Media Review: Nationalism, Distrust, and the Specter of Regime Change
1. Netanyahu’s Overt Call: “Iran for Iranians”
On August 12, 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a striking video address aimed directly at the Iranian people. He urged them to “take to the streets”, “demand justice”, and resist “ruling fanatics” in Tehran. Leveraging Iran’s current water crisis—one described as the worst drought in a century—he promised that “Israel’s top water experts will flood into every Iranian city,” offering cutting-edge recycling and desalination technologies once “your country is free.” Netanyahu framed this not merely as political pressure but as a humanitarian overture, rhetorically intertwining water scarcity with political liberation.
His language tugged at historical symbols—the “descendants of Cyrus the Great”—and invoked Zionist forebears: “as our founding father, Theodor Herzl, said... ‘if you will it, a free Iran is not a dream.’” Critics across the region condemned the message as a blatant interference in Iran’s sovereignty and a call for regime change.
2. Expansionist Imagery and the “Greater Israel” Vision
3. Mutually Reinforcing Nationalist Narratives
These developments crystallize a deeper pattern of mutual antagonism: just as many in the Arab and Muslim worlds chant “Death to Israel” (often interpreted as opposition to the Zionist regime, not genocide), Israeli leaders—including Netanyahu—express parallel desires for overthrowing nationalist or Islamist regimes, from Iraq and Syria to Iran and potentially Turkey. Israel’s historical role in the fall of Arab nationalist regimes—the Ba’athists in Iraq and Syria, Nasserism in Egypt, Gaddafi in Libya—sets precedent for its current posture toward Iran, adding layers of distrust and ideological competition.
4. Media Narratives vs. Unspoken Realities
Mainstream coverage often frames Israel’s messaging as defensive—justified by existential threats or humanitarian concern. Yet the explicit linkage between Israel’s offer of technology and regime change reveals a more assertive posture: Israel positioning itself not only as a regional power but as a potential kingmaker.
This dynamic echoes past episodes: British and U.S. support for regime change in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan, often under the banner of liberation, but frequently yielding destabilization. Indeed, analysts warn that regime elimination without a constructive transition plan can exacerbate chaos and strengthen hardliners—concerns now surging around Iran.
5. Broader Implications: Ethno-Religious Nationalism and Regional Instability
The mutual calls for regime change are not isolated acts of political posturing — they are rooted in competing nationalist visions that draw their legitimacy from deeply embedded historical, ethnic, and religious narratives. This clash produces a dangerous self-reinforcing cycle that shapes nearly every major crisis in the Middle East.
Israel’s vision:
Israeli statecraft, particularly under Netanyahu, increasingly draws on biblical and historicist narratives to justify a posture of permanent expansion and dominance. This is not merely about securing existing borders; it’s about positioning Israel as the central civilizational power in the region. The appeal to “Greater Israel” ties modern foreign policy directly to ancient territorial claims, allowing nationalist leaders to frame strategic moves as fulfilling a sacred mission rather than a negotiable political agenda. In this worldview, offering water technology to Iranians is not only a humanitarian gesture but also a demonstration of how Israel imagines itself — as a benevolent hegemon to “liberated” peoples, once they accept the dismantling of regimes seen as hostile.
Resistance’s response:
Arab nationalist and Islamist movements see this Israeli narrative as an existential threat — not only to Palestinian sovereignty but to the very idea of Arab or Islamic self-determination. From their perspective, the vision of “Greater Israel” confirms suspicions that Israel’s security discourse masks territorial ambitions stretching across multiple states. This perception reinforces a siege mentality, where even minor concessions to Israel are framed as steps toward regional capitulation. Consequently, slogans like “Death to Israel” — while often clarified by their authors as a rejection of the Zionist regime rather than the Jewish people — are received by Israelis as genocidal, deepening the emotional and political chasm.
Mutual demonization:
Each side interprets the other’s rhetoric in its most maximalist and threatening form. Israeli leaders often portray their regional adversaries as irredeemable aggressors whose regimes must be toppled for peace to be possible. Conversely, Arab and Islamist nationalists cast Israeli policy as inherently expansionist, immune to compromise, and bent on cultural erasure. This mutual framing leaves no space for recognizing reformist or moderate currents on either side. Internal dissent within Iran, for example, is subsumed under the binary of “pro-regime” or “agent of foreign powers,” while dissent within Israel against expansionism is marginalized as naïve or disloyal.
Media as a force multiplier:
Regional and global media ecosystems amplify these narratives by privileging official statements and the most provocative soundbites. Nuanced or dissenting voices rarely receive the same coverage. This selective amplification means that both publics primarily hear confirmation of their worst fears. Israeli audiences see chants and missile parades without context; Arab audiences see maps of an expanded Israel without the debates inside Israel over their feasibility or morality. In effect, media serves as a mirror that reflects back the most polarizing version of reality, hardening nationalist sentiment and making diplomatic de-escalation politically costly for any leader.
The result is a feedback loop: nationalist rhetoric begets reciprocal hostility, which then justifies the next round of escalation. Over time, this pattern entrenches zero-sum thinking, where any gain for one side is assumed to be an irreversible loss for the other.
6. What Comes Next?
With Israel openly signaling support for regime change, and invoking ideological justifications, the region edges closer to escalatory brinkmanship. If Iran responds—either through intensified repression or reprisals—the potential for conflict could spiral. Global actors—especially the U.S., Europe, Russia, and regional powers—must urgently clarify whether they support such overt regime-change diplomacy or seek de-escalation through dialogue and multilateral engagement.
The events of August 12, 2025—Netanyahu’s video appeal and the embrace of “Greater Israel”—are not isolated flashes of rhetoric but crystallize long-standing ideological and geopolitical fault lines. The language of liberation and water aid interwoven with conquest and regime overthrow exemplifies the complex, dangerous entanglement of ethno-religious nationalism, realpolitik, and regional power plays. As each side frames itself as the rightful architect of the region’s future, the real victims may be stability, human rights, and any hope for equitable governance.
Israel’s prime minister’s call for Iranians to overthrow their government mirrors Iran’s rejection of the “Zionist regime,” underscoring two points: first, the deep incompatibility between race-based or religion-based nationalism and genuinely pluralistic societies; second, the role of supremacist ideologies as a driving force behind such nationalist regimes. Zionism—with both its religious dimension (membership in the Jewish faith) and its ethnic dimension (Jewish identity as race or ethnicity)—and Arab or Persian ethnic nationalism, alongside Islamism as a religious form, are locked in a clash that cannot be resolved by one prevailing over the others, but perhaps only by the eventual failure of them all.
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