JJP lobbies MPs about the Israeli-US attack on Iran
On 9 March 2026, JJP wrote to all MPS to demand that our government continues to take no part in the Israeli-US offensive operations in their illegal, unprovoked war on Iran.
Our letter is below
Dear MP, 9 March 2026
We are writing to you about the Israeli-US war against Iran. We urge you to demand that our government continues to take no part in the Israeli-US offensive operations, nor allows the US to use UK bases for that purpose. We note with concern the Defence Secretary’s refusal to be drawn on whether the UK would be involved in offensive operations, the later landing of American bombers at RAF Fairford and confirmation that the US has started using British bases “for specific defensive operations”.
The Israeli-US attack was clearly an Act of Aggression under the The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. If our government joined the offensive operations, the UK would also be committing an act of aggression. UK military effort should be strictly limited to protecting UK bases, UK citizens and UK allies, none of which were involved in the attack.
Israel has justified the attack with its usual slippery logic. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz described the attack as being done “to remove threats.”1 A military official, “claimed that Israeli intelligence had seen a ‘sharp acceleration’ in missile production, Tehran’s financial support to its proxies was ongoing and that Iran was seeking to ‘conceal and fortify’ its nuclear programme.”2 None of that is remotely the imminent threat that justifies an attack. President Trump’s shifting, vague justifications are even worse. Nor has any evidence been seen “that Iran is trying to reconstitute its nuclear weapons programme or enrich uranium.”2
Israel has used Hezbollah’s small-scale rocket attacks on Northern Israel in support of Iran as a pretext for heavy bombing of Southern Lebanon and ground attacks to try to destroy Hezbollah. Some 400 Lebanese have been killed and more than 500,000 displaced.3
The theocratic Iranian government is clearly deeply unpleasant and vicious to its own citizens when they protest against it s oppressive policies, but that doesn’t give Israel or the US the right to attack it. That Iran chose to make unprovoked attacks on civilian sites in Gulf states in order to create pressure on the US was also an Act of Aggression, but that doesn’t retrospectively justify the Israeli-US attack.
The text of our letter of June 2025, about the June attack, is appended to this letter. It explained the long-term context of the issue, which we believe also explains this attack.
Yours sincerely,
Arthur Goodman
Parliamentary and Diplomatic Officer
2. https://www.ft.com/content/5fd1ae94-a850-4151-9be3-0258ff222ccb
3. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/3/8/is-israel-reshaping-lebanon-trying-to-separate-hezbollah-from-its-people
from our letter of 23 June 2025
We are writing to urge you to demand that the UK does not assist Israel in its aggressive war against Iran, either offensively or defensively. We must not be sucked into this war by Donald Trump’s ill-judged, narcissistic intervention. All efforts should now be concentrated on working with like-minded countries to secure a ceasefire as soon as possible. It is essential to understand the long-term context of this war.
Iran was abiding by the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed in 2015, for a full year after Donald Trump took the United States out of the agreement in 2018 and reimposed US nuclear-related sanctions. Iran only stopped abiding by the terms in 2019, when American pressure stopped western countries buying Iranian oil as part of Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy.
Since then, Iran has been enriching uranium beyond the stipulated limits for civilian use, although not to the level necessary for a weapon, and also breaking the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in other ways. Nevertheless, the remedy is for the Board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report the issue to the Security Council, not for Israel to attack Iran.
In March 2025, the American intelligence community assessed that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, nor had a decision been taken to restart the nuclear weapons program suspended in 2003. The assessment is also that it would take up to a year to create the required delivery system. Those assessments have not changed.1 Therefore, despite Iran being very nearly able to produce enough fissile material for a bomb, there is no justification of urgency for the Israeli attack.
The repeated Israeli claim that Iran having a nuclear weapon is an “existential threat” to Israel does not stand up to examination. It is well known that Israel has had nuclear weapons since the 1960s. It is widely believed to possess 90 plutonium-based nuclear warheads and to have produced enough plutonium for 100-200 weapons. It also has the “nuclear triad” delivery capability of aircraft, submarine-launched cruise missiles and Jericho ballistic missiles.2 One would have to believe that Iranian leaders are certifiably insane to believe they would risk a nuclear first strike against Israel.
Israel’s motive in being determined to be the only nuclear power the Middle East stems directly from its determination to continue occupying Palestinian land, prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state, and eventually create Greater Israel. That policy has created Palestinian resistance, sometimes terrorist attacks, two intifadas and several wars against Gaza. The possibility of Arab countries, or Iran, being motivated to attack Israel in support of the Palestinians is ever-present. Israel therefore wants to hold the whip-hand of being the sole nuclear power in the Middle East so that it will never have to negotiate with the Arab countries or Iran, or agree to end the occupation.
Iran’s policy has always been to support Palestinian resistance to Israel, and therefore to support Hamas and Hezbollah. The key to Iranian acceptance of Israel lies in Hamas accepting Israel. Hamas leaders offered that several times, providing Israel accepts a Palestinian state in the occupied territories. The last offer was made by Khaled Meshal, then the recognised head of Hamas, in April 2008.3 In 2017, Hamas created the new Principles and Policies document, which explicitly accepts that there can be a separate Palestinian state along the 1967 lines. It also, inter alia, identifies Israel only with Zionists, not Jews.4
The right-wing Israeli governments in power since March 2009 never responded to either initiative. The Hamas attack on 7th October 2023 was a war crime and a crime against humanity as it was mainly against Israeli civilians, but its roots lie in that refusal to respond and in the five previous assaults on Gaza. Eventually, the hard-line faction in Hamas gained ascendency. As António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, said, to the Security Council on 24 October, “the deadly assault by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum… the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation…”
The entirety of the dangerous situation we are now in – the Hamas assault on 7 October, Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the war between Israel and Iran, America’s entry into the war, and whatever unforeseen consequences may yet occur – has its roots in Israel’s long repression of the Palestinian people. Very strong sanctions will be necessary to compel Israel to change course. The few sanctions against individuals have been ineffective.
Sanctions should include suspending tariff-free status of all Israeli imports; immobilising all Israel’s foreign exchange reserves held in London, as has been done to Russia; suspending all arms exports to Israel; restrictions on business services; and refusing entry to all Israeli government ministers and senior military officers. Continued failure to apply them will badly erode the credibility of the U.K.’s commitment to international law, perhaps fatally.
We therefore urge you to demand the government both works urgently for a ceasefire and works in the long term to impose sanctions on Israel until it ends the occupation.
Yours sincerely,
Arthur Goodman
Parliamentary and Diplomatic Officer
Notes
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/us/politics/iran-nuclear-weapons-assessment.html
2. https://armscontrolcenter.org/fact-sheet-israels-nuclear-arsenal/
3. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna24235665
4. https://digitalprojects.palestine-studies.org/jps/fulltext/214551