PRESS RELEASE: United States-Israel Attacks on Iran — Illegal and Immoral, and must Stop Now!
Ellen Thomas
Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action
16159 Clear Creek Road NW
Poulsbo, WA 98370
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 3, 2026
United States-Israel Attacks on Iran — Illegal and Immoral, and must Stop Now!
Contact: Leonard Eiger; outr...@gzcenter.org
Glen Milner; in...@gzcenter.org
Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action condemns the military attacks by the United States and Israel on the sovereign Islamic Republic of Iran – an immoral and illegal act of aggression.
US President Donald Trump, by ordering military strikes against a sovereign state, which poses no threat to the US, has broken his oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
This premeditated and unprovoked war of choice is illegal under international law to which the President is duty-bound to uphold, representing a member state of the United Nations.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike as part of a joint military operation with the US early in the operations –- an egregious violation of international norms and the Charter of the United Nations. Both US and Israeli strikes have targeted civilians in addition to military targets.
The UN Charter prohibits “the threat of the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” It only authorizes countries to use military force against other countries either in self-defense or with approval by the UN Security Council.
Trump's actions not only break international law, but seriously threaten international peace and security, and pose grave consequences for people throughout Iran and the Middle East. So far, according to the Iran's Red Crescent, at least 787 Iranians have been killed in joint US-Israeli strikes, and at least 40 people killed in Lebanon by Israeli airstrikes.
Trump’s reckless actions also put US military personnel in harms way, as they fight a war that has no justification whatsoever — a war built on lies. This conflict has resulted in the deaths of at least six US military personnel so far.
Trump has made many false statements about Iran in the lead up to the February 28th attacks, and those statements have been almost entirely false. A central issue used by others over the years is the Iranian nuclear weapons program, which has been a major focus of Trump's most recent inflammatory statements.
In his February 28th statement on the attacks, Trump said that the US tried to make a deal with Iran after bombing three of its nuclear sites in June 2025, but that Iran "rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can't take it anymore."
He went on to say that, “They've rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can't take it anymore. Instead, they attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing the long range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could soon reach the American homeland. Just imagine how emboldened this regime would be if they ever had, and actually were armed with nuclear weapons as a means to deliver their message.”
Such statements are outright lies, and only serve to falsely justify Trump's military aggression. The Trump administration's absolute demands -- giving up its uranium enrichment and ballistic missile programs — were not diplomacy, but rather a pretext, setting the stage for claiming Iran's failure to meet the terms of the negotiations and the disastrous war that has ensued.
Nuclear policy experts and a 2025 federal government assessment have clearly stated that Iran is years away from the ability to produce long-range missiles.
It has been difficult to obtain expert, independent information on Iran's nuclear program since Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, in 2018. Prior to that, According to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, “the JCPOA verification regime was effective at providing transparency into Iran’s nuclear program, which allowed Iran to raise confidence that it was not producing nuclear weapons.”
Trump destroyed the JCPOA -- which took 20 months of complex negotiations involving the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, and was working as intended — with a stroke of a pen so he could show that he could make a better deal than President Barack Obama had orchestrated. The result was the undermining of any further diplomatic efforts and the destabilization of the region.
Trump has learned well from the examples of previous presidents who falsely justified aggression towards other countries. President George W. Bush, in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq (Address to the Nation on the Threat of Iraq, delivered 7 October 2002), used similar hyperbolic, fear mongering language, saying, “America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, never produced a nuclear weapon.
Should the present war expand into a wider conflict, it could lead to the use of nuclear weapons. The US and Israel both possess nuclear weapons. The State of Israel has clearly demonstrated that it does not believe in, or have to abide by, international law, let alone follow any ethical or moral guidelines. The Samson Option, an undeclared and little-known element in Israel’s national defense posture refers to Israel’s readiness to use nuclear weapons if it ever faces what it sees as an existential threat to its existence.
It is not implausible that if Iran was to hit a major Israeli city with a conventional missile (or missiles), crossing some threshold of damage, injuries and deaths, Israel would respond with the use of a nuclear-armed missile or bomb against some Iranian city. Should that happen, it is impossible to know the possible escalation from there, and what other countries could be drawn into the conflict.
We understand that the Iranian regime has ruled with an iron fist, stifling any dissent and brutally repressing any opposition to its theocratic leadership. We also understand that Iran has the same rights as any other sovereign state as a member state of the United Nations, and therefore has complete autonomy and self-determination over its internal and external affairs.
The international norms established by the UN have been established “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” and must be respected and upheld by its members in order to avoid the kind of chaos and bloodshed (of World War II) that brought about its formation in 1945.
Whereas, President Trump is abdicating his oath to the Constitution and committing war crimes by initiating these military attacks on the sovereign Islamic State of Iran,
We call on the United States Congress to immediately vote to condemn the attacks and pass the War Powers Resolution.
We support Veterans for Peace call for military personnel to refuse illegal orders and resist this illegal war. The Joint Chiefs of Staff hold the primary responsibility for this if they are to honor their oath to “support and defend the Constitution.”
We call on both the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly to condemn the attacks, and demand an immediate end of hostilities by both the US and Israel, and call for de-escalation and diplomacy.
We commend Spain for denying the US permission to use its airspace, airports and military bases for its war on Iran, and we call on all countries to do the same.
Until this war is stopped, we call for mass, nonviolent civil resistance and general strikes in the United States to send a clear message to our government that we will not stand for more wars of choice.
We call on every citizen and activist organization to flood Congress with phone calls and emails demanding that they silence the drumbeats of war and initiate dialogue and diplomacy with Iran.
Should President Trump not stop all military action against Iran immediately, we call on Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against him as authorized by the Constitution.
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The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action was founded in 1977. The center is on 3.8 acres adjoining the Trident submarine base at Bangor, Washington. Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor is homeport to the largest concentration of deployed nuclear warheads in the US. The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action offers the opportunity to explore the roots of violence and injustice in our world and to experience the transforming power of love through nonviolent direct action. We resist all nuclear weapons, especially the Trident ballistic missile system.
