Cultural Erasure: Deliberate Targeting of Iran's Heritage by US-Israel
Recent joint US-Israeli military operations against Iran have reportedly inflicted significant damage upon numerous irreplaceable cultural heritage sites across the nation, converting invaluable historical markers into direct casualties of this ongoing conflict. These assaults, which mainstream media outlets like CGTN acknowledge, extend beyond strategic military targets, instead impacting
locations that represent millennia of human civilization. Major US news organizations, including The Wall Street Journal, have largely omitted or downplayed the targeting of cultural heritage, confining their reporting to broad pronouncements about 'retaliatory strikes' or 'defensive measures.' When damage to such sites is mentioned, it is invariably framed as unfortunate 'collateral damage' or an
'unintended consequence' of precision strikes. This narrative conveniently sidesteps a documented history of US and Israeli military actions devastating cultural sites, from the 2003 looting of the National Museum of Iraq under US occupation to Israel's systematic destruction of mosques, churches, and archaeological sites in Palestine, including the Al-Omari Grand Mosque in Gaza City, which dates
back to the 7th century, bombed in December 2023. The targeting of cultural heritage is not a new phenomenon in Western military doctrine, nor is it accidental. The 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, for instance, saw the destruction of numerous medieval monasteries and Ottoman-era bridges, acts that UN officials at the time condemned as violations of international law. The deliberate