Brussels, April 14, 2024–The European Jewish Congress strongly condemns the massive missile and drone attack by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its terror proxies in the region against hundreds of targets across Israel on Saturday night and stands in solidarity and concern for our brothers and sisters in the Jewish state.

That this attack did not result in considerable loss of life and major damage to civilian infrastructure was only as a result of cooperative defensive action by Israel and its allies, the US, Britain, and France and by moderate Arab states in the region. Jews in Europe express our profound gratitude and appreciation for this strong show of international solidarity against the Iranian terror network which threatens not only the Jewish state but stability in the Middle East region and beyond.

The international community must surely now be fully aware that Iran is ideologically committed to the destruction of the Jewish State and indeed to the undermining of all forces and states that do not share its extreme fundamentalist agenda.

We urge the European Union and its member states to totally isolate Iran economically and politically from the international family of nations by strongly enforcing and extending sanctions against the Islamic Republic. There must be no appeasement of the Tehran regime while it continues to daily threaten Western democracies and stability and peace in the Middle East and most particularly while it still remains a potential nuclear threat.

Europe should know that Iran has the motive and the ideology to wipe Israel off the map. Armed with nuclear warheads last night, Iran could have perpetrated another Holocaust. Israel may be its first and primary target but all Western nations are in its sights.

Iran has for many years utilised its ideological and terrorist proxies in the region to launch terror attacks against Israel. This included the barbaric and murderous incursion into Israel by Hamas from Gaza on October 7, resulting in more 1,200 deaths of Israeli civilians and the taking of over 200 hostages, over half of which remain in captivity with many of them feared dead.

Iran continues financially, politically and militarily to encourage its Lebanese proxy, Hizbullah, to launch sustained rocket fire against towns and villages in the north of Israel in recent months, while maintaining its support for other attacks against Israel from Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The threat of Hamas in Gaza and Hizballah in Lebanon is the same threat faced by European and American forces in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, and the same as the terror threat of Islamist fundamentalism on the streets of European cities. It must be defeated for the future of our lives, our democracies and our shared values.