JNS
The demonstrators in the Tel Aviv suburb voiced hope for the Islamist regime’s fall and admiration for those risking their lives to bring it down.
About 200 people gathered in Holon near Tel Aviv on Wednesday evening for a rally held in support of protesters in Iran—the first gathering of its size since the Dec. 28 outbreak of unrest in the Islamic Republic.
The rally, co-organized by journalist Emily Schrader, co-host of The Quad on JNS, amid preparations for a possible resumption of direct warfare between Israel and Iran, featured two prominent sentiments, often intertwined: Hope for the removal of a major threat to Israel, and admiration for the Iranian protesters working to overthrow the Islamists.
Analysts have described the protest movement as the most serious threat in years to the ayatollah regime’s hold on power. U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to take “very strong action” against Iranian authorities if they crack down on the protesters, prompting Tehran to threaten to attack Israel, which is therefore on high alert.
Against this background, demonstrators in Holon had multifaceted reasons to gather there, one of them, Golda Daphna, told JNS.
One reason was to confront a force that has been orchestrating terrorist warfare against Israel for decades, said Daphna, a Jewish-American 26-year-old woman who made aliyah in 2023.
“If I enlisted after Oct. 7 and feel so passionately about defending the Jewish people, then how could I not advocate for the fall of the regime that caused it?” she said, arguing that Israelis should seize a rare opportunity to end “over 40 years” of terrorism backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
She also described a deep kinship with Iranians, calling the Persian people “exactly like us—an ancient civilization” that has faced attempts at erasure by radical Islam. “Those are our brothers and sisters,” she said.
Daphna spoke admiringly of Iranian protesters, who have died in their thousands during the current wave of protests. Daphna called the Iranian protesters “the bravest people in the entire universe,” noting they demonstrate without weapons, training or protection, and are killed in large numbers. “They literally went to sacrifice themselves for freedom,” she said, adding that she would personally endure missile attacks if it meant Iranians could be free.
Signs reading “For Freedom—for Iran” and “57 Muslim countries mum on spilled Iranian blood” were seen at the rally. Some speakers and participants highlighted how, in Western societies, mobilization for the protesters in Iran has been muted in comparison to the reaction against Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza.
Some shouted Javid Shah, “Long live the Shah” in Persian, a reference to opposition leader Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of the shah who was deposed during the Islamic Revolution of 1979. At least one portrait of Ali Khamenei, the ayatollah regime’s supreme leader, was torched at the rally.
The demonstrators lit candles in memory of the slain protesters. In addition to Israeli flags, some demonstrators, including Israelis of Persian Jewish descent, waved the Lion and Sun flag of Iran under the shah, before the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
The regime’s narrative
The rally followed an Iranian propaganda narrative in which officials in Tehran dismissed the protests as the result of external meddling by Israel and the United States working against the interests of the Iranian people.
Asked whether the rally could serve as propagandistic fuel for this narrative, Schrader, co-founder of the Iran-Israel Alliance, a nongovernmental group strengthening ties between Jews and Iranians, said: “I'm aware of how the regime will frame this."
But, Schrader added, "I don't believe that that's a reason for Israelis in the Jewish community not to show solidarity.” Her decision was based partly on the fact that the regime is already blaming Israel for the protests anyway, she said.
Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak, a Middle East expert at Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, concurred with her analysis.
Before Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June, Cohen Yanarocak said, “there was an argument for not openly siding with the protesters” so as not to discredit them internally in Iran. “But after the war, the positions are so open and obvious, there’s little to be lost or gained for Israelis by openly siding with the Iranian opposition,” he told JNS.
Thousands of protesters have rallied across the Western world in solidarity with Iranian protesters, including in Berlin, Washington, D.C., and London. In several of those rallies, Jews and Iranians in exile waved Israeli flags.
Last week, the Iranian ambassador to Spain, Amir Saeid Iravani, wrote a letter in the government’s name to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres expressing the regime's “strongest condemnation of the ongoing, unlawful and irresponsible conduct of the United States of America, in coordination with the Israeli regime, in interfering in Iran's internal affairs through threats, incitement, and the deliberate encouragement of instability and violence.”
Promoters of this narrative have also cited messages of encouragement to the protesters from Trump, who on Jan. 13 wrote on TruthSocial: “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” And on Jan. 4, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “We stand in solidarity with the struggle of the Iranian people and with their aspirations for freedom, liberty and justice.”
Armin Navabi, an Iranian opposition activist living in exile in Canada, confirmed this in an interview with Ynet published on Wednesday.
Before the regime took out the country’s internet connection last week, he was receiving “videos from inside the protests with people chatting: ‘Am Israel Hai’ [‘The People of Israel Lives’] and ‘Long live Israel’,” he told Ynet.
"We had signs of people saying, ‘Thank you, Bibi’,” referencing Netanyahu’s nickname, and ‘I'm with Israel,’ or ‘Thank you, Trump.’ The Iranian people have become more and more pro-Israeli, especially after the 12-day war,” said Navabi, who had been in daily contact with people in Iran before the internet shutdown. “We were so thankful for Israel taking out Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders,” he said.
He noted that millions of Iranians have taken to the streets since Dec. 28, and he credited their resoluteness to two main factors. “The most important reason why you're seeing so many people in the streets are because of the command of Prince Reza Pahlavi, but also because the Iranian people believe that Trump and Netanyahu have their back,” Navabi said.
