In this exclusive interview with The New Arab, prominent Iranian-American academic Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University in New York City, discusses the attack on Iran, which he sees as an Israeli distraction from the Palestinian genocide. He believes that Israel is now confronting the indomitable spirit of an ancient civilisation, aware of its memories dating back to Alexander the Great's conquest, and that this "despicable act" will completely change the face of our region in the opposite direction of what the Israelis planned.
He ruled out the regime's collapse, even though the state, as he described it, resembles a hedgehog that has lost its defensive spines. Nevertheless, he asserted it will defend itself with all its might. He criticised the media in the United States and Europe, particularly the New York Times, whose newsrooms he characterises as "the most dangerous ideological machine" and perceives as an extension of Israeli hasbara, or propaganda.
The author of Can Non-Europeans Think? criticised the positions of Western European countries and their political support for Israel, which aims to "whitewash the image of the Palestinian genocide." He described the German Chancellor as a "stupid and racist man" following his recent statements in which he said that Israel is doing the dirty work on behalf of the West.
He discussed a petition initiated by several Iranian opposition intellectuals, both within the country and abroad, that calls for the defence of Iranian territorial integrity. He viewed the conflict with the regime as an internal matter, preferring that Iran endures the corrupt tyranny of the ruling Islamic regime rather than face destruction by Israeli bombs.
Dabashi is one of many Iranian intellectuals opposed to the Iranian regime who are rejecting the Israeli military aggression against Iran. A week after Israel launched its surprise war against Iran, the voices of many Iranian political opponents and intellectuals inside and outside Iran have begun to rise, expressing their condemnation of some pro-Israel voices and calling for unity and confronting this American- and European-backed attack.
Below is the text of the interview, shortened for brevity.
How did you receive the news of the Israeli attack on Iran, and how are you following this aggression against your country?
HD: I received it through my usual constellation of news outlets from Iranian, Arab, other Asian sources in Persian, Arabic and English — plus Aljazeera, The New Arab, Middle East Eye — but I also check the New York Times and the BBC and other US and European sources to see how they are immediately spinning the news — such as planting the word “preemptive strike” to justify the blatant military aggression of the Israeli settler colony against a sovereign nation.
But I am now following it also through direct contact with friends, family, and colleagues in Iran, in exile in Europe, as well as close friends in the Arab and Muslim world. I am not a news junky — and don’t spend more than half an hour or so following the news from the actual corporate media — except when I read them as an anthropologist would to decipher the pathology of corporate media in US and Europe.
It is without a doubt the vilest and most vulgar ideological machinery of twisting the truth to fit their imperial projects. So you never read the New York Times to get the news, but to see how they are spinning the news. They pride themselves that their editorial page is independent of their newsroom. But the fact is their newsroom is the most pernicious ideological machinery that ever was. Their opinion pages, like those of Thomas Friedman or Bret Stephens, are so pathologically vulgar and threadbare that there is no need to decipher them.
What do you think is the primary objective of this attack? Is it merely focused on the nuclear programme, or does it extend further towards undermining or overthrowing the Iranian regime?
HD: The primary objective of this attack is to distract the world's attention from the genocide in Palestine. For close to two years, genocidal Zionism has been at work, slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinians, mainly in Gaza but also in the rest of Palestine.
There has been a global outcry against the settler colony for its chronic atrocities have been in full view. Leaders of the settler colony are fugitives from international law. Israel, therefore, keeps attacking all the adjacent countries to Palestine — Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and now Iran — anywhere and everywhere except corrupt Arab ruling regimes like those in Jordan, Egypt and the UAE.
Keep in mind that as the world's attention is now drawn to the Israeli military strike against Iran, the murder of Palestinians in Gaza proceeds apace on a daily basis. The excuse of attacking Iran is, of course, entirely bogus: for a garrison state that is the military depot of every kind of nuclear, biological, and conventional bombs, pointing fingers at a country that has no atom bomb and is a signatory to the NPT.
But it is not just Israel. It is the New York Times — the American extension of the Hasbara — leading the entire gamut of US and European media landscape, manufacturing enemies for Israel to justify its murderous behaviours. As for overthrowing the regime, which they also purport to do it is a pipe dream. Keep in mind that the Sepah is modelled after a guerrilla operation, not a conventional army. They are the theoreticians of symmetrical warfare. Israel and its allies have fooled Americans, thinking that Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis are defeated — they are not. These organisations are the political expressions of their popular bases, not the agents of a foreign government.
Israel is itself a rootless garrison state, so it thinks the whole world is like that. It is not. But right now, Israel is facing something far mightier than the ruling regime in Iran. It is now facing the indomitable spirit of an ancient civilisation fully aware of its historical memories. From the Alexander conquest of 334 BC to the US-UK military coup of 1953, we have a very long and lasting historical memory in the context of which this puny little pathetic European colony weighs less than nothing.
We will join our Palestinian and other Arab families and friends, teaching Zionism humility. In this resistance to militarism our Palestinian sisters and brothers are our absolute role models. Israel has just added almost 100 million Iranians as honorary Palestinians resisting their pathetic warmongering. This despicable act of folly will change the face of our region exactly in the opposite direction of what these genocidal Zionists think they are doing.
How do you evaluate Iran's reaction to the Israeli assaults? To what degree can Iran endure this American and Western-supported aggression?
HD: They have been preparing for this encounter for a long time and they will defend themselves anyway they can. But of course, no country is a match for a military depot and a garrison state with the might of the American army and European military behind it. Remember, Israel is a garrison state. Jews are a legitimate and integral part of any country where they live around the world. It is an astounding act of antisemitism to expect all Jews must pack their belonging and go and live in a Jewish state. American Jews are American. Egyptian Jews are Egyptians. Iranian Jews are Iranians.
Israel is just a military depot with a flag over it — they do nothing but plot how to kill people, how to invent more lethal weapons, or else how to spy on people — and then sell such technologies around the world. Israel is the proverbial military-industrial complex in a nutshell. People, countries, and cultures around the world, including their Jewish populations, have decent lives to run. They have normal lives. So no thank God we have no other such congested military base anywhere else in the region to be a match for Israel. Countless decent Israelis have been leaving Palestine for good in search of a decent, normal life they richly deserve. Fighting pernicious antisemitism is the moral duty of every single human being to make sure our Jewish neighbours live in peace and prosperity among us.
Is Benjamin Netanyahu succeeding in drawing the United States into this war? What are the scenarios for direct U.S. involvement in the conflict? And what are President Donald Trump's interests in this?
HD: The US, Europe, and a few Arab countries have all already been actively involved in logistics, intelligence and other matters in this invasion. Trump doing it more openly and aggressively right now has a domestic obstacle — where a significant part of what used to be his base has become sick and tired of Israel dragging US into one war after another — the New York Times is demonizing this movement by calling it “isolationist” or “far right” — but from their own perspective they are just Americans who do not wish to be implicated in Israeli perpetual warfare — this is a significant event in US politics — and Trump is weighing to see how not to alienate them.
What might occur within Iranian society if the ongoing attacks on Iran result in the regime's downfall? Furthermore, how could that affect the region in the future?
HD: Too early to tell. Right now, people have panicked and are running away from Tehran. The political and military leadership of the state is in shambles — I do not believe the regime will fall — the state is now acting like a porcupine and all its defensive spikes are out — the monarchist and their ilk are diabolically delusional if they think they can land in Iran on the wings of Israeli fighter jets and rule that country. True, the regime is deeply unpopular with a significant segment of the society. But that very dissident segment detests what Israel is doing. Pictures and biographies of precious young men, women, and children who have perished under Israeli bombs are being widely circulated. There are separatist movements in Kurdistan and Baluchistan that Israel has actively financed to create problems for the ruling regime. These separatist movements have legitimate grievances against the central government that are being put to illegitimate means and financed and militarised by Israel. There is widespread incompetence and corruption inside the state apparatus — the most gifted and caring Iranians have left their homeland in defiance of the ruling regime — but these very forces right now detest Israel and their monarchist stooges far more than they are angry with the ruling regime.
What future awaits Israel following its attack on Iran, considering the events that have unfolded in the Middle East since 7 October 2023? Are we entering an era of complete Israeli dominance?
HD: Absolutely not. Israel is a pariah garrison state — rejected by every decent and civilized nation around the world — except the European states that created and US that sustains it in power to protect their own regional and global interests — some nine million human beings are trapped inside a delusional lie that the occupied Palestine is their country — Jews have always lived in Palestine and will always have a home in Palestine next to their Muslim and Christian Palestinian neighbors — this has nothing to do with the European genocidal ideology that calls itself Zionism and sustained the European colonial legacy in Palestine. Israel has always been and will always remain an alien garrison state in the Arab and Muslim world. In a deeply and irremediably antisemitic move US and Europe keep Israel trapped inside that lie as the colonial outpost of their own regional and global strategic interests. Israel has never had and will never have an independent character to claim any hegemony for itself in the region.
You are an intellectual and a long-time opponent of the Iranian regime. How do you interpret the stance of the Iranian opposition on current events, and what are you advocating for during these times?
HD: Today I joined half a dozen other senior Iranian dissident intellectuals living in or outside Iran signing a clear and unequivocal support in defense of the territorial integrity of our homeland. Our fundamental disagreement with the ruling regime has absolutely nothing to do with the defence of our homeland and the resounding denunciation of the genocidal Zionists leading a military campaign against our country to distract attention from their murderous deeds in Palestine. We are not alone. Political prisoners from inside the dungeons of the Islamic Republic are writing public letters defending the sovereignty of our homeland and denouncing Israel. Iran is our homeland. It belongs to every single Iranian citizen. Neither the ruling regime in Iran nor the retarded monarchists from abroad has any legitimate or total claim over our homeland. Ours is an internal conflict among brothers and sisters with differing visions of our country. I would rather see Iran struggling under the corrupt tyranny of the ruling Islamist regime than destroyed under the Israeli bombs. There is no comparison. I am advocating for an immediate ceasefire, for the resumption of diplomatic dialogue for a fair, just, and meaningful resolution to the issue of the Iranian nuclear program. We need a regional nuclear disarmament that includes Israel, which, with barefaced vulgarity, relies on its own nuclear bombs to establish military superiority in the region. As all other nations, Iran is entitled to a peaceful nuclear program.
Western European countries have not condemned Israel's attack on Iran, justifying it as “Israel's right to self-defence," while the German Chancellor clearly stated yesterday that “Israel is doing the dirty work on our behalf" when referring to Iran. How do you interpret the stance of Western European states, particularly in light of the ongoing scenes of genocide in Gaza? Has the era of international law ended? What kind of era are we living in?
HD: Of course, Western Europeans do not condemn Israel. They created Israel as a colonial outpost to protect their nefarious interests in the region. The most revealing statement is by the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz that “Israel is doing the dirty work on our behalf" — the man is so astoundingly stupid and racist at one and the same time he is not even aware of what a notoriously antisemitic slur is coming out of his mouth — I went and listened to the German original for I could not believe it — he actually says “Drecksarbeit!”
But the political point of the support is meant to whitewash the Palestinian genocide, which not just this dime a dozen politician but in fact the most senior German philosophers like Jürgen Habermas have openly endorsed. ( see my essay: Thanks to Gaza, European philosophy has been exposed as ethically bankrupt | Middle East Eye ). The international law was never meant to include the criminal behaviour of European or US imperial arrogance that had drafted it to legalise their global domination. US senator Lindsey Graham said so with his habitual gaudy vulgarity. Humanity as a whole is on its own. We are responsible for safeguarding and protecting our humanity against these savages who have masqueraded as arbiters of truth and justice.