>but you haven't shown a reason to believe it's based on their religious beliefs.

Their religious leaders like literally come out and say, "This is based on our religious beliefs."

Does every Shi'ite hold these same beliefs then? What is the religious basis for the belief?

Henry VIII used religious justification for breaking off from the pope as well but surely we're grown up enough to recognise those movements came about from a desire for political autonomy more than disagreements over bible interpretations?

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simonh 6 hours ago | parent [-]

You're looking for this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Israel_in_Irani...

>In 2024, Ali Khamenei told Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh: "The divine promise to eliminate the Zionist entity will be fulfilled and we will see the day when Palestine will rise from the river to the sea."

In particular check out the "clerics" section of that article for the statements of multiple leading religious authorities in the regime on the religious justifications.

	▲	AlecSchueler an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Well, to start off I want to reiterate what I said about the reformation era political upheavals in Europe and religion being used as a justification and easy explanation for very real geopolitical concerns. But just for argument's sake and to respect your position I always want to point out that your quote subtly talks about "the Zionist entity" and not about Israel or Jews. So I can assume that you're equating Israel with Zionism, which is arguably fair. Now the question I would have is do we recognise the inherent violence of Zionism and, if so, why do we decentre that in our conversation and instead focus on the reaction to it?