OPINION: Iran’s war on the Jews isn’t just Israel’s problem

Last week, the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) published its report on Iran, confirming what we have long known to be true: the Iranian regime actively targets Jews and Israelis on UK soil.

Iran views our country as collateral in its handling of so-called enemies of the regime. Indeed, the report asserts that the threat of physical attacks on individuals in the UK by Iran is now at its greatest level and is comparable with the dangers posed by Russia and China.

The report reveals that since 2022, Iran has attempted at least 15 assassination or kidnapping operations against individuals based in the UK. In October last year, MI5 confirmed that they had responded to 20 Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats. And just last month, three Iranian nationals were charged under the National Security Act, prompting the foreign secretary to summon Iran’s ambassador.

This cannot continue. I fully endorse the ISC’s call on the government to make it unequivocally clear to Tehran that any attack on Jews or Israelis in the UK would be treated as a direct attack against the UK. It is also abundantly clear that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps must be proscribed as a terrorist organisation. If this is not possible through existing legislation, the government must create a new power of proscription to cover state threats.

This report should not only mark a turning point in UK government policy, but it should also serve as a vindication of those who have long sounded the alarm, including successive Israeli governments.

In the weeks leading up to Operation Rising Lion, Israel’s pre-emptive strike against Iranian military and nuclear facilities, many in Britain, Europe and the United States had become increasingly critical of how Israel was prosecuting its war against Hamas in Gaza. There had been no shortage of uninformed actors weaponising international law to table absurd and offensive accusations against the world’s only Jewish state.

The atrocities of 7 October and the plight of the 50 innocent Israelis still being held hostage in Gaza have been conveniently forgotten by those who hate Israel. Let’s be very clear: Hamas, funded and armed by Iran, started this war. And Iran, emboldened by Western appeasement, meant to finish it.

Iran does not hide its ambitions. Ayatollah Khamenei has called Israel a “cancerous tumour” that must be “eradicated”. And last year, in April and October, Iran’s capability and willingness to target Israel directly became clear, as the IRGC directly fired hundreds of missiles at Israel. Israel has also repeatedly warned Iran and the international community that it would not stand idly by in the face of the existential threat posed by Iran’s nuclear programme.

Those warnings were ignored. By the time the IAEA declared that Iran was not complying with its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations, Tehran had already amassed a stockpile of over 400 kg of 60 percent highly enriched uranium. This was enough material to build at least nine nuclear weapons.

The same regime is also supplying weapons to Russia in Ukraine. This is not a distant war; it is a global fight against tyranny, terrorism, and the ideologies that fuel them.

For those who claim to care about peace and human rights, now is the time to recognise reality. The world’s most dangerous regime was on the verge of obtaining the world’s most dangerous weapon. Israel stopped it. All of us in the West should be grateful.

• Claudia Mendoza is the CEO of the Jewish Leadership Council