“Trump must act immediately to suspend all military support to Israel and stop allowing US arms to fuel war crimes, mass civilian death, and regional collapse,” said one critic.

Progressive US lawmakers and human rights defenders demanded an end to unconditional American armed and diplomatic support for Israel after it launched a series of attacks on Iran early on Friday, reportedly killing senior military officials and civilians including nuclear scientists, women, and children in a dramatic escalation that Iranian leaders vowed to avenge.

Israeli forces carried out at least five waves of airstrikes, targeting not only Iran’s nuclear facilities but also its military leadership and capabilities, Al Jazeera reported. In addition to airstrikes, Israeli and international media reported that operatives from Mossad, Israel’s foreign spy agency, also conducted assassination and sabotage attacks in Iran.

The Israel Defence Forces claimed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander-in-chief Major General Hossein Salami and Iranian Armed Forces chief of staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri were assassinated, as were numerous Iranian nuclear scientists.

IDF attacks targeted cities, including the capital Tehran, Natanz, Isfahan, Arak, Tabriz, and Kermanshah. Iranian television reports showed bombed-out apartment towers and said an unknown number of civilians, including women and children, were killed in the strikes.

The attack on Natanz — home to Iran’s primary nuclear enrichment facility — sparked fears of radiological contamination.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack — dubbed Operation Rising Lion — a “pre-emptive strike”, a dubious form of warfare previously waged by forces including imperial Japan during the bombing of Pearl Harbour and the George W. Bush administration in Iraq.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog  said the attacks were meant to “neutralise an immediate and existential threat to our people”, an apparent reference to Iran’s nuclear program. Successive US administrations, including President Donald Trump’s, have concluded for decades that Iran is not trying to develop nuclear weapons.

During his first term, Trump unilaterally abrogated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal.

Last year, Israel and Iran  carried out limited tit-for-tat attacks following the former’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, who led the Lebanon-based resistance group Hezbollah, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

This time, Iranian leaders vowed “severe punishment”, with fears that the US could be targeted due to its staunch support for Israel as it wages what the international community increasingly views as a genocidal war on Gaza. While US Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed his country was not involved in the attacks, Israeli officials  insisted there was close co-ordination with the Trump administration.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei  said on Friday that “in the early hours of today, the Zionist regime extended its filthy and bloodstained hand to commit a crime in our beloved country, exposing its vile nature more than ever by targeting residential areas”.

“With this crime, the Zionist regime has prepared a bitter and painful fate for itself – and it will undoubtedly face it,” Khamenei added.

As the world braced for Iran’s response to the attacks, US progressives called for a diplomatic solution and an end to American support for Israel.

“The Israeli Government bombing Iran is a dangerous escalation that could lead to regional war,” Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)  said on social media.

She asserted that Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and is facing a domestic criminal corruption trial, “will do anything to maintain his grip on power”.

“We cannot let him drag our country into a war with Iran,” she added. “Our government must stop funding and supporting this rogue genocidal regime.”

Referring to negotiations on a new Iran nuclear deal, Congresswoman  Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)  said: “Just as talks with Iran were set to resume, Netanyahu launches a strike and declares a state of emergency. He is provoking a war Americans don’t want.

“We should not allow ourselves to be dragged into yet another conflict, against our will, by a foreign leader pursuing his own agenda of death and destruction.”

The US-based peace group CodePink — some of whose members held an emergency protest outside the White House in Washington, DC —said it “strongly condemn[s] Israel’s unprovoked and reckless attack on Iran, which risks igniting a catastrophic regional war”.

“This dangerous escalation threatens millions of lives across the entire Middle East,” the group added. “The US must not continue to support and enable this illegal act of aggression.”

CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin said: “It’s horrific that Israel is bombing yet another country. And Trump calls himself a peace president? He knew this was coming and stood by. This is entirely out of step with the will of the American people.

“The whole world is desperate for peace in the Middle East, and instead, Israel decides to move the region closer to World War III.”

Noting that nuclear talks with Iran were set to resume this weekend, the National Iranian American Council said, “this is an attack on peace and diplomacy”.

“Israeli political officials have demonstrated that US diplomacy and a peaceful resolution with Iran is what they consider to be the true threats,” NIAC asserted.

“This much is clear: This is a war of choice, and an illegal and unprovoked attack. Trump must weigh in to stop this conflict before it spirals out of control, and to preserve the chance of maintaining diplomatic off-ramps.”

Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, Israel-Palestine director at the advocacy group Democracy for the Arab World Now, contended that “Israel deciding to launch a war against Iran at the very same time it faces unprecedented international isolation and pressure over its genocide in Gaza is a nightmarish outcome of impunity”.

DAWN executive director Sarah Leah Whitson said that “Israel has committed an unlawful, unprovoked attack on Iran to undermine the growing global efforts to sanction it for its  illegal occupation and to disrupt Trump’s efforts to independently pursue America’s interests via diplomacy”.

Nihad Awad, national executive director at the Council on American Islamic Relations, issued the following statement:

“We condemn Israel’s offensive strike on Iran and the broader pattern of aggression it represents. Netanyahu is using American weapons and taxpayer dollars to launch illegal and destabilising wars across the region. President Trump must act immediately to suspend all military support to Israel and stop allowing US arms to fuel war crimes, mass civilian death, and regional collapse. Secretary Rubio’s statement confirms what we already knew – Israel is acting recklessly, and the US is letting it happen.”

CodePink  noted that “in the past month and a half alone, Israel has bombed  Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran”.

“There is no other choice,” the group added, “Arms embargo now!”

Republished from Common Dreams, 13 June 2025

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.