Israelis are drawing explicit connections between the current campaign against the Iranian regime and the events of Purim, which Jews commemorated on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Then as now, a wicked ruler in the land of Persia sought to annihilate the Jews — until the tables were providentially turned. There “is a possibility, after decades, that finally Israel can be free of its number-one nemesis that [has been] committed to its destruction ever since 1979,” said CBN Middle East Bureau Chief Chris Mitchell on “Washington Watch.”

Israel has experienced all-out warfare before. In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 terror attack by Hamas, it faced a seven-front war, fighting Hamas in Gaza while enduring intermittent barrages of missiles from Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Iran-controlled proxy militias in Syria and Iraq, along with a threat of terrorism in Judea and Samaria and, occasionally, barrages of missiles and drones from the Iranian homeland itself.

The war cooled down last summer, after Israel systematically debilitated Hezbollah, then Hamas, then Iran’s nuclear program itself with U.S. help. But the Iranian regime only redoubled its missile production, and it has lashed out furiously following new attacks by Israel and the United States.

The weakened regime spewed missiles at nearly all of its neighbors, with more than a third heading toward the tiny nation of Israel, even breaking a norm against firing on Jerusalem. “Also in Haifa, in Tel Aviv, and throughout all of Israel,” residents “have been getting those alerts [of incoming missiles and drones] and those hits,” Mitchell mentioned. “Beit Shemesh was hit as well. … Tragically, nine died there.”

As part of its efforts to protect the lives of its citizens, Israel has introduced a “game-changing” laser weapon into combat to shoot down missiles and rockets, while its Air Force targets drones.

Despite the constant threat to their lives, Israeli residents remain “resolute,” Mitchell informed viewers. “First of all, they’re praying. Also, they’re hoping that this will be freedom for the Iranian people. … They want to make sure they see this through to the very end. People here in Israel want to make sure that they can finally kill the head of the snake, or the head of the octopus, however you refer to Iran right now.”

To its north, Israel sees this as an opportunity to knock out the remnants of Hezbollah. “Just a couple of days ago, at the urging of Iran, Hezbollah actually entered the war, and they fired missiles against the Haifa. They fired missiles against northern Israel,” said Mitchell.

“Because of that, the IDF is now actually targeting many sites in Beirut with Hezbollah headquarters, also in southern Lebanon. In fact, southern Lebanon is being evacuated,” Mitchell added. “There was one Israeli journalist that said Hezbollah really committed assisted suicide by going ahead and entering the war, giving the IDF the reason to go and finally defeat this nemesis on its northern border.”

Israel has ordered evacuations across southern Lebanon, authorized ground forces to “take control of additional areas” in Lebanon, and completed airstrikes on 60 Hezbollah targets. Per usual, the Hezbollah targets were “under civilian cover.”

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apparently set his sights even higher. “From the very start,” said FRC President Tony Perkins, from “when Netanyahu entered into the political arena, his eye has been on Iran.” Mitchell agreed. “He has been sort of like the Winston Churchill warning against Iran, just like Churchill warned against the rise of Nazi Germany.”

Naturally, this means that Israel’s top-notch intelligence services have been contemplating operations against the Iranian regime for a long time. To give “some idea of how long Israel has been planning this attack,” said Mitchell, “it just came out that actually the Mossad had actually infiltrated the street cameras of Tehran, and someone said they knew Tehran as good as they knew Jerusalem or the streets in your own neighborhood.”

At least from the start of its latest war with Hamas, “Israel knew that its main enemy was Iran, a nuclear tipped Iran, [with] ballistic missiles [that] are all designed to eliminate the State of Israel,” Mitchell noted. In fact, the Iranian regime’s scatter-shot attacks on all its neighbors show that it’s a threat to the entire region, but especially to Israel. “Certainly, we’re hoping right now that the rate of missiles will start dropping as both the U.S. and Israel start targeting those ballistic missile launchers,” Mitchell added.

Yet Israel distinguishes between the Iranian people and the Iranian regime, a group of fanatic Islamists that treat Israel’s annihilation as their prime directive. After disabling much of Iran’s air defenses and missile launchers, Israel is now directing its attacks against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which runs the police state responsible for repressing the Iranian people. If Israeli air power can demolish the police state, the hope is the Iranian people will rise up and seize control of their own future security.

Mitchell states that Israel is now seeking to do to the Iranian regime what the Iranian regime sought to do to them — annihilate it. “They had been preparing, spending all their treasure trying to defeat and destroy the Jewish state,” Mitchell said, “and now the tables have been turned.” Indeed, Iran prioritized its missile and nuclear programs to the point that its capital is running out of water reserves and may need to be relocated.

This year, during the feast of Purim, many Israelis are drawing explicit connections between the events of Esther’s day and their own campaign against the Iranian regime. In the book of Esther, a high-ranking Persian official named Haman set a date on which all Jews would be killed throughout the Persian Empire’s 127 provinces, stretching from India to Ethiopia (Esther 1:1). However, after Esther and Mordecai prayed and fasted, the king ordered Haman’s execution and issued a new decree allowing Jews to defeat their enemies.

“The Jewish people … see a direct connection between what happened about 2,500 years ago when an ancient Persian ruler wanted to annihilate the Jewish people, and he was defeated. And here we are, 2,500 years later; a wicked, evil Iranian ruler actually has the tables turned on him,” Mitchell explained.

Notably, Mitchell added, Esther is “the only book in the Bible where the name of God is not mentioned,” yet “God is throughout the whole story.” God’s providence worked entirely through human means to save the Jewish people throughout the Persian Empire. Likewise in the current conflict, God has not acted through extraordinary means, but the providence of him who sets up kings and removes kings (Daniel 2:21) is still at work. One does not have to imbue the modern nation-state of Israel with unique theological significance to notice the plain parallels.

“Since October the 7th, the world has changed. Certainly, the Middle East has changed,” Perkins reflected. “Post [the Iranian] regime, [it] does not mean that the Middle East is a place of peace. There are other threats that are looming there, and I believe there are others who will want to fill the void that would be left by an Iranian regime.” But, in the current crisis, Israel faces a regime in the land of Persia that seeks its annihilation, and Israel has dramatically, stunningly, overwhelmingly turned the tables on its enemy.