For years, Iran has openly threatened Israel’s destruction – whether through the speeches of the ayatollahs or by funding terrorism across the Middle East. Yet many still ask:

• Why? Why does a country with no shared border with Israel make its annihilation a strategic goal?
• Why does Iran see Israel not only as an enemy but also as a threat to its identity?

The Jewish paradox in Iran’s Islamic worldview.

Iran’s obsession with destroying Israel is a complex phenomenon rooted in religious, ideological, political, and historical factors. The Islamic Republic of Iran is built on a Shiite revolutionary worldview, led by the ayatollahs and the supreme leader. This ideology positions itself as the vanguard of a “global Islamic revolution” tasked with bringing justice, as they define it, to the entire Islamic world and beyond. In their eyes, Israel is not merely a “Zionist occupying entity” but a symbol of apostasy on Earth, Western colonialism in the Middle East, and the influence of the “Great Satan,” the USA. Religion and politics are inseparably intertwined in Iran, making Israel’s destruction a religious step toward advancing Islamic redemption.

Israel’s success in its 76 years of existence shakes the ideological narrative that Tehran’s Islamist revolution seeks to promote – namely, that revolutionary Islam is morally and politically superior to the West. For the Iranian regime, the Jewish state in the Middle East is a dangerous symbol of everything the Islamic Revolution aimed to eradicate. Israel stands in the way of Iran’s narrative. Shiite theology, particularly in its Iranian interpretation, anticipates the return of the hidden Imam Mahdi, who will usher in global Islamic justice. In this messianic vision, Israel, an independent Jewish state at the heart of the Islamic world, has no place. On the contrary, Israel’s existence is seen as a delay or even an obstruction of the “divine” order. For the ayatollahs, Israel’s mere existence is a theological provocation, a kind of “persistent blasphemy” that must be eliminated. Like a thorn in their eye!

This reminds me of Psalm 83:4:

“Come, let us wipe them out as a nation, so that Israel’s name is remembered no more!”

An ancient expression of the desire to destroy Israel out of hatred. God’s enemies form alliances against Israel because it is a testament to God’s faithfulness – and they cannot tolerate this. The hatred of Israel has a spiritual root: the desire to erase God’s history with this people. The Bible repeatedly describes Israel as a “thorn in the eye” or a stumbling block to other nations, both literally and metaphorically. This biblical motif runs through the Old and New Testaments and can be interpreted both historically-politically and spiritually-theologically.

From the outset, Israel was a thorn in the eye of the peoples of Canaan, and therefore God clearly instructed them to eliminate this threat:

“But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become thorns in your eyes and barbs in your sides, and they will trouble you in the land where you dwell.” (Numbers 33:55)

Those who are not removed become a thorn in the flesh – a symbol of constant harassment, enmity, and unrest. Israel is oppressed even when living in its own land because its mere existence provokes surrounding cultures. Like the Palestinians today.

The prophet Zechariah (12:2-3) warns:

“I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling… On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who try to lift it will injure themselves.”

Israel is depicted as an immovable stone that no one can touch without harm. The Jewish state is an “unsolvable problem” for the nations, one that preoccupies, overwhelms, and convicts them. Those who tamper with it harm themselves. Like Iran today. Israel must confront these threats – as God instructed His people in the Bible.

Hatred of Israel serves an internal political function in Iran – like a demon that unites. Iranian society is deeply divided, its economy in ruins, its people discontented – so what remains to unify the ranks? A common enemy. This is precisely the role of the “Zionist enemy” in the mullahs’ propaganda. Like every totalitarian system that fears its own people, the Iranian regime must create a bogeyman. Israel – small, Jewish, Western – fits this role perfectly.

Iran is not Israel’s first Muslim adversary, but it is a unique one. Not only because of its missiles or proxy armies but because its fight is ideological. Iran does not seek to redraw borders – it seeks to erase Israel. Not a ceasefire, but the existential obliteration of the idea of Israel. In Iranian-Shiite thought, Israel is seen as a historical error that cannot exist theologically or ideologically. For the regime in Tehran, Israel is not wrong because it fights – Israel must be fought because it exists. This is not a war over land; it is a war over meaning.

See: The war over the promises

The Bible acknowledges that Israel is often a thorn in the eye of the nations. Not because it acts maliciously, but because its mere existence, history, and chosenness pose a challenge – to idols, to powers, to human pride, and to conventional understandings of history. Israel is a contradiction in world history – and that is part of its calling. And this is something the Shiite mullah regime in Tehran cannot tolerate.

Those who believe Iran’s regime can be moderated through concessions or appeasement misunderstand the nature of this obsession. A regime that fundamentally denies Israel’s right to exist cannot be persuaded through diplomacy. As long as the Islamic Republic of Iran exists, the threat will not vanish – it will only change its mask. This is not pessimism but a sober analysis.

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