VUYANI PAMBO: Iran has shattered the myth of Israel's invincibility, perhaps forever

On 1 October, the world as we know it may have changed forever, for better or for worse. It was Vladimir Lenin who correctly observed that “there are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen”. The beginning of October is undeniably one of those weeks in history.

Iran finally decided to burst the bubble of invincibility that had long misguided the apartheid state of Israel for more than seven decades, and successfully launched an attack on military sites in Israel. The impenetrable iron dome which had previously successfully provided defence against rockets fired by Hamas could not stand the precision of Iranian hypersonic missiles, with that singular attack, the myth of Israel's invincibility was shattered, perhaps forever.

Perhaps it is important to give a brief historical account of the genesis of the Middle East crisis, without which it would be difficult to properly contextualise the systemic and systematic violence that is foundational to the State of Israel. The origins of the current conflict can be traced back to the Balfour Declaration, issued in November 1917 by the British government, committing to the establishment of a Jewish settlement to satisfy the long-held Zionist aspiration for the establishment of a Jewish territory for the Jewish people who had been scattered across the world. This Zionist movement was very particular about the location of the state they aspired to, it had to be on the land that was occupied by Palestine.

The Balfour Declaration was a public pledge by Britain in support of the Zionist movement’s desire for a home for Jewish people, and through their use of historical revisionism, this home was destined to be in Palestine. It is called the Balfour Declaration because it was a letter by the then foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, Arthur Balfour, addressed to the British Jewish community in the middle of the First World War, and was included in the terms of the British Mandate for Palestine after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

The main aim was to establish a national home for the scattered Jewish communities, on land that had been occupied by Palestinian people for centuries. As a result, between 1922 and 1935, the Jewish population rose from 9% to nearly 27% of the total population in the Palestinian territory. It was, in the true spirit of colonial thought at the time, an imposition of European thought on a people without giving such people much of a choice. More fundamentally, this declaration took away the independence of the Palestinian people. When Palestinians embarked on a protest against this ongoing and forced incursion of Jewish people into their land in 1939, the British government responded with disproportionate force and deployed about 30,000 soldiers to Palestine to suppress the Palestinian quest for the return of their land. In so doing, the British bombed villages by air, imposed curfews, demolished homes and provided administrative detentions reminiscent of what we had here during apartheid. During this period, over 5,000 Palestinians were killed; 15,000 to 20,000 were wounded and 5,600 were imprisoned. Also during this period, almost 400,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine from Europe.

In 1947, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181, which called for the partitioning of Palestinian land into two Arab and Jewish states. This plan was rightfully rejected by the Palestinians because its implementation would have resulted in the allocation of about 55% of the land that previously belonged to Palestinians to Jewish settlers. When Israel was finally established as a state in 1948, it was based on this violent annexation of Palestinian land, aided in the main by Britain and the United States of America.

The establishment, sustenance and continued existence of the State of Israel was and is purely based on its ability to inflict violence against its perceived opponents. The international community has largely been unable to oppose Israel in any significant way because the violence and genocidal acts by Israel are largely endorsed and supported by powerful international actors, such as the United States and Britain. These factors have largely enabled Israel to engage in a myriad of heinous acts with impunity. The events of 01 October and 14 April this year, as well as the events of 7 October last year, are clear indicators of the unravelling of this myth of the invincibility of this settler colonial State.

Much like its attitude towards the people of Palestine and those of Lebanon, Israel has viewed Iran as its main opponent in the region and has provoked violence and disorder to elicit a response from Iran. In April this year, Israel launched an unprovoked bombing of the Iranian embassy in Damascus. On 14 April, Iran responded by launching about 300 drone attacks in Israel, an unprecedented attack of its kind in recent history. While these were successfully intercepted, Israel ought to have known that the game has now changed and that it could no longer view itself as having a monopoly on violence in the Middle East.

What 1 October did, however, far surpasses any of the previous skirmishes the oppressed and allies of the oppressed have done to the Zionist regime of Israel. Iran’s missiles penetrated the so-called iron dome that Israel has boasted about for years. By so doing, the missiles not only hit the intended targets, but also sent a strong indication to Israel that it does not matter how long it takes, but no force of oppression can last forever. While the bombing and indiscriminate killing of Palestinians in Gaza may inflict lasting physical pain, this will never keep the Zionists safe. Only a dedicated effort to see others as equal will guarantee peace.

But Israel can't exist in peace because a determined human effort to recognise the humanity of the people of Palestine will pose an existential crisis for Israel. First, it would force them to admit that the premise of their entire existence, that they are the chosen race of God is irreconcilable with the existence of other human beings other than as appendages to that chosen race. The existence of a superior, chosen race is so central to the continued persecution of the people of Palestine that without this belief, Israel will not continue to exist.

Linked to this is the centrality of violence in the continued existence of Israel. They can maintain the stranglehold they have in the region because of their ability, sustained by the West, to inflict genocidal violence against the people of Palestine. They have successfully done this up to this far, with no concomitant response by the conquered people of Palestine.

What Iran did, and is likely to do in future, is to shatter this monopoly on violence that has sustained Israel since its illegitimate establishment on Palestinian soil. When that happens, the very idea of Israel as a State will be shattered. This is what Israel and its backers fear the most, too because without a monopoly on violence, the State of Israel itself ceases to exist.