In a tragic twist of history, the Jewish people, once liberated from Babylonian captivity by a Persian king, now find themselves locked in a destructive confrontation with the heirs of that same Persian legacy: modern-day Iran.

Cyrus the Great, the enlightened emperor of ancient Persia, is still honoured in Jewish scriptures for allowing the exiled Israelites to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. Yet today, the state of Israel, claiming to act in the name of Jewish security, has been trying to wage a devastating campaign against Iran and its allies, with missiles flying, cities burning and diplomacy dying in the smoke.

This is not just another regional war. It is the bloody culmination of an ideological transformation in Israel -- the rise of neo-Zionism, a maximalist, religious-nationalist worldview that has turned a once-defensive project of Jewish statehood into an aggressive doctrine of conquest, occupation and preemptive warfare.

Nowhere has the cost of neo-Zionism been more horrifically visible than in Gaza. Since Israel launched its latest operation, dubbed ‘Iron Resolve’, in April 2025, more than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed -- over 70 per cent of them women and children, according to UN estimates. Hospitals, schools, mosques and refugee camps have been reduced to rubble. Entire families have been wiped out by bunker-busting bombs in densely populated areas.

The World Health........

© The News International