Red Spark Statement on the Israel-US war-drive against Iran

The third round of unprovoked Israeli military attacks on Iran since 2023 is igniting a regional war that will affect the lives of millions of people. The attacks have destroyed homes, killed dozens of civilians—including children—as well as targeting top military and government officials.

Israel’s aggression comes after its recent attacks on Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and genocidal policies aimed at ethnically cleansing the Palestinian population from their homeland—which Israel occupies.

Israeli bombs are not in response to any Iranian threat or attack. Israel is the clear aggressor. Israel also has a nuclear arsenal which could be used against Iran in the context of heightened military conflict.

In 2015, Iran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – negotiated with the United States, UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany – which allowed international inspectors to carry out intrusive, regular examinations of its civilian nuclear energy program to guarantee it was not building a nuclear weapon. The Trump White House unilaterally ripped up that agreement in 2017.

It is widely understood that Israel’s stated goal of destroying Iranian nuclear facilities cannot be achieved by Israeli strikes alone. Those facilities are heavily fortified, dispersed and, in some cases, dug into a mountain, well beyond the reach of Israel’s conventional arsenal.

The unprovoked attacks are an attempt by the genocidal government of Benjamin Netanyahu to escalate conflict in such a way that draws its US ally into greater involvement.

Netanyahu threatens to continue the military assaults “as long as necessary, until we complete the mission”. However, Israel is completely dependent on military aid from the US and other imperialist allies, including for advanced weapons, ammunition, intelligence and missile defence.

There is no possibility that this and previous Israeli attacks on Iran and other countries were carried out without active support and planning involving the US. That was admitted in numerous public statements made by Trump. Israel could not maintain a “long” conflict with Iran without US backing.

The Australian government should immediately break all military and diplomatic ties with Israel, including cancelling Australia’s $917 million contract with Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems, cancelling the export of Australian weapons systems and parts including the EOS R400, cancelling all 66 military export permits that were active for the State of Israel in June 2024 and ending all Australian participation in the F35 fighter jet program.

Severing military ties between Australia and the genocidal Israeli regime would increase the political pressure on the United States and its other allies to do the same. Australia should also publicly call for the US to stop arming Israel.

The recently announced, largely symbolic, Australian sanctions targeting only two individual members of the Israeli Government—Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich—aim to distance Australia from Israel’s crimes. A serious policy aimed at stopping the genocide would immediately take concrete action—cut military ties.

The latest Israeli escalation against Iran, its series of wars over the last two years—Lebanon, Syria and Yemen—and its steady escalation against Palestinian civilians shows that the Palestine solidarity movement in Australia, which has been rightly focused on fighting Israel’s genocidal policies against the Palestinian population, must also stand in defence of Iran and all other nations facing Israeli aggression.

The widespread and systematic scope of its aggression shows that the very existence of Israel—an apartheid settler colonial state occupying Palestinian land—will not limit violence “only” to the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine. Israel—by nature—is also a militarily expansionist state in constant conflict with its regional neighbours. It has been strongly backed by US imperialism since it proved its usefulness against Arab revolutionary movements in the 1967 war. The apartheid, settler colonial project seems now to be in a highly dangerous and terminal phase of its development.

The continued brutal oppression of Palestinians since the Oslo Accords and the increasingly aggressive stance taken both by Israel and its US backers against the Palestinians today shows there can be no liberation for the Palestinian people until the apartheid state of Israel is defeated.

Given that all of the rich, imperialist states, like the US, Australia or the Western European states, continue to support the Israeli project—even in the face of years of open, “live streamed” genocidal policy—it’s clear that appeals to the good nature and sensibility of politicians such as Penny Wong, Anthony Albanese and others is not an effective strategy. The hand of such self serving politicians needs to be forced by greater and more focused mass pressure, by strengthening the Palestine Solidarity campaign that has been highly active since October 2023.

The responsibility of Australians and other people living in the rich, imperialist states that Israel relies on for military aid and economic cooperation is to break those ties on which Israel’s continued genocide is entirely dependent.

Hands off Iran!

Sanction Israel now!

For a united, democratic, national campaign to cut Australian ties with Israel!

Power to the Iranian, Palestinian and Arab resistance to Israel!

Defeat the Apartheid Regime!

From the River to the Sea – Freedom for Palestine