AWKA TIMES Magazine

26/06/2025

Homeland Blues and Igbo Diaspora Role in Regional Recovery

The Igbo diaspora’s homeland investment is lagging. A reset is needed to unlock its massive potential.

By Chudi Okoye
Awka Times
June 26, 2025

https://www.awkatimes.com/homeland-blues-and-igbo-diaspora-role-in-regional-recovery/

If there’s one thing that gives one pause in pondering the persistent claim of Igbo Jewish lineage or broader heritage – apart from the paucity of historical proof – it is the differing attitudes of Jews and Igbos to their respective homelands.

Consider this stark dissimilitude. When Israel launched “Operation Babylon” in 1981 to destroy Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, its fighter jets avoided Ur – Abraham’s birthplace in southern Iraq, now, in Arabic, called Tell el-Muqayyar – as if some ancestral reverence restrained their path. Over the years Israel has launched other attacks on Iraq – an ancient power which, as Babylon, brutally oppressed the Jews. Yet it has never struck that sacred ground, once described by Pope Francis as “the place where faith was born.”

By contrast, Igbo separatists invoking Jewish kinship have shown little such restraint. Under IPOB and its armed wing ESN, they impose coercive sit-at-home orders that have crippled the very homeland they claim they’re trying to liberate. Since 2021, the campaign has triggered 332 violent incidents, claimed 776 lives, and cost ₦7.6 trillion in economic damage, according to SBM Intelligence. Modeled, perhaps, on a 1961 South African anti-apartheid protest, the IPOB version is not brief and voluntary, but indefinite, compulsory, and self-defeating. Israeli jets spared their symbolic origin; Igbo militants ravage their own.

But that’s only one distinction. Consider also the specter of homeland crisis which afflicts both Israel and Igboland, and the contrasting attitudes of Jewish and Igbo diasporas: one showing fortitude and patriotic risk acceptance; the other, for the most part, risk aversion and apparent withdrawal.

Jewish Diaspora
Throughout Israel’s tumultuous history – marked by wars, intifadas, rocket attacks, and retaliatory strikes – the Jewish diaspora has remained deeply engaged in Israel’s survival and development. From the Nakba (the mass displacement of Palestinians) and the 1948 Arab–Israeli War to the current Gaza and Iran flashpoints, diaspora commitment has remained steadfast, not just in sentiment but in strategy and substance.

Between 1948 and the early 2000s, diaspora Jews contributed an estimated $40–60 billion to Israel through direct aid, endowments, and philanthropic organizations, funding housing, education, and immigration absorption. U.S. Jewish philanthropy alone contributes over $2 billion annually, supporting hospitals, universities, and cultural programs.

A pillar of this commitment is Israel Bonds, which have raised over $50 billion since 1951 to support national development. After the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, diaspora Jews mobilized $1.4 billion in emergency aid and within months purchased $3.6 billion in Israel Bonds – reviving a tradition seen during previous crises: $250 million raised in 1948, and $700 million during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Today, diaspora Jews inject around $3 billion annually into Israel’s economy, not merely as financial flows but as expressions of solidarity and enduring faith in the homeland.

Beyond economic commitment, the Jewish diaspora wields extraordinary influence in securing foreign government support, especially from the United States. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. has provided over $310 billion (inflation-adjusted) in aid to Israel – more than to any other country. This reflects not only shared values and strategic alignment but also persistent, organized lobbying by powerful Jewish advocacy networks.

That support extends further. The U.S. has cast 50 of its 88 UN Security Council vetoes to shield Israel from critical resolutions. In moments of crisis, diaspora-aligned influence has been decisive. Most recently, against domestic opposition, it drew America into Israel’s confrontation with Iran, culminating in the June 21, 2025 U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. The New York Times estimated that the mission cost the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars in munitions and logistics alone. Israeli lobby at times drives the world’s most powerful state to self-abnegating behavior.

The Jewish diaspora’s reach extends beyond diplomacy. It brokers defense contracts, technology transfers, and global partnerships that reinforce Israel’s resilience. The diaspora not only supports Israel, it reshapes the world around the homeland to secure its future.

Diaspora support also manifests demographically. Aliyah – Jewish return to the homeland – has brought over 3.4 million immigrants since 1948, helping build a Jewish population of 7 million in a nation of 9.5 million. This has ensured Jewish political dominance; but these immigrants also bring capital, connections, and competence, powering Israel’s rapid ascent. It is proof that, for some diasporas, homeland crisis is not cause to flee but to flex – a summons to destiny.

Igbo Diaspora
Igbo diasporans – abroad or dispersed within Nigeria – are widely recognized for their high achievement in business, academia, and the professions. In some countries, for instance the United States, they are cited as an example of successful immigrant communities, though in others they are considered overly aggressive and a touch overbearing. In general Igbo diasporans maintain strong emotional and cultural ties to their homeland. They are known to send significant remittances back home, often to support kith and kin, though there remains substantial headroom in terms of their direct investment in the South East economy. Many diasporans harvest Igbo identity but do not invest in the land.

This mixed record becomes even more confounding when one considers the magnitude of the diaspora’s potential. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), leveraging data from World Bank, Central Bank of Nigeria, money transfer operators (MTOs), and commercial bank channels, estimates that Nigerians abroad remit $20–25 billion annually. The United States alone contributes around $6 billion – about a quarter of the total. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (2022), Nigerians in the U.S. number around 760, 000, and the Joshua Project estimates that Igbos comprise roughly 237,000 – or 31%. If that proportion holds true for remittances, Igbos in the U.S. speculatively send home about $1.86 billion annually. At today’s exchange rate, that amounts to nearly ₦2.88 trillion – equivalent to 82% of the combined 2025 state government budgets in the South East. This figure excludes remittances from Igbos in Europe, Canada, and other parts of the world, which could push the presumptive total significantly higher.

These are, of course, hypothetical extrapolations. It is highly unlikely that Igbo diasporans remit anything near the logic of these assumptions. We can also assume that a significant portion of their actual remittance finds a pipeline into places like Lagos, Abuja, or other attractive destinations. Worse, the trickle that does reach the region is often absorbed in subsistence consumption, ceremonial spending, or prestige projects rather than enterprise development. All these scenarios are troubling, revealing a serious misalignment between diasporic wealth and homeland development. What should be a source of renewal risks becoming a sinkhole of lost opportunity.

Part of the problem may be that the Igbo diaspora is far from monolithic. Some are deeply assimilated in host societies with little homeland consciousness. Others maintain a visible Igbo identity but show little practical interest in engaging the homeland. Some remit to support family or political causes but do not view the homeland as an investment frontier. A smaller cohort is indeed committed to economic engagement. But even among these, a large portion hedge their portfolios elsewhere in Nigeria. Some do so because they perceive, and do receive, better returns outside Igboland. Others are probably deterred by past experiences of fraud; or are concerned about proximity to social obligations that erode capital. Yet others, probably the majority, are repelled by stubborn insecurity in the homeland.

What’s striking is that many Igbos who avoid investing in the South East readily commit resources to regions that are just as volatile. They invest in the North, where sectarian violence simmers, or in the South West – especially Lagos – despite periodic property demolitions and complaints of ethnic discrimination. They absorb these external threats as costs of doing business, yet judge similar or lesser risks in the homeland as disqualifying. This apparent double standard reveals not just a risk calculus, but deeper concerns.

Part of these concerns is the region’s extensive infrastructure deficits. There is no seaport in the South East, no standard-gauge rail or competitive international airport, and there are few serviceable roads to power the regional economy. No major bank is headquartered in the South East. The region also suffers from erratic power supply, poor digital infrastructure, and the absence of designated industrial or logistics hubs. This logistical bottleneck undermines both real and perceived returns. Meanwhile, the Igbo political elites – who often preach the imperative of “aku luo uno” (wealth repatriation) – are largely opportunistic and extraverted. Many run businesses outside the region, station their families abroad or elsewhere in Nigeria, and retreat to Abuja or Lagos after their tenures, treating the South East as a temporary duty post rather than a permanent stake. The hypocrisy is corrosive – reinforcing the very disinvestment they decry.

Even the “aku luo uno” mantra itself may inadvertently encourage a ceremonial, rather than productive, conception of investment. Originally a cultural ethic for wealth repatriation, it is too often interpreted as building a showpiece mansion, hosting lavish events especially during traditional homecoming, or performing kin obligations – not founding enterprises or driving local economic transformation. Home becomes less a place to pursue high ambition and more a stage for self-celebration.

The situation is worsened by separatist agitation. When IPOB militants impose coercive sit-at-home orders, they create an atmosphere of insecurity, disrupt commerce and undermine productivity. These conditions heighten diasporan hesitance, making the South East even less competitive for capital.

But deeper explanations lie in the sociological roots of Igbo itinerancy. The region’s dense population and limited arable land historically fostered outward mobility – what’s been called “economic self-propulsion.” Without centralized kingdoms, the Igbo political structure emphasized personal initiative, enabling migration. Title systems rewarded individual achievement. Trade routes thrived. Over time, mobility became identity.

The Nigerian Civil War further cemented this pattern. After the devastation of 1967–70, Igbos were forced to rebuild through dispersal, having lost assets and status in the post-war order. That emergency turned into a long-term strategy. Diaspora became destination. Home, once the center, became optional.

Today, even after flourishing in business and the professions across Nigeria and abroad, many Igbos maintain this outward posture. It results in a twinned risk and value calculus that leads, in some cases, not just to a brief or strategic disengagement but to permanent withdrawal. Homeland investment shrinks, emotional attachment withers, and alienation deepens, potentially across generations.

Where the Jewish diaspora surges toward homeland crisis, often in defiance, many Igbos recoil from theirs, repelled by risk and precarity. The irony is profound: a people claiming kinship with Jews increasingly abandon their ancestral land. This raises a pressing question: do modern Igbos, for all their pride in identity, feel a strong attachment to their homeland?

The answer isn’t altogether edifying. Igbo migrations across Nigeria even before amalgamation; the xenophilic leanings of leaders like Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe; and the Igbos’ rapid postwar return to other regions – including the North where they had suffered pogroms – all indicate a cultural disposition toward dispersal rather than rootedness.

If this desertion persists, a cruel fate may unfold. With Fulani encroachments advancing in the South East, the old Zionist slogan, “a land without a people for a people without a land,” once used to justify Palestinian dispossession, could one day be turned against those who claim Jewish descent. Worse still, if nothing changes, some Igbo diasporans may indeed become a “lost tribe.” Not unlike the ten tribes of ancient Israel, exiled by the Assyrians in the 8th century BC, whose descendants vanished into the mists of history.

Several groups – including one I’m actively involved with, the South East Business and Investment Summit (SEBIS) – are working to reverse this trend and reposition Igboland as a viable economic destination. Re-engaging the diaspora is central to that effort, through institutionalized investment vehicles like Igbo Bonds, dedicated diaspora engagement offices, and public-private partnerships to de-risk major projects. But success depends on understanding diaspora fragmentation and the reasons for disconnection.

To borrow a metaphor from my tech background, the Igbo diaspora needs to move beyond the classical computing model, where “bits” – the basic unit of data – are either 0 or 1, and adopt a quantum mindset. In quantum computing, “qubits” exist in superposition, simultaneously 0 and 1. Likewise, the diaspora must transcend the binary choice of “home” or “abroad” by thriving globally while investing deeply in the homeland, harnessing their worldwide presence to fuel regional development.

With proper strategies and persistent outreach, the mental clogs can be unblocked and the vast potential of the Igbo diaspora unlocked, for the long overdue task of homeland development.

19/06/2025

Israel vs. Iran: Ancient Amity, Modern Enmity, and Looming Calamity (Pt. 2)

In a tragic historical twist, Israel and Iran have gone from millennia of fraternity to a fratricidal war. Part 1 of this essay explored their current conflict; Part 2 traces the origins of the rupture.

By Chudi Okoye
Awka Times
June 19, 2025

https://www.awkatimes.com/israel-vs-iran-ancient-amity-modern-enmity-and-looming-calamity-pt-2/

He was a gentle and Gentile king, a conqueror and yet pragmatic ruler upon whom ancient Jews fastened their fervent hope. Though he didn’t worship their God YHWH, he was venerated in their Holy Scripture, lauded by their prophets and political leaders.

Over a century earlier the great prophet Isaiah ben Amoz, an astute political observer who watched as powerful Assyria crushed the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC, proclaimed the conqueror an instrument of God’s wrath against disobedient Israelites, his words thundering in Isaiah 10:5–6: “Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger, the staff of my fury! Against a godless nation I send him…” At the time, the Assyrian empire was beginning a westward expansion (ancient Assyria overlapped the modern territories of northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, southeastern Turkey, and eastern Syria), threatening Israel which controlled strategic Mediterranean ports and was thus in constant tension with the Near Eastern powers seeking coastal access.

Disciples in Isaiah ben Amoz’s prophetic tradition, writing about two centuries later in the second part of the Book of Isaiah (chapters 40-55, known as Deutero-Isaiah), picked up on a different geopolitical dynamic. The setting was 539 BC, nearly five decades after 586 BC when the Judaeans were sacked by the Neo-Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar II, who destroyed the First Temple (built by Solomon) and carried them into exile. By now, Nebuchadnezzar had been dead for over 20 years and Nabonidus, his fourth successor and a weak ruler without royal lineage, was on the throne. A new regional power, Persia (modern Iran), had arisen. Led by a canny warrior king, Cyrus, it had toppled several empires - Media, Lydia – and had wobbly Babylonia firmly in its sights.

In 539 BC, Cyrus the Great marched into Babylon and deposed its reigning king who hardly put up a fight. He proceeded to free the varied peoples in Babylonian captivity, including the Judaeans. Writing either prophetically before this epochal event, or retrojecting politically after the fact (scholars still debate the timing), the authors of Deutero-Isaiah proclaimed Cyrus the “anointed one of God” or “Messiah,” the one chosen by God to liberate Judah from Babylonian bo***ge – the greatest tragedy in Jewish history, barring the Holocaust. It is worth quoting what the Jewish scribes said of this Iranian ancestor who worshipped a different deity:

“Thus says the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand he has grasped to subdue nations before him: ‘I will go before you and level the mountains; I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut asunder the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name. I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honor, though you do not acknowledge me. I will gird you, though you have not known me, that men may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that I am the Lord, and there is no other.’” (Isaiah 45:1-6; cf. Psalms 107:16).

Cyrus the Great remains the only non-Jew to be honored as “Messiah” in the Hebrew Bible – a title the Jews withhold to this day from Jesus, the man from their midst widely acknowledged as such by Christians and even Muslims. The Iranian ancestor is celebrated by the Jews not only because he freed them from bo***ge and facilitated their return from exile. He also issued edicts which gave them religious freedom (see Ezra 1:1–4; 2 Chronicles 36:22–23, and also the Persian document, Cyrus Cylinder), and even bankrolled the rebuilding of their Temple (see Ezra 6:3–5; cf. Isaiah 44:28; 45:13,). He established a legacy of tolerance and patronage picked up by his successors, including Darius the Great who completed the construction of the Second Temple in 516 BC, and Artaxerxes I who empowered Ezra and Nehemiah to restore Jewish religious and civic life. Not only is Cyrus exalted in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible; he is also mentioned in the Talmud, the rabbinic interpretation of Jewish foundational text where he is praised as a righteous Gentile king who acted justly among the nations.

There’s not a non-Persian patron of the Jews in succeeding centuries who comes close to Cyrus the Great’s generosity or matches the legacy he left behind. Not Alexander the Great, who merely exempted Jews from taxation. Not his successors, the Ptolemies and Seleucids, who oscillated between tolerance and repression, often interfering in Jewish religious affairs (the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, persecuted the Jews and desecrated the Temple, sparking the Maccabean revolt in 167 BC). Not even Rome’s Herod, the client king of Judea, whose grandiose Temple renovations could not conceal his role as imperial puppet. Only perhaps Emperor Constantine’s patronage of Christianity over eight centuries later, and America’s ardent support of Israel in modern times (often seemingly against its own interests), could approximate Cyrus’s enduring impact. Even so, Cyrus’s legacy of Jewish restoration reverberated far beyond his reign, setting in motion millennia of amity between Persians and Jews, making the current enmity between Iran and Israel – and the calamity it portends – all the more tragic and ironic.

A Benign Legacy
The era of Achaemenid restoration under Cyrus the Great, Darius I, and Artaxerxes I laid a durable foundation for Jewish life within the Persian realm. Far from being an isolated golden age, its legacy of religious freedom, political autonomy, and financial support inaugurated a post-exilic order and the Second Temple era, defining Jewish-Persian relations for over two millennia. Jewish communities in Persia (later Iran) often fared better than their diaspora counterparts, flourishing while others faced persecution.

After the Achaemenid Empire fell to Alexander the Great in 330 BC, Jewish communities survived the turmoil of Hellenistic rule and later thrived under successive Iranian dynasties. They enjoyed considerable autonomy under the indigenous Parthian dynasty (247 BC–224 AD), with a recognized communal authority. The Parthians were generally tolerant, and under their rule Jewish scholarship flourished, laying the foundations for the Babylonian Talmud.

Under the Sasanian Empire (224–651 AD), the last pre-Islamic indigenous dynasty, Jewish populations expanded across Persian cities like Hamadan, Isfahan, and Susa. Zoroastrianism was made state religion, causing tensions and occasional Jewish persecution. Yet Jewish religious and intellectual life thrived, with the Babylonian Talmud completed and canonized during this period: another Jewish milestone under Persian rule, after Babylonian liberation and the Second Temple. Persian Jewry so flourished – in contrast to Roman Byzantine where Christianity was rising – that in 614 AD when Persians briefly captured Byzantine Jerusalem, local Jews aided them, hoping for liberation.

The Arab conquest of Persia in the 7th century introduced Islam as the dominant religion, reshaping the socio-political order through what would become the longest governing tradition in Iranian history. Seen as “People of the Book” (community with revealed scripture), Jews were protected but designated second-class citizens under Islamic law. Still, they retained communal autonomy and persisted as part of Persian society through successive Islamic dynasties – Umayyads, Abbasids, Buyids, Safavids, Qajars – contributing in fields like medicine, commerce, and crafts. Persian Jews even thrived under Mongol rule (1256–1353), which otherwise devastated Islamic civilization and ended the Abbasid Golden Age. Later, Shi’a consolidation under the Safavids (1501–1736) introduced stricter religious controls and occasional forced conversions, foreshadowing the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Yet most disruptions were localized or temporary, and many forced converts quietly returned to Judaism. In cities like Isfahan, Shiraz, and Tehran, Persian-Jewish culture endured, shaped by resilience and adaptation.

Pahlavi and Discontent
Jewish life in Persia thrived across centuries under indigenous dynasties, and did as well, despite challenges, under Islamic rule. This stood in contrast to the expulsions and pogroms that plagued Jewish communities in Christian Europe. Through its many dynastic changes and shifting religious tides, Persia remained a safe Jewish home, despite occasional challenges, becoming even more propitious in the 20th century under the Pahlavi dynasty (1925–1979), during which Persia – long so designated internally – was officially renamed Iran.

Although the Pahlavis ruled as monarchs, they inherited a constitutional framework established during the 1905–1911 Constitutional Revolution, which introduced a parliament and the office of Prime Minister, thus curbing absolutist power. This system produced an uneasy balance between royal authority and popular sovereignty that would later be sorely tested.

The dynasty’s founder, Reza Shah, was a secular modernizer who repressed clerical influence and pursued aggressive nation-building. But in 1941, amid World War II and Allied fears of his N**i sympathies, he was forced to abdicate in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Shah. The younger Shah inherited a more volatile domestic environment, where nationalist sentiment – especially over Iran’s oil resources – was rapidly growing. That movement culminated in the rise of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who in 1951 nationalized the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, triggering a geopolitical crisis.

In 1953, Mossadegh was overthrown in a coup orchestrated by British and American intelligence. During the unrest that followed, the Shah briefly fled the country, but was soon reinstated with expanded powers. While this secured Western oil interests, it also deepened nationalist resentment against foreign meddling that in turn emboldened authoritarian rule. Though the Shah promoted modernization and was allied with the West, beneath the surface, tensions simmered – between secular elites and religious traditionalists, between economic development and political repression.

Amid this turbulence, the Jewish community in Iran found room to flourish. The Pahlavis promoted education and integration, and under their rule Jews increasingly entered universities, expanded into the modern professions, and in some cases rose to positions of national influence. By mid-century, the Iranian Jewish population – over 80,000 strong – was among the largest in the Middle East outside Israel. Synagogues thrived, Hebrew education was tolerated, and Zionist sympathies, though quiet, weren’t suppressed. When Israel was established in 1948, Iran under the Shah maintained informal ties, and in 1960 became the second Muslim-majority country to offer Israel a de facto recognition.

This was, in many ways, the final flowering of a relationship more than two millennia old, rooted in Cyrus the Great’s sixth-century BC edict freeing the Jews from Babylonian exile and enabling their return to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. From that ancient restoration to the modern expansions under Pahlavi rule in the 20th century, Persian-Jewish coexistence had endured – tested, stretched, but never broken.

Yet under the surface, a very different force was gathering. The Shah’s unbridled embrace of Westernization, his clampdown on dissent, and the perceived erosion of Islamic values gradually fused into a potent ideological movement. Clerics, nationalists, and leftists – unlikely allies – began to coalesce around a growing opposition. By the late 1970s, that current would surge into a revolution, sweeping away the Pahlavi order, severing Iran’s deep ties to Israel, and inaugurating a new era of estrangement – religious, political, and profoundly symbolic. The long arc of Persian-Jewish amity was about to be broken, with fraternity turned fratricide.

Revolution and Rupture
The bond finally broke in February 1979, after a year-long revolutionary fervor that began in January 1978. The Islamic Revolution, fueled by popular discontent, economic strain, and outrage at Western domination, swept away the Shah and installed a theocratic regime under Ayatollah Khomeini. I was a schoolboy then, but I remember it clearly, with the Ayatollah’s posters everywhere in Nigeria, especially in the North. The revolution was popular with Islamic revivalists as well as anti-imperialist forces in the country. It unfolded in the final stretch of a ‘radical’ Murtala-Obasanjo military regime that had opposed apartheid South Africa, supported nationalist movements across Africa, and was preparing a return to civilian rule.

In a swift turn, Iran’s posture toward Israel hardened into open hostility. Diplomatic ties severed and the Jewish state was recast, with America, as the chief antagonist to the new Islamic republic. Though Jews were not formally expelled and a small community remains, over 70,000 fled, many fearing violence and property dispossession. A relationship consecrated by Cyrus’s ancient decree was undone by a revolution that cast Persians and Jews into mutual estrangement.

Now, nearly half a century later, that estrangement has curdled into kinetic confrontation, with Israel’s June 13 offensive against Iran, which I discussed in Part 1 of this essay. As Israel and Iran trade attacks and threats, their enmity deepens into something nearly unrecognizable from the ancient fraternity they once shared. In announcing the Israeli attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to reassure Iranians that Israel’s war is not with them but with their regime. “I believe that the day of your liberation is near,” he said, envisioning the revival of “great friendship between our two ancient peoples.”

It is a noble hope; yet a deeply improbable one. Even if Iran’s regime were to fall, the scars left by wars, assassinations, cyber-sabotage, and escalating brinkmanship will not heal quickly. Resentment will fester, fueled further by Israel’s hardline posture toward the Palestinians and its wider regional assertiveness. And if the U.S., under pressure from right-wing hawks, enters the fray, the entire region could tip into convulsive destabilization.

This is not the road to a renewed friendship. It is the coda to a historical amity inaugurated by Cyrus, now bent into bitter enmity, one that portends unimaginable calamity.

18/06/2025

Israel vs. Iran: Ancient Amity, Modern Enmity, and Looming Calamity (Pt. 1)

This two-part essay traces how Israel and Iran, once bound by a shared past, became bitter foes. Part One examines the current stand-off; and Part Two will unearth the deeper roots of their rupture.

By Chudi Okoye
Awka Times
June 16, 2025

https://www.awkatimes.com/israel-vs-iran-ancient-amity-modern-enmity-and-looming-calamity-pt-1/

If the 6th-century BC Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great were alive today, there’s no telling how he would view the ongoing hostilities between his Iranian (Persian) descendants and the Israeli progenies of an ancient people he once liberated from Babylonian captivity. Known to be just and benevolent – a peacemaker and tolerant ruler who supported local customs among the disparate peoples of his vast empire – it is unclear whether his noble sensibilities would be wounded by the crass calculations and decades-long furies that now define Iran-Israel relations, which exploded in the last couple of days with a terrifying Israeli attack on Iran.

It was an attack that once again demonstrated Israel’s power and absolute military superiority in the Middle East. An attack that made nonsense, yet again, of the risible propaganda that portrays Israel – a nation with immense diplomatic leverage and the world’s 15th strongest military – as a regional underdog: the solitary David pitched against a plethora of implacable Arab Goliaths.

It was a measure of that superiority that even though the attack had been telegraphed for months, it still caught Iran off-guard, as it appeared initially dazed and overwhelmed. Iran may have been lulled by what now seems a dubious and possibly diversionary nuclear parley with the United States; but Israel’s long history of sabotaging Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and its stated objections to the talks should have signaled an imminent strike to derail it.

Hot War
In the pre-dawn hours of June 13, 2025, the Iranian skies lit up with fearsome fire and fury. In a meticulously coordinated operation, more than 200 Israeli fighter jets, supported by drone squadrons, electronic warfare platforms, and precision cyber strikes, unleashed an unprecedented aerial assault across Iranian territory. Over 100 targets were struck, ranging from nuclear research facilities and missile bases to command centers and military infrastructure.

The scale of the operation was staggering. As was its sophistication. Israeli F-35 stealth fighters reportedly penetrated Iranian airspace undetected, their electronic warfare suites jamming radar networks across a broad arc – from the northwestern city of Tabriz to Isfahan in the central region, home to critical nuclear infrastructure. Simultaneously, cyber weapons – likely evolved from the infamous Stuxnet virus that had previously disrupted Iran’s enrichment program – disabled key nodes in Iran’s integrated air defense system. The operation demonstrated Israel’s formidable reach and technical prowess, while exposing surprising vulnerabilities in Iran’s air defense posture.

The devastation was surgical and extensive, though questions remain whether Israel achieved its ultimate objective: a decisive degradation of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. On the first day and in follow-up strikes over the next several days, Israel reportedly destroyed parts of the famous Natanz nuclear facility and damaged Isfahan’s uranium conversion plant. Missile complexes near Tabriz and Kermanshah were hit, as were Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) facilities near Tehran and in Piranshahr. Civilian infrastructure and military assets were also damaged or destroyed, underscoring the breadth of the assault.

The strikes hit multiple high-value targets, including the Arak heavy-water reactor complex, the classified Parchin military research center, and sections of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant. Also targeted was the previously undisclosed Qom Nuclear Research Institute, where Iran had reportedly made breakthroughs in uranium metallurgy – a critical step toward weaponization. Its destruction carried deep symbolic weight: this was believed to be a site where Iranian scientists had been working to overcome the final technical barriers separating civilian nuclear activity from military capability.

Still, despite the scale and coordination of the attack, it remains unclear whether Israel breached Iran’s most deeply fortified nuclear redoubts. Analysts later confirmed that Iran’s most heavily protected subterranean installations – such as the deeply buried centrifuge halls at Fordow and Natanz – remained largely intact, shielded from destruction by their extreme depth and reinforced structure. While the strikes delivered a powerful demonstration of Israeli resolve and capability, they may not have eliminated Iran’s nuclear breakout potential.

By the end of the first day’s attacks, Iran reported at least 78 dead and 329 injured, including civilians (many women and children), with the death toll since rising to 224 and injuries at over 1,277. The strikes decimated Iran’s military leadership, some sources reporting that at least 20 senior commanders were killed. Among the dead were Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri, IRGC Aerospace Force chief Amir Hajizadeh, IRGC senior commander Gholam Ali Rashid, IRGC commander Hossein Salami, IRGC air defense unit commander Davoud Shaykhian, and IRGC drone unit commander Taher Pour. Israel claimed a strike on an underground bunker killed most of the IRGC Aerospace Force leadership after they had convened for a meeting. At least nine nuclear scientists were confirmed killed by Israel, some sources reporting up to 14, including physicists Fereydoon Abbasi and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, successors to Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the celebrated chief of Iran’s nuclear program who was assassinated in 2020. The attacks, described by observers as a systematic decapitation strike, also destroyed residential areas, with Iranian media confirming civilian deaths and injuries in multiple provinces. In a sign of internal fallout, Iran executed one of its nationals days later for allegedly passing intelligence to Israel.

Though it had to have expected the blitzkrieg, Iran’s response was forceful but ultimately constrained by Israel’s technological edge. In the hours and days that followed, Tehran launched at least 370 ballistic missiles and hundreds of drones in successive waves, targeting Israel’s military bases in the Negev and suspected intelligence facilities near Tel Aviv, as well as civilian areas. Israel’s layered defenses – Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow systems, and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) – intercepted a preponderance of incoming projectiles, but some missiles penetrated, striking 30 locations and causing significant casualties and infrastructure damage, including in central Tel Aviv and Bat Yam. As of June 16, at least 24 Israelis had been killed and 592 wounded, with 10 in critical condition. Iran claimed to have downed Israeli F-35 fighters and detained their pilots, but Israel has vigorously denied these claims and no independent verification has emerged. The exchange, while illustrating Iran’s capacity for retaliation, also underscored the stark power asymmetry at this early stage of the confrontation, especially following years of crippling sanctions. Iran’s proxy responses – symbolic salvos from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Houthi forces in Yemen – were easily intercepted.

Grim Implications
In short order, the message became clear: Israel’s “Operation Rising Lion” was not merely a preventive strike. It was a demonstration of dominance. Tel Aviv framed the attack as a preemptive move against an imminent Iranian nuclear breakout – citing intelligence that Tehran had amassed enough 60%–enriched uranium for three nuclear warheads within months – but the scale and precision of the strike signaled something far more assertive. This was not deterrence; it was dominion, the posture of a regional hegemon asserting its primacy.

The international response only confirmed Israel’s diplomatic insulation. While China and Russia issued routine condemnations, the United States offered tepid criticism and privately welcomed the degradation of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. European powers urged “restraint from all sides,” which, in effect, offered tacit approval of Israel’s actions. Even traditional backers of Iran, like Turkey and Qatar, limited themselves to rhetorical protest, unwilling to directly challenge Israel’s growing power.

Most telling, however, was muted reactions from Arab capitals. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt – once reliable critics of Israeli military aggression – remained notably restrained. Their caution reflected a deeper geopolitical shift in the region, with many Sunni Arab states increasingly disposed toward accommodation with Israel. The 2020 Abraham Accords – brokered by the first Trump administration – appear to have crystallized this shift. These agreements, which normalized relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, did more than disrupt decades of Arab consensus linking normalization to Palestinian statehood. They established a tacit alliance architecture that isolated Iran, enhancing Israel’s ability to project power in the region.

The durability of this realignment became undeniable after October 2023, when the Abraham Accords’ signatories maintained diplomatic ties with Israel despite its devastating campaign in Gaza, which by some estimates has killed over 50,000 Palestinians. These agreements have afforded Israel not only diplomatic cover, but also intelligence-sharing partnerships, overflight rights, and economic integration – tools that have strengthened its strategic reach while shielding it from political fallout. Public anger has simmered in Arab streets, especially over what many view as Israel’s disproportionate and possibly genocidal campaign, using the pretext of seeking to destroy Hamas as cover for systemic ethnic cleansing. That Israel – a military power capable of flying fighter jets and precision munitions over 2,000 kilometers to strike hardened targets in Iran – has failed to dislodge Hamas militants barely 50 kilometers away in Gaza, has raised uncomfortable questions about its intent. Yet, despite the street rage, several Arab governments appear to prioritize Iran containment over Palestinian solidarity, thus insulating Israel from criticism over Gaza or Iran.

The current stand‑off with Iran represents only the latest escalation in Israel’s broader regional campaign. Since the Gaza war began, Israel has intensified its operations across multiple theaters. In April 2024, for example, it struck an Iranian consulate annex in Damascus killing 16 people, including seven IRGC officers and Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior Quds Force commander coordinating Iran’s activities in Syria and Lebanon. In July, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader, was assassinated in an Israeli strike on an IRGC guesthouse in Tehran. In Lebanon, Israel launched a massive air campaign in September, culminating in the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and strikes that killed over 800 people and injured thousands, devastating Hezbollah’s leadership and infrastructure. In Yemen, Israeli air and naval forces have steadily degraded Iran-aligned Houthi infrastructure. And in the occupied West Bank, settlement expansion continues apace, accompanied by frequent strikes on Palestinian militants and infrastructure. These coordinated strikes are not the actions of a besieged state, but the prolonged strategy of a regional power reshaping the strategic map across its periphery.

The ongoing hot war with Iran shows no sign of abating. With stakes so high on both sides, neither appears willing to de-escalate. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has vowed “crushing retaliation” and ordered the acceleration of uranium enrichment to weapons-grade levels. Given that Iran’s underground and heavily fortified facilities at Fordow and Natanz likely sustained only partial damage, enrichment operations may well continue. Israel warns that any further nuclear advances would prompt “even more devastating” strikes. Yet its current arsenal may be insufficient to neutralize Iran’s deepest sites. To complete the job, Israel would likely require access to the U.S.’s Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs), which can only be deployed by American B‑2 bombers. So far, Washington has resisted requests for these. That leaves Israel facing a difficult choice: escalate the campaign and risk dragging the United States into a broader regional war, or pause prematurely and acknowledge that its strategic objectives remain incomplete.

Iran faces equally grim options. Its economy is strangled, proxies degraded, and domestic legitimacy fraying. A restrained response may signal weakness; a bolder counterstrike risks devastating retaliation and possible U.S. intervention. Yet a nuclear retreat seems inconceivable for Iranian hardliners. The country has paid too high a price: assassinated officers, slain scientists, ruined facilities, civilian collateral, and decades of economic siege – much of it inflicted by Israel with Western complicity. Few nations have paid a heavier toll in pursuit of nuclear capability. Had Tehran pursued a pragmatic, low-profile program, it might have reached the threshold with far less carnage. But too much pain and humiliation has accrued, entwining the program with regime survival and national pride. Iran will want vindication and honor for its fallen by finally attaining nuclear status.

Moreover, Israel’s nuclear hypocrisy deepens Iran’s resolve. An undeclared nuclear state outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Israel leads the charge against Iran – a signatory professing peaceful use. History, too, shapes Tehran’s view: Gaddafi was overthrown after disarming; Ukraine was invaded post-denuclearization; only defiant North Korea has endured. Iran is watching, and learning.

For all its tactical brilliance, Israel’s strike against Iran may unleash further regional instability. Saudi Arabia and Turkey may now pursue nuclear hedges. And in pursuing its goal of regional dominance, Israel has caused too much pain and devastation for peace to reign. If Cyrus the Great were today observing the behavior of those he once liberated, he might ask how they came to this dark turn. I will explore that question in Part 2.

OpinionBack of the BookFeaturesHistorical EssayWorld Updated: June 16, 2025 Israel vs. Iran: Ancient Amity, Modern Enmity, and Looming Calamity (Pt. 1) By Chudi Okoye June 16, 2025 90 0 Share Facebook Twitter Pinterest VK WhatsApp Devastation in Israel-Iran War Must Read Back of the BookChudi Okoye....