Why Israel Struck Iran First

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnik. In much of the world, Israel's longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been known above all for his opposition to a Palestinian state. And that's an opposition, of course, that's deepened since October 7th.

And yet, if you really drill down, Netanyahu's true obsession is not so much Palestine. His true obsession for years has been the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Ayatollahs who have ruled Iran since 1979 have promised to destroy the Jewish state. The country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamani, and his theocratic regime and his security chiefs All insist that Israel is an alien presence, that the Holocaust is a hoax, that Israel is the junior Satan and America the senior Satan.

Iran has armed and funded proxies to fight Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, and militia groups in Iraq and elsewhere, and in the meantime, Iran, we believe, has sought to develop atomic weapons. For years Netanyahu has called on the world to take seriously Iran's threat to destroy Israel. And Iran seemed to maintain a position of strength, even as its economy struggled and internal protests grew. But after October 7th and the killing rampage by Hamas, the power balance in the region seemed to shift. In Gaza, Israel has devastated Hamas, as well as tens of thousands of civilians.

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