Die Pro-Gaza-Linke schweigt zum Iran

They aren’t just quiet. Online they are actually spinning conspiracies against the protestors and supporting the „loyalist“ Ayatollah forces. Don’t visit r/asksocialists . It’s like a window to another universe.

It has been like a week, and its already over. When it gets to 2 years and 160,000 dead check again. Are the Iranian protests that much different from the anti ICE protests in Minnesota? This is just disingenuous. Maybe the US needs some regime change?

The US sanctions Iran. What would they even be protesting for? Very few people want to get dragged into another war in the Middle East.

Western governments don’t have free trade deals with Iran, nor do they provide material or political cover for Iran. They condemn the Iranian government regularly and have even bombed Iran. So why would people in the west need to protest? Pro Palestinian protesters were protesting against their own government’s support for genocide

This is such an odd take. Half the reason pro-Palestinian activists make a ruckus about Palestine is because there are direct US dollars going to aid Israel. It is an issue with which we are distinctly involved and if you believe it’s wrong then you call to sever that relationship. Where was it then implied that the United States has a responsibility to play world police for every single other bad thing that happens? Considerable difference between my taxpayer dollars being used to fund war crimes and a country across the world having its own conflicts that I’m not part of.

There’s no selective outrage, it’s just an egregious misappropriation of what the principle of movement is. I don’t believe the United States should stop every bad thing in the world from happening, just that it should stop funding those bad things where it does. Setting up the idea that the outrage against Israel is “selective” or somehow unique opens the door to assigning “other motivations” for anti-Israel criticisms, which is yet another pathetic war crime excusing dogwhistle

The Pro-Gaza left isn’t really Pro-Gaza. It’s just anti-American. They hate the US primarily and see everything else through that friend-enemy distinction lens.

If someone is America’s enemy, then they are their friend, and vice versa. Israel is the US’s ally, and therefore is white/western/imperial/colonialist aligned, and therefore is an enemy. Opponents of Israel are definitionally opponents of the US, and therefore their friend. IRGC? US enemy, and therefore must be their ally. Protests against the Ayatollahs? Against a US enemy, so they must be US friendly and are therefore illegitimate.

All justifications and explanations can be traced to this framing. There is very little critical analysis that these people do to determine alignment beyond generalized opposition to the US led global order.

What’s with this sudden rash of „if you don’t express your opinion about [insert current event], then your position on [thing I care about] is invalid“ arguments I’m seeing online? Did the disinformation bots pivot their preferred line of thinking? And I’m sure this will come as a shock to everyone, but the author of this piece has a *very partisan* opinion on conflict in Gaza. Given that this article is published on WSJ, I bet you can guess which side the author comes down on.

It’s also profoundly disingenuous. Mr. Ondrasik dedicated a song to the hostages in Gaza. Did he do the same for ongoing humanitarian crises in Burkino Faso? Has he been vocal in support of either Russia or Ukraine? What’s his take on the situation in Xinjiang? Can he even pronounce Uyghur? If the answer to any of these questions is „we don’t know,“ then his argument applies to himself as readily as everyone he’s apparently throwing shade at.

The situation in Iran is largely opaque to outsiders, its two primary factions are both internal to the state as opposed to one being a foreign invader as in Gaza, there’s a history of outside intervention in internal Iranian conflicts creating adverse outcomes for everyone (including the existence of the regime the author presumably opposes), it’s not clear if the conditions that led to these protests would be addressed or exacerbated by the fall of the regime, etc. Given the complexity of the situation and how new it is, it’s kind of obnoxious to be fake-mad because someone hasn’t staked out their position on the matter. But if men like Ondrasik cared at all about being fair, they probably wouldn’t hold the positions they do anyway.

It would be anti-US to be very public with that sentiment. Someone in the US could get in trouble with one of the Trump administration EOs.

The point of protests is to make demands. The “pro-Gaza” protests are not there to say “Look at us, we don’t like what Israel is doing to Gaza”, they’re there because Israel crucially relies on the US’s support, so there are arguably no protesters anywhere who are in a better position to weaken Israel and force some kind of change.

The opposite is true of Iran. The US is already sanctioning it and now Trump is explicitly calling on its people to overthrow the government and threatening military action. So if we accept the author’s anti-Iran stance, then what is there to protest about?

It’s because those same omnicause supporters also support the Islamic regime…

The West isn’t arming Iran. The West was arming Israel.

This isnt geopolitics

Which group in the West even supports Iran? It has no allies, no support from the West. What is there to demonstrate against?

Even if it’s unreasonable to expect that the pro-Gaza left organize protests on behalf of Iranians, isn’t it worthy of criticism that so many of them are just completely silent on the subject?

Like, I understand the concept that it’s more important to physically protest on behalf of Gaza because Western governments have trade and military relations with Israel that could be used to pressure Israel. But the same people who screamed at the top of their lungs about oppression and universal values for two years can’t even bring themselves to make a single Instagram post saying „we stand in solidarity with the people of Iran?“ The DSA chapters who’ve been screeching hysterically about the Palestinians can’t even manage the most performative slacktivist efforts on behalf of Iranians?

Unsurprising. It’s a political movement and psyop that’s has been thoroughly propagandized by the Iranian government.

This is so stupid. The west cut of Iran decades ago. Western governments continue to supply Isreal military equipment they use to murder innocent people. What do you expect them to protest?!

They will talk about it when the US intervenes in Iran and the Palestine supporters will protest by holding signs such as „Hands Off Iran“, „Trump is a war criminal“ & „Choose The Right Side of History“.