The Real Reason Iran Hates Israel

null By Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray TakeyhNov. 27, 2023 5:14 pm ETWonder Land: The Democratic Party never expected Jew-hatred to be a feature of its coalition. Now it is. Images: AP Composite: Mark KellyThe Gaza War has led to another debate about what motivates Iran’s ruling elite. Washington has proffered primarily one realist theme: The mullahs wanted to disrupt the diplomacy aimed at Israeli-Saudi normalization, so they helped Hamas unleash a war to awaken the Arab street. Confronted with popular anger, the Arab potentates, they thought, would retreat.But this ignores a fundamental motivation of Iran’s theocracy: anti-Semitism. At least three generations of radical Iranian clerics have viewed Israel as illegitimate, usurping sacred Islamic lands in the name of a pernicious ideology advanced by history’s most devilish and stubborn people. Using the language of French Marxism, they call Israel a Western “colonial-settler state,” and they believe Jews guide American imperialism in th