The first agenda item on the Mar. 6, 2026, weekly PBS roundtable program “Ivory Tower” was the war in Iran, hosted by Colgate University political science professor Nina Moore. Professor Moore introduced the topic by stating America was unofficially at war with Iran, alongside “its strongest ally, Israel,” but wanted to discuss why it was at war, what the end goal is, and how long it would take to achieve the goal.
The guests – all professors – had varying viewpoints, mostly critical of the war, but one frequent roundtable participant, Anirban Acharya of Le Moyne College, made outrageous, slanderous statements when he said, “What Iran is doing now Israel has done for years and years. Israel goes and bombs whoever they feel like whenever they feel like.” He went on to state there was a UN Security resolution in 1981 that talked about the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) going into Israel to look at their nuclear weapons and they were not allowed in. “Now all of a sudden we will attack Iran,” he said.
He then argued that according to international law “this is very clear” and “[the attacks on Iran are] an aggressive move” and that “most international scholars” would agree this was a violation of the UN Charter.
After a few more sentences of commentary, Moore said, “Let me challenge you on this point, Anirban.”
But Moore’s challenge was solely about Iran – she said nothing to counter or question Acharya’s false statements about Israel. Moore recalled the Americans taken hostage by Iran, American targets attacked for decades, and most recently, having seen “with our very own eyes, upwards to 30,000 protestors killed in the streets.” She mentioned nothing about the proxies Iran has financed and trained through the decades, like Hezbollah and Hamas, who in addition to killing thousands of Israelis, have also killed (and the latter also kidnapped) Americans.
She asked Acharya why that wasn’t enough to justify an attack, to which this regime apologist replied that the 30,000 was a number from western media and that “there are various other media analyses that would refute that.” He then went on to say he did not “see the coherence of [the] logic” behind bombing Iran while saying we want to save Iran from an oppressive regime.
Acharya’s statements that “What Iran is doing now Israel has done for years and years” and “Israel goes and bombs whoever they feel like whenever they feel like” are incendiary, inaccurate and should not have been allowed to stand unchecked.
It is unclear whether he was comparing the two countries in a non-military context in addition to a military one. If so, the contrast between the two societies could not be starker. For decades, Iran has executed gays, arrested and often tortured (even to death) women who did not properly don the hijab, and has killed thousands of protestors. Israel hosts gay pride parades and has no dress code for women.
Acharya’s clear attempt to equate the military actions of Iran and Israel, by any measure, is obscene. In addition to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – a branch of Iran’s armed forces that reports directly to the Supreme Leader of Iran – having been designated a foreign terrorist organization by many countries, including the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Israel and the E.U., Iran has been designated a state sponsor of terrorism for over 40 years by the United States.
Regarding his statement that “Israel goes and bombs whoever they feel like whenever they feel like” makes it sound as if Israel is a rogue nation that willy nilly bombs countries. With regard to wars, perhaps with the exception of when in 1956 Israel, together with Britain and France, invaded Egypt in response to the nationalization of the Suez Canal, Israel’s wars have been defensive in nature (e.g. Yom Kippur War, Israel-Hamas War). Certain limited operations by Israel were not technically in response to hostilities, but were actions deemed by Israel to be preemptive against imminent threats, such as bombing the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981 and when Israel attacked Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War.
While critics may debate whether the present military action in Iran by Israel is preemptive or not, what is undeniable is that Iran is the “head of the octopus” that has funded and encouraged its tentacles (including but not limited to: Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis) to engage in proxy wars on Israel for decades. While Iran had refrained from direct attacks on Israel until April 2024, as Elica Le Bon, Iranian-American activist and attorney explained, Iran “keep[s] its hands clean while fueling and supporting groups that can do the work for them without the strikes coming back on [Iran].”
Moreover, Acharya’s statement that Israel did not allow nuclear inspectors following a 1981 UN Security Resolution omits highly relevant data. UN Resolution 487 (1981) followed Israel’s attack on Iraq’s nuclear facilities. The resolution noted that Iraq was a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and that Iraq had accepted agency safeguards, whereas Israel had not adhered to the NPT. (Israel is not a signatory to the treaty, so the language saying it had not adhered is misleading.) Given that Israel is not a party to the NPT, it had no obligation to allow an inspection.
The resolution unsurprisingly condemned the Israeli attack and, presumably to what Acharya referred, “Call[ed] upon Israel urgently to place its nuclear facilities under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency.” While “calls upon” in UN resolutions is stronger than “requests,” it falls short of “demands.” There is no universally agreed interpretation of what authority “calls upon” carries.
Acharya, in the span of under a minute, was able to make Israel out to be a wild actor, bombing without reason, and equated it to the oppressive and cruel Islamic Republic regime. Moore shamefully let the Le Moyne professor’s inaccurate and slanderous statements about Israel stand unchallenged, choosing only to push back on Acharya’s Iran commentary.