How The Israel-Iran War Exposed Western Hypocrisy
Rules for thee, not for me
On June 13th 2025, Israeli operatives deep within Iran launched a surprise attack on Iran, targeting military installations and civilian centers alike killing Iranian nuclear scientists in their homes along with their families. Later on, Israel carried out aerial bombardments of Iran, a move that led to the deaths of about 100 people on the first day of the attack, most of them civilians.
In the aftermath of the attack, Israelis went into jubilation, claiming the military offensive as the most brilliant and successful miliary operation in the history of mankind. Some even commented, “little Israel did what no one in the world dared to do, take out Iran’s military capabilities.” A post on Substack said, “if we cannot make them love us, we must make them fear us.” Israel in so many words asked the world to thank them and be grateful for their attack on Iran as Iran was such an existential threat to the world according to the Israeli world view. The sentiment was that Israel had dealt a blow to the Iranian regime from which it was not likely to recover.
Israeli celebration was cut short when Iran began its retaliation less than 24 hours later pounding Israeli cities like Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beersheba, striking Israel “the likes of which have not been seen before” in the manner of speaking of Donald Trump. This sent Israelis scampering to bomb shelters in fear for their lives as Iranian missiles overwhelmed Israeli air defenses.
Initially, Iran’s attack was focused on military targets and installations, hitting military research centers and the Israeli version of the US Pentagon. Later attacks seemed less discriminatory even hitting hospitals, which was after Israel attacked the Iranian state media broadcasting station while they were live on air.
As Israel and Iran traded missiles and bombs, the civilian casualties began to mount on both sides even though more Iranian civilians were killed, it was a traumatic experience for Israelis who were not accustomed to such assault and sustained disruptions to their daily lives. Many fled, many sought to flee, but the airports were shut. This was not Hamas or Hezbollah with their homemade weapons, this was Iran, a nation with a standard military and for the first time, Israelis felt a fraction of what the people of Gaza have been going through for 20 months and years before that.
In an unsurprising display of hypocrisy, Israel’s president, came out to lament that Iran was hitting civilian targets, Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Iran had crossed a red line with its attacks. In the light of the total decimation of Gaza which is still ongoing, what right did Israel have to complain about Iran hitting civilian targets? Israel set the metric by destroying houses, schools, churches, mosques, hospitals in Gaza, nothing was spared, but God forbid Israelis get a taste of what they’ve been dishing out.
But what was more revealing about this conflict was the response of western media and politicians. Officially, there were no condemnations of Israel’s unprovoked attacks on Iran, no condemnation of the target of scientists in their homes, killing them with their families, there was no condemnation of Israel operating what could best be described as terrorist cells within Iran.
Many western leaders including the German chancellor praised the attack, stating, “this is the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us”. The US which initially distanced itself from the attack, began to claim responsibility for the attacks in Iran making statements like “we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.”
There were no uproars concerning the assassination of Iranian military and civilian leaders. The UK government gave a sterile condemnation framing it as “fighting” without naming and blaming Israel for starting the conflict by attacking Iran.
Western hypocrisy was laid bare and this has been evident in the language they use in describing Israeli actions, versus the actions of other nations they don’t like. When Israel attacked Iran unprovoked, they termed it a pre-emptive strike. If the attack had been started by Iran citing the same reasons Israel gave for attacking, they would term it terrorism. Israel has always engaged in acts of aggression against its neighbors launching a NAZI like blitzkrieg attack taking out it’s chosen adversary’s military by taking them unawares, then claiming victory; that was what happened in the 1967 war when Israel launched a “pre-emptive” strike against its neighbors. When Israel does this, there are no condemnations from the west. There is at best silence or in most occasions a tacit approval of Israel’s actions and aggression against international law.
Israel used sleeper cells planted deep inside Iranian territory to carry out the initial attacks, no condemnation of such acts by the west. If Iran had done something similar, they would be termed terrorist cells. In fact, following the attacks, the west began to fear monger about terrorist cells in their country, predicting that such operatives may launch an attack on them. The same thing, but they framed one in the case of Israel as Israeli operatives, making them heroes, but for Iran, they term such operatives, terrorists, making them villains.
Terrorism isn’t a state, it’s an act and countries including many western countries do carry out acts of terrorism regularly, but when they do so, they sanitize it with whitewashed language, assassinations become military strikes, provocations become pre-emptive strikes, terrorists become operatives. Terrorism is using violence to achieve a political goal. Carrying out coups in foreign countries a favorite past time of the US regime is terrorism. The assassination of Qassem Soleimani outside the theatre of war was terrorism, the assassination of nuclear scientists in their homes with their families is terrorism. The assassination of the military leaders of a country within that country is terrorism. These are all things the west engages in but would never term terrorism.
The US government has been accusing the Iranian government of trying to assassinate Donald Trump, a claim so ridiculous it should be laughed at. The US and Israel haven’t just threatened to assassinate Iranian leaders, they actually have assassinated Iranian leaders, yet, Iran is the one regarded as the terrorist state. The west refers to Iran’s government and frankly all governments they don’t like as regimes, while theirs who have done comparable or even worse thing are simply “government” by US standards, the US government should be regarded as a regime considering its constant meddling in other parts of the world and unspeakable things it’s been responsible for, for decades.
Many western politicians condemned Iranian attacks on civilian targets in Israel, despite the fact that Israeli civilians were more or less safe during such attacks as they were deep underground in bunkers. These western politicians have refused to do what is necessary to stop the Israeli regime’s onslaught in Gaza that has killed up to fifty thousand people with unverified estimates putting the figure at closer to 377,000. Given the level of destruction in Gaza, the 377,000 figure is likely accurate.
Following the October 7th attack on Israel, there was an outpouring of support and sympathy for Israel from western media and regimes. All western countries supported Israel’s right to respond, framing it as “Israel’s right to defend itself” but they said nothing of Iran’s right to defend itself in response to Israel’s attack.
Israel has blamed Hamas for the suffering and carnage the Palestinians are currently going through saying “Hamas started it” yet a similar reasoning was never used to justify Iran defending itself against Israel, in fact, western politicians did not invoke the right of Iran to defend itself against Israeli aggression as legitimate reasons for targeting Israeli civilians.
Perhaps the most jarring example of double standards, is the insistence by Israel and the west that Iran can never have a nuclear weapons program while not demanding the same of Israel. Israel is as much a threat to Iran as Iran is to Israel, in the most charitable sense, but of those two, only Israel has attacked first in all of their direct confrontations. Iran is a signatory to the nuclear non proliferation treaty, Israel is not. Iran allows IAEA inspectors into its nuclear facilities, Israel doesn’t. Iran has not committed to building a nuclear weapon, Israel has nuclear weapons that it refuses to declare.
Even if Iran has nuclear weapons, it is unlikely they would ever deploy them against Israel, the Iranian government may be authoritarian, but they are not suicidal. They know it would be the end of Iran should they deploy nuclear weapons against Israel as the United States and its European allies would hit Iran back with nuclear weapons. Iran’s actions over the years have shown it to be a rational actor, it wants to exist. When the US assassinated Soleimani, Iran responded performatively to save face, they could have escalated in a way to draw the US in more, but they didn’t. When Israel carried out assassinations in Iran last year, Iran’s response was limited to slow moving drones, they even allowed Israel to have the last strike. Considering their current response to Israel’s aggression, we see that they had the ability to have escalated much more last year, but they chose to de-escalate. Similarly, their response to US bombing of their three nuclear sites were just as performative and as confirmed by Donald Trump, they gave warnings of the attack before hand to the US in a de-escalation signal. Does that look like a government that is irrational or suicidal?
Nuclear weapons are lame duck weapons, that are only employed in worst case apocalyptic scenarios. Most countries that have them, have them for deterrent purposes, to prevent an invasion rather than as a weapon of offense. If they had so much leverage, Russia wouldn’t be struggling in its war with Ukraine, it could end the war in a minute. If they had so much leverage as offensive weapons, North Korea would have overrun the South, China would have taken Taiwan, India and Pakistan would have obliterated one another. Talking about Pakistan, this was the same way Israel fear mongered about Pakistan when it was developing its nuclear weapons program. Israel had put plans in place to assassinate the head of Pakistan’s nuclear program and connived with India to bomb Pakistan’s nuclear facilities, however, India pulled out at the last minute. Has Pakistan attacked Israel with a nuclear weapon today?
Israel’s unhinged nuclear fear mongering has no basis in reality, the real goal for Israel is regional hegemony, by destabilizing its neighbors, those most vocal about its continued occupation and transgression against the Palestinian people, Israel can act unchallenged. Israel wants to turn Iran into Iraq, and Libya, and Syria where there is no viable and stable central government but weak factions constantly fighting one another for control, that way they are too distracted as Israel murders Palestinians and steal more of their land. The west turns a blind eye to all Israel does.
Israel struck Iran while the US was engaged in negotiations with Iran, giving the Iranians a false sense that they would not be attacked, in that attack the negotiator for Iran was killed. That was a deliberate attempt at sabotaging the negotiations because these were very precise attacks, where is the honor of the west? How do you feign peace talks while attacking your adversary during the talks. US-Backed Israel engaged in the most shameful form of deceit.
For months, Israel would not let journalists into Gaza, citing concerns for their safety, which was weird as Israel was the biggest threat to journalists in Gaza, killing them and burying their bodies to hide evidence of their heinous crimes. They wanted to shut the world off from their atrocities in Gaza, but when Iranian missiles hit Israel, Israel was open to journalists from western media covering and crafting an image of helplessness, coveting sympathy while also downplaying the impact of Iranian missiles.
Why is there such a double standard when it comes to applying international law and human rights? These things only seem to matter when they are working in favor of the west, but once it is not convenient, the west flat out ignores it. There seem to be two sets of rules, one for the west and one for others.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am no fan of the Iranian government, I think they are autocratic, theocratic and oppressive, I believe the Iranian people deserve better, in the same way, I do admire western ideals of international law, and human rights etc., my only problem is that the west is not abiding by these ideals it set up yet it wants everyone else to live up to them. It’s a double standard that must be challenged at every turn.
If you’ve enjoyed my writings on Substack, kindly support me on Patreon to encourage open and challenging discourse. Like, share, and subscribe to this Substack and leave a comment. I will be sure to respond to them.
About the Host
Charles Ekokotu (Pharm. D.) is a bibliophile, prose fiction writer, poet, and playwright. His first novel, Hotel Shendam—a crime fiction novel featuring a debate on race and colonialism—is available on Amazon. If you love interesting crime fiction thrillers, you would love this.
He also has a collection of poems called Fairy Tales, now available on Amazon. Fairy Tales is a collection of poems based on the author's experiences and captures key events in the author's life and his expression of his feelings through poetry. It runs across themes like loss, grief, excitement, nature, romance, and joy
Follow Critical African Thinkers on
