The courage of the Iranian people and the silence of the world
Something profoundly disturbing is unfolding alongside the extraordinary uprising in Iran: the rest of the world’s refusal to support it.
More than 200 demonstrators have reportedly been killed after two weeks of protests
In the silence—or in the muted tone of solidarity, and in the general inaction save for a few commendable groups, such as those who gathered over the weekend in Rome—there is something deeply sinister going on for the Iranian people in these hours.
As Abe Greenwald wrote in Commentary, what we are witnessing is not only indifference toward a great human rights struggle, but also active accommodation of anti-liberal powers.
It can be seen in the streets, where demonstrations are being prepared in Lodi in support of Ismail Haniyeh, of Hamas, even of Nicolás Maduro, the authoritarian Venezuelan leader captured by the United States; in the push to recognize a Palestinian state at the regional level in Tuscany; in preparations for yet another aid flotilla to Gaza. Humanitarian activism today supports the oppressors, not the oppressed.
While there is no shortage of op-eds against U.S. President Donald Trump, there is remarkably little support for the struggle against the most evil regime in the world—the Iranian regime—which attacks not only its own people but democracies everywhere.
Just as in 1979, many cheered for Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the Iranian Revolution that overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and replaced Iran’s monarchy with an Islamic theocracy, today there is cheering for New York’s Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani, and the pro-Iranian Maduro.
Faced with the fire now spreading through most Iranian cities, the world appears gripped by a kind of collective hypnosis.
It fails to see that the horrific pyramid of power built by the ayatollahs is on the verge of collapse. Reality cannot break through the regurgitation of old anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist theories.
Forgotten are the daily suffering and persecution of the Iranian people—and the international aggression that has caused explosions and innocent deaths around the world through Iranian and Hezbollah actions.
When I was covering the fall of the Berlin Wall—excited, astonished crowds in the night, the sound of jackhammers and pickaxes, fragments of wall painted red and blue that I still keep in my attic—I did not immediately grasp that the world was changing before my eyes. I understood it only when children poured out of East Berlin and entered West Berlin shopping malls, marveling at toys and chocolates lined up in magnificent rows.
That is what we must now be able to see: the Basij raising their hands; ayatollahs flying toward Moscow with tons of gold; Iranian women walking through the streets dressed as they choose; people voting; young people tasting the apple of knowledge—freedom.
For two weeks, the Iranian people—among the bravest in the world—have been sketching this scenario in blood. They are doing it not only for themselves but for all of us; for peace and democracy.
In 2025 alone, the regime executed more than 1,000 people, an ever-growing number, for drug offenses and for so-called “crimes against religion,” “crimes against the Earth,” being “enemies of Allah,” or for homosexuality.
Many more, never formally sentenced, are effectively executed in prisons or before reaching them. Due process is unknown. Many die under torture and violence, especially women. Vulnerable groups such as the Baluch and the Kurds are persecuted.
The declared intent to destroy Israel is the banner under which Iran pursues nuclear power and relentless ballistic rearmament, bolstered by a 25-year agreement with China and Russia, joint naval exercises and endless summits.
Russian President Vladimir Putin uses Iranian drones against Ukraine. The Shi’ite domination doctrine of Islam—enforced by the Revolutionary Guards and shaped by Qassem Soleimani’s “axis of resistance”—has drained the people’s standard of living and fueled their fury, all in service of a messianic vision in which the coming of the Mahdi coincides with Islamic seizure of power, first in the Middle East and then beyond.
This is not rhetoric. It is money—billions of dollars—and weapons for Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and militias in Iraq. Just last Thursday, Iran’s foreign minister flew to Lebanon once again to reinforce Hezbollah.
Is this still not enough to understand that we must do everything possible to help the Iranian people in revolt? Without weapons, if you prefer—but with cyber intelligence, with Starlink, with security cooperation and with our voices. Above all, the moral force of mass solidarity can be of immense help.
Nowhere is this inversion clearer than in the United States, where parts of the left march passionately for the wrong causes, such as Hamas, but remain largely silent as hundreds of Iranians are killed by a tyrannical regime cracking down violently on protesters across the country.
While Trump weighs his options and has promised to confront tyranny, we—whatever our weight—are here. Among the tools available is rigorous international enforcement to ensure that sanctions truly work.
History will not be kind to this moral failure. Regimes fall when fear changes sides. The Iranian people are showing extraordinary courage. The least the free world can do is see them—and stand with them—until victory is achieved, as we in Israel like to say.
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