The struggle between revolution and counterrevolution in the Middle East has a new chapter with Israel's aggression launched on June 12, 2025, against Iran called "Operation Rising Lion," which destroyed military bases, nuclear plants, and military residences. This was followed by the recent June 21, 2025, US attack on Iran 's underground uranium enrichment facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. In retaliation for Israel's attacks, Iran launched "Operation True Promise III," hitting the cities of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beit She'an, Eliat, Arraba, Ben Gurion Airport, Ramat Gan, Upper Galilee, the Jordan Valley, and more. which are causing enormous destruction, a mass flight of Israeli settlers and citizens, which highlights the end of Israel's "invincibility" and the growing crisis and weakness of the Zionist state.

Millions around the world watch with sympathy as bombs fall on Israeli cities in revenge for the massacres, killings, and destruction suffered by the Palestinian people, which has reached the horrific figure of 55,362 dead and 128,741 wounded. Iran's bombing of Israeli cities highlights the failure of Donald Trump's "Peace" policy for the Middle East and the ceasefire agreement in Gaza signed just five months ago on January 15, 2025. The class struggle has shattered the plans of imperialism and Trump, who spoke of creating a huge beach similar to the French Riviera in the "reconstruction" of Gaza. Now Trump must restructure his real estate business to figure out how to rebuild Israel's coastal cities, which are presenting scenes of destruction more and more similar to those of Gaza every day.

Netanyahu and the bombing of Iran

The US-backed Israeli attacks on Iran have once again unleashed a barrage of quackery from bourgeois commentators. Their insane analyses never get anything right, because they insist on predicting a Third World War that never happens. This, coupled with the failure of the "Decoupling Theory ," makes a Marxist response to the US-Israeli bombing of Iran more necessary than ever. Only a class analysis of the deadly confrontation between revolution and counterrevolution allows us to properly understand the true reasons for the attacks.

Let's first dispel Netanyahu's lies about the attacks being caused by Iran having the "atomic bomb" which is false. While Iran has the capability and development of a nuclear weapon, all analysts agree that it still needs time to develop one. Furthermore, the Ayatollahs' government has accepted all UN and imperialist inspections, controls, and supervision of its nuclear development. In fact, the Israeli attack occurred in the midst of the Iranian regime's negotiations with the US. When Trump claims to be attacking Iran's nuclear facilities, he is also lying, claiming to be just as false as the "weapons of mass destruction" campaign Bush used to justify the 2003 aggression against Iraq.

The Israeli attack is a desperate measure by Netanyahu's government, cornered by the unfolding revolution in the Middle East, to unite the Israeli people and prevent the fall of its government. In turn, the US attack is not for the "atomic bomb ," but out of a need to sustain and support Israel amid its growing weakness. Netanyahu carried out the attack on Iran on the same day that a Knesset (parliament) session was taking place, where the motion to dissolve the Knesset and call for early elections was being voted on, effectively spelling the fall of Netanyahu's government. The missile attack on Iran miraculously saved Netanyahu by a mere eight votes in the 160-member Knesset. Even as Benjamin Netanyahu has been criticized within Israel for the conduct of the war in Gaza, his main political rivals, Benny Gantz, Avigdor Lieberman, and Yair Lapid, have expressed support for the attack on Iran.

Netanyahu is seeking to overcome the political crisis caused by the blows suffered by the Zionist state due to the guerrilla war waged by Palestinian militias in Gaza and the West Bank, and the confrontation with Hezbollah in Lebanon, in which the Arab militias inflicted more than 10,000 dead and wounded on the IDF, in addition to billions of dollars in military resources. To this historic figure, we must add that there are still 60 Israeli hostages in Palestinian hands, in addition to millions of displaced Israelis and exiles who have fled the country.

It is this brutal blow inflicted by Palestinian militias on the IDF that explains Netanyahu's desperate attempt to extend military service to ultra-Orthodox Jews, given the increasingly pressing shortage of soldiers in the army, which has provoked a rebellion among the ultra-Orthodox who refuse to serve in the IDF. Netanyahu seeks to ensure that every Iranian bomb that falls on Israeli neighborhoods and cities will have the effect of rallying the population behind his project, a dangerous game, because Israel is becoming an unviable state, where life has already become unbearable for the average citizen, as we will see later.

Israel cornered by the Second Arab Spring

That is to say, the confrontation and bombings of the US and Israel and Iran take place within the framework of the struggle between the counterrevolution led by US and European imperialism, Israel, the Arab bourgeoisies, the bourgeois leaderships such as the capitalist governments of Putin, Xi Jinping in China, or Erdogan in Turkey faced with the challenge of a "Second Arab Spring", the revolution that incorporates the 3rd Palestinian Intifada in the West Bank and Gaza, the Syrian revolution, the Kurdish revolution, the Houthi revolution in Yemen, in addition to the mobilization of the peoples of the Middle East and a formidable global mass mobilization that strikes in all the centers of capitalism such as New York, Berlin, Paris, London, etc. in support of Palestine.

Netanyahu's response to the Second Arab Spring following the triumph of the Syrian revolution that swept away Bashar al-Assad's dictatorship was to occupy the lands adjacent to the Golan Heights between January and February 2025 and begin systematically bombing Syrian towns for fear that the dictatorship's weapons arsenals could fall into the hands of the militias. Netanyahu then unilaterally broke the ceasefire agreement with Palestinian militias in Gaza on March 18, 2025, and began unilaterally attacking Gaza, declaring a permanent blockade and bombing Palestinian cities, towns, and civilians, as well as UN officials, doctors providing humanitarian aid, and UN trucks transporting food and medical aid.

Meanwhile, between March and April 2025, the US proceeded to bomb Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, the northern province of Sa'ada, the Al Asaiyd area, the Al Salem district, and the port city of Al Hodeidah, located on the Red Sea and vital to Yemen's western coast, in an attempt to stop the Houthi revolution. Finally, on June 12, 2025, the Israeli government decided to begin bombing Iran, attempting to divert the Intifada and gain popular support. But defeating the "Second Arab Spring" will not be easy. This chapter of the revolution carried out by the peoples of the Middle East did not begin now, but between 2019 and 2020 in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Tunisia, Jordan, Sudan, Algeria, etc., and the continuation of this entire process was the beginning of the "Third Intifada" of Palestinians living within Israeli cities, beginning in 2021.

Unlike the "First Arab Spring" of 2011, which sparked the Syrian revolution, the "Second Arab Spring" is a revolutionary process that confronts Islamic fundamentalism, that is, it is led by new generations embracing secularism. This process was expressed in the Lebanese revolution of October 17, 2019, against the capitalist government supported by Hezbollah; the process of the revolution in Iran on November 15, 2019, against the government of the Ayatollahs at the heart of Islamic fundamentalism; and the "Third Intifada" of Palestinians living within Israeli cities. It is a third intifada because it is a continuation of the first intifada that began in 1987 and the second intifada of 2000. Starting on October 7, 2023, the third intifada took the leap to transform into an open civil war against the Israeli army.

The Third Intifada and the Second Arab Spring are a matter of concern to all capitalist governments, not just the US and Israel. The Arab uprising shook Syria and dealt a brutal defeat to Putin and the Ayatollahs who had supported Bashar al-Assad's dictatorship. Hamas also sided with the Syrian people against Iran. Meanwhile, Xi Junping and the Chinese dictatorship have been brutally repressing the Uyghur people, primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the northwest of the People's Republic of China, as well as in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, which is within the orbit of the Russian Federation. In other words, no bourgeois government is safe from the shockwaves of the Second Arab Spring.

Israel's crisis with no way out worsens

Many honest activists, shocked by the horrific civilian death toll in Gaza, or by the "humanitarian" campaign of the UN and the global reformist left calling for "Peace" for Gaza, think that Israel is a bulldozer that leveled everything. Nothing could be further from the truth. Netanyahu, like Putin in Ukraine, is very efficient at killing children, defenseless families, and vulnerable elderly people, but he failed completely in the face of the militias' guerrilla warfare. He failed in his goal of "annihilating Hamas," of occupying Gaza and imposing a puppet government, of expelling a million Palestinians to Egypt, and of annexing Gaza to the State of Israel.

Despite Netanyahu's genocidal, fascist methods, he only plunged the state of Israel into worldwide disrepute and opened the eyes of millions who believed it to be a "jewel of democracy" amid a "sea of ​​Arab dictators ." It is clear that Israel is a Nazi state, which has popularized the slogan "Free Palestine from the river to the sea" on five continents , a slogan that signifies the disappearance of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state. At the same time, Israeli officials are unable to travel anywhere in the world; they are booed, repudiated, and harassed in any country they visit. Yair Golan, a former high-ranking Israeli general, stated that " Israel is on its way to becoming a pariah like South Africa of yesteryear."

But the 3rd Intifada not only sank Israel politically. It has also led to economic disaster, as Shir Hever explains in Mondoweiss, which you can read here : "Economic indicators speak of nothing less than an economic catastrophe. More than 46,000 companies have gone bankrupt, tourism has stopped, Israel's credit rating has dropped, Israeli bonds are selling at almost "junk bond" prices, and foreign investments have already fallen by 60% in the first quarter of 2023... Israelis do not want their own pension and insurance funds, nor their own savings, to be tied to the fate of the State of Israel and are investing abroad... their capital is fleeing and leaving Israel..."

Israel has half a million displaced people sleeping in Tel Aviv hotels. Two million go to underground shelters at night because missiles and drones are falling on the cities, as the "Steel Shield" that protected Israel no longer works. Israel's entire higher education system has collapsed because collaboration with universities around the world is suspended due to the blockades of student takeovers in the United States and Europe. And the most serious problem is that Israelis are fleeing en masse. Millions of Israelis are leaving Israel, for example, unable to get medical care because of the number of doctors who have left. Between October and December 2023 alone, half a million Israelis had already left, and it is estimated that since then the number of departures has exceeded one million, although the authorities no longer have a way to record official data because many officials from the Central Bureau of Statistics have already left the country.

Haaretz reports that the flight has accelerated, with settlers obtaining yachts from the marinas of Herzliya (center), Haifa (north), and Ashkelon (south) to reach Cyprus and, from there, continue on to other destinations. The Herzliya marina has transformed in recent days into a "mini-exit station ." It added that yacht owners in Haifa and Ashkelon also organize small trips in groups of no more than 10 people, during which settlers resort to escape routes by sea, joining informal and expensive networks that offer passages out of the occupied territories. Haaretzreported that these departures take place " secretly, without supervision, and at a cost of thousands of dollars ."

For the victory of Iran, and the 3rd Intifada

That is to say, the Third Intifada and the Second Arab Spring have cornered the Nazi-Zionist state and placed it at the prospect of destruction. This is what makes the Netanyahu government even more dangerous, one that in its desperation carries out increasingly sinister and risky actions, even for its own imperialist plans. We are for Iran's military victory, because an Israeli defeat will strengthen the Arab masses, the mobilizations, the Third Intifada, and the Second Arab Spring, which, if it deepens, will ultimately target Iran's theocratic regime itself. We must support all mobilizations against the Ayatollah regime that are part of the second Arab Spring, like the one that erupted with the death of young Mahsa Amini in September 2022. We warn those who have hopes in the Ayatollah regime or Islamic fundamentalism that these leaders are inconsistent in the fight against imperialism due to their bourgeois nature and defense of capitalism, as we have denounced in the article you can read here.

Despite the more than 55,000 Palestinian deaths, the Palestinian flag flies proudly, the most waved and waved in the entire world. It is sung to and honored in every city around the world, recognized globally as never before. Its militias have achieved against Israel what no Arab army could do in 80 years. The IDF and its fascist methods failed because the resistance has prevented them from dominating any town or city in Gaza or the West Bank. The 5 million Palestinians continue to fight, while millions around the world mobilize in their support, despite facing an enemy infinitely superior in military terms, although repudiated and hated in political terms. We must support with all our strength the Third Intifada, the Second Arab Spring, and the defense of Iran in the attacks it is receiving, which will be the greatest contribution to the cause of the revolution against capitalism and in the struggle for Global Socialism.