By Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel in Chula Vista, California
The ongoing 2025–2026 Iranian protests, which erupted on December 28, 2025, and have intensified into 2026, represent one of the most widespread and sustained challenges to the Islamic Republic since its founding in the 1979 Revolution.
Sparked initially by severe economic collapse—including hyperinflation, a plummeting rial (reaching over 1.4 million to the USD), soaring food and fuel prices, and the fallout from the June 2025 Israel-US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and broader military setbacks—the demonstrations have evolved into a nationwide uprising across all 31 provinces.
Protesters, including bazaar traders, students, women, and youth, are chanting slogans like “Death to the Dictator/Khamenei,” “This is the year of blood, Seyed Ali falls,” and calls supporting the return of the pre-1979 monarchy (with widespread use of the Lion and Sun flag). Strikes, clashes, attacks on regime buildings, and acts of defiance (such as women burning images of the Supreme Leader) have been reported in hundreds of cities and towns, from Tehran and Isfahan to Shiraz, Tabriz, and Kurdish regions.
The regime’s response has been brutal: a nationwide internet and communications blackout (ongoing since early January 2026) obscures the full scale of events, while security forces (including IRGC, Basij, and reportedly foreign-linked militias) have used live ammunition, tear gas, metal pellets, and hospital raids on the wounded. Rights groups report thousands arrested and a death toll in the hundreds to over 2,500 (with estimates varying due to the blackout and limited verification). Hospitals are overwhelmed with gunshot victims, and bodies have been documented in morgues and bags.
This moment of raw courage—ordinary Iranians facing murder squads, risking torture and death for dignity, women’s rights, and an end to clerical tyranny—deserves global attention. Yet, much of the Western liberal establishment, academia, mainstream media, and progressive circles have responded with disturbing silence or minimal engagement.
Campus activism, which mobilized thousands in recent years for causes like the Palestinian struggle (often with visible solidarity campaigns, keffiyehs, encampments, and op-eds framing Islamist-linked groups as victims of Western/Israeli imperialism), has shown little comparable energy here. Where are the widespread rallies, viral hashtags, or urgent condemnations of state violence against Iranian civilians? Initial coverage has sometimes framed the unrest primarily as “economic protests” or echoed regime narratives downplaying the scale, while the blackout limits graphic evidence that could drive broader outrage.
This selective focus reveals a deeper hypocrisy: many on the Western left view Muslims predominantly through the lens of oppression by Israel and the West, casting criticism of repressive Islamist theocracies (like Iran’s hangings, torture, forced hijab enforcement, and mass killings) as potentially “Islamophobic” or aligned with imperialism. Acknowledging the mullahs’ atrocities disrupts the narrative that Islamist movements are primarily anti-imperialist victims rather than oppressors in their own right.
Influences such as Qatari-funded networks in universities and media have reinforced this dynamic, prioritizing certain victims while rendering others (like the Iranian people defying the very theocracy that funds regional proxies) invisible. The result is a muted response—even as this uprising directly challenges global Islamist threats and could reshape the Middle East toward greater freedom.
The bravery of Iranians risking everything for a future without theocratic terror stands in stark contrast to this ideological blind spot. Freedom movements deserve amplification regardless of politics. All who champion human rights should hope these heroic voices prevail—the outcome is uncertain and high-stakes, but their courage is undeniable.
The apathetic West needs to wake up. The Iranian people’s struggle is a fight for universal values, and silence in the face of such bloodshed is complicity. Stand with them.
*
Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista, California.