, to the hundreds of US troops killed by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, to the wave of Houthi strikes on US naval assets in the Red Sea and proxy attacks on US personnel in Iraq and Syria in recent years, Iran has waged a sustained campaign of hostilities spanning more than four decades-an anti-American campaign that began with the 1979 seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran and the 444-day hostage crisis.
Yet critics –including Joe Kent, several members of Congress and some European leaders–argue that US military action is unlawful because Iran “posed no imminent threat.” This claim views the risk of an Iranian attack as isolated and speculative, when it fact it is ongoing and fits within a long-established pattern of armed attacks.
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