This op-ed draws a moral line from the Israelites’ bondage in Egypt to the oppression of Iranians under Islamist rule.
The Israelites Under Pharaoh
The bondage of the Israelites in Egypt and the bondage of the Iranian people under radical Islam are not the same story.
They come from different ages, different rulers, and different worlds.
Yet both are stories of a people trapped under a power that denied them freedom.
The Israelites’ dwelling in Egypt began with Jacob, also known as Israel, who arrived there with his family because severe famine struck Canaan.
Joseph, the eleventh son of Rachel and Jacob, became the target of his brothers’ jealousy. Jacob’s gift of a distinctive multicolored coat made his favoritism plain. That favoritism ignited anger, resentment, and hatred among Joseph’s brothers.
They sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt.
Joseph was bought by Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officers.
Later, while Joseph languished in jail, he noticed the distress of Pharaoh’s ministers, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, and interpreted the troubling dreams they both dreamt on the same night. Joseph attributed that power to God, and what he said came true.
That moment changed everything.
When Pharaoh heard about Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams, he summoned him from jail to explain his own dream. Joseph’s interpretation helped Egypt prepare for famine and saved the kingdom from catastrophe.
Impressed by Joseph’s wisdom and by what he saw as divine power, Pharaoh appointed him second-in-command over Egypt.
Joseph became the first royal Jew.
Yet Joseph’s rise did not spare the Israelites from future bondage.
Bondage means a state of being bound, whether by slavery or serfdom. The Israelites became bound to Pharaoh in a state of slavery that tradition describes as lasting four centuries.
The Israelites’ slavery in Egypt became one of the central events repeated throughout the Old Testament. Their suffering finally ended through the miraculous and divine events of the Ten Plagues, by which God struck Pharaoh’s Egypt through His appointed messenger, Moses.
Why the Exodus Still Matters
Those events led to the Exodus from Egypt to freedom.
They also marked the transition of the Israelites from the patriarchal era described in Genesis to the beginning of the Nation of Israel.
The Israelites’ bondage to Pharaoh became an epic story of perseverance, faith, and the ultimate triumph of the oppressed over their oppressors.
That is why the Exodus still matters.
It is not just ancient history.
It is also a moral warning to every age.
It reminds us that oppression can endure for generations, but it does not own the future forever.
Iran Under the Mullahs
Today, we must tell the truth that the Iranian people have also lived in bondage.
For nearly half a century, they have lived under the grip of Islamist mullahs who turned a nation into a prison of fear, coercion, and radical Islam.
The Islamic Republic came to power wrapped in promises of justice, freedom, and human rights.
It delivered repression instead.
Again and again, when the Iranian people rose to protest injustice, the regime answered not with reform, but with batons, prisons, torture, and the gallows.
Women Under Radical Islam
Among the regime’s main targets are Iranian women.
The compulsory hijab became one of its ugliest instruments of humiliation, a daily reminder that control over women stands at the center of its power. Women were pushed out of major areas of public life and decision-making. Their bodies, voices, and choices became battlegrounds for state domination.
In Iran, oppression does not exist only behind prison walls.
It exists in the street.
It exists in the school.
It exists in the workplace.
It exists in the courtroom.
It exists wherever the regime demands obedience and punishes dignity.
That is why so many see the Iranian people as living in bondage to radical Islam.
Operation Roaring Lion and Epic Fury
Now war has opened a new and dangerous chapter.
Israel calls its campaign against Iran Operation Roaring Lion. The United States calls its campaign Operation Epic Fury. Officially, these operations aim to remove immediate threats and strike Iran’s military and security infrastructure. Many who support this war also hope it may help end the Iranian people’s bondage under the ruling clerical regime.
This conflict differs from the long occupations of the past.
At least for now, the emphasis is on precision strikes, overwhelming force, and the destruction of military and regime targets, not on prolonged ground occupation.
The Israelites came out of bondage in Egypt through divine intervention.
Deliverance Still Awaits
The Iranian people still wait for their deliverance.
Whether that freedom comes through internal resistance, outside pressure, the collapse of tyranny, or an act of God, the longing is the same.
No people were born to live forever in chains, and no tyranny should expect to escape judgment forever.
That is the deeper link between these two bondages.
One belongs to sacred history.
The other is unfolding in our own time.
