Iran Protests at a ‘Tipping Point,’ Activists Say

Activists across the Iranian and Jewish communities are expressing support in the ongoing protests in Iran, calling them a “tipping point” for the country.

The protests were sparked on September 16 after 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini died while in police custody. She was arrested by Iran’s morality police for improperly wearing a hijab as she was exiting a Tehran subway. The Iranian regime claimed Amini died of a heart attack, but her family has countered that she did not have any preexisting heart conditions prior to the arrest. Iranian-American human rights attorney Gissou Nia told Slate that a photo had emerged of Amini “in a hospital bed looking beat up, with gauze around her neck, hooked on an air device to help her breathe,” adding “it was absolutely shocking to see this young, beautiful woman in the hospital bed like that, and the photo went viral.” And thus the protests started, and the Iranian regime has responded by cracking down on the protests; at least 83 have died and more than 1,500 have been arrested, including journalists and celebrities.

“What we’re seeing unfolding right now in Iran is a full-blown revolution throughout the country being led by the younger generation of Iranians that are fed up with the regime’s repression of their rights, suffocating their voices and terrorizing them on a daily basis.”
– Karmel Melamed 

“What we’re seeing unfolding right now in Iran is a full-blown revolution throughout the country being led by the younger generation of Iranians that are fed up with the regime’s repression of their rights, suffocating their voices and terrorizing them on a daily basis,” Iranian—American journalist Karmel Melamed told the Journal. “They’re frustrated that the Biden administration and European powers continue to negotiate with this regime in a potential deal that would enrich the regime and allow it to continue its reign of terror over them. They’re not very well organized right now, but they’re telling us in very clear language they want regime change in Iran and America’s support in their quest for real freedom and a representative democracy instead of the Ayatollah regime that rules them right now with an iron fist.” 

Ellie Cohanim, the Iranian-born former Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, told the Journal that the protesters have been chanting “Death to the Dictator” in more than 80 cities in Iran. “Iranians are calling for an end to the Islamic Republic regime,” Cohanim said.

“This is the most brazen we’ve seen in the Iran protesters in 43 years,” Iranian-American journalist Lisa Daftari told the Journal in a phone interview, adding this is different from prior protests because “people have truly had enough.” “There’s always some sort of tipping point in society where people think, ‘I truly have nothing to lose at this point, I am willing to give up my life. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing from these young protesters.”

“Iranian women have a long history of protesting and defying authority in Iran,” American Jewish Committee Director of Training and Education Saba Soomekh said in a statement to the Journal. “In the 19th century, women participated in street protests, and in Iran’s first democratic uprising in 1905, many towns and cities formed local women’s rights committees.  In 1979, when [former Iranian Supreme Leader Ruhollah] Khomeini announced that all women must wear the hijab, tens of thousands of unveiled women marched in protest on International Women’s Day. The wave of protests that we are seeing in the Islamic Republic today is not only about women’s rights, but human rights. We are seeing men joining women. We are witnessing protests coming from people from all economic and religious backgrounds, from some of the most conservative cities in Iran such as Qom and Mashhad. The Iranian people deserve to have human rights and live free from a regime that has politicized religion in order to justify their misogyny and human rights violations.”

Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action Agenda at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Rabbi Abraham Cooper told the Journal that the protests are “intensely personal” for the Persian Jewish community in Los Angeles. “This was their homeland,” Cooper said. “I think there’s also a sense of pride that the next generation has stepped up.” 

“Obviously it’s very emotional for Iranian expatriates to be so far from the country that they love at a moment where so much is going on,” Daftari said. “I think this is a moment where a lot of Iranians and non-Iranians can really unite regardless of religion or political persuasion. I think this is truly just a fight for freedom.”

Daftari added that “the Achilles heel of the Iranian regime” is the Iranian people, and the regime’s “biggest fear is that the people of Iran will rise up and that’s because that’s how they come to power… they know it will take a people’s revolution to take them out of power, and that’s why they’re cracking down so brutally on the protesters.”

Melamed estimated that “Iran’s population right now is about 80 million people and nearly 70 percent of Iranians are under the age of 40, so I highly doubt the current Ayatollah regime can continue to strangle hold such a huge segment of the country who have access to social media and see the rest of world and the Middle East progressing and enjoying freedom while they suffer financially and without basic freedoms and human rights.”

But the community believes that the world has to take action now. In an Instagram post, Iranian-Jewish-American organization 30 Years After wrote that they echo the protesters’ demands for “justice and accountability” for Amini and all the protesters the regime has cracked down on, removing Iran from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women and for the people of Iran to live under “democracy and freedom.”

Dr. Sharon S. Nazarian, Senior Vice President of International Affairs at the Anti-Defamation League and founder of UCLA’s Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, told the Journal, “This is a moment in time for the world to recognize that the Islamic Republic of Iran poses a dire threat to its own people, be it its courageous women citizens as we are all witnessing on the streets of dozens of Iranian cities, be it to its religious, ethnic and sexual minorities, as we have witnessed the regime’s systematic attack on Bahai, and LGTBQ minorities, and its assault on the totality of Iranian people through repressive and corrupt policies … The world must recognize that this regime is also the number one state sponsor of antisemitic rhetoric, Holocaust denial and acts of terrorism aimed at Jewish communities and Israeli citizens around the world. It is high time for the US administration and our Congressional leaders, the European Union and member countries, and all freedom loving people to stand with the people of Iran and to delegitimize the Islamic Republic by cutting off all political and economic engagement with the regime until it stops this murderous assault on its own people. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a threat to its people and to the international community.”

In a statement to the Journal, Siamak Kordestani, board member of Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (JIMENA) and West Coast Director of ELNET, the European Leadership Network, said “The international community must stand with the women of Iran, who have been brutally repressed for over four decades … It has been heartwarming for me, as an Iranian Jew, to see so many Jews and Israelis around the world express solidarity with Iran’s people.”

Solidarity is fine, Daftari said, but the protesters need “material support” in addition to verbal support to take down the Iranian regime

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took to Twitter on October 3 to claim, without evidence, “that the recent riots & unrest in Iran were schemes designed by the US; the usurping, fake Zionist regime; their mercenaries; & some treasonous Iranians abroad who helped them.” The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg tweeted in response that Khamenei’s tweet was laced with “antisemitism and misogyny.” “His assumption is that the women of Iran have no agency and couldn’t possibly be behind their own protests, so they must be the pawns of others, like the Jews,” Rosenberg wrote, adding that “if Twitter were serious about free expression, it would ban all world leaders who restrict Twitter for their own citizens while allowing themselves unencumbered access. This would punish a lot of bad actors and incentivize greater freedom around the world.”.

Many expressed opposition to the Biden administration’s efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal amidst the protests.

“It is unfathomable for the Biden administration at this same moment that the regime is crumbling to send them a significant lifeline, which is what the Iran deal is,” Cohanim said. “We saw statements this week from [National Security Adviser] Jake Sullivan making the same tired argument… that the Iran deal will stop the regime from developing nuclear weapons. The reality is that Biden’s Iran deal gives the regime billions in immediate sanctions relief for the promise of future compliance. Biden’s Iran deal is a lifeline to the Islamic Republic regime — Iranians don’t want this regime resuscitated, Americans don’t want this regime resuscitated and certainly our allies in the region don’t want to see that outcome either.”

Daftari echoed Cohanim’s claim. “Ever since the Biden administration came into office, the centrifuges have been spinning in Iran. They’ve been enriching uranium at over 60%, they have shut off more than 27 IAEA surveillance cameras, they have turned away nuclear inspectors, the human rights abuses have been egregious, they voted in The Butcher of Tehran as their president and they continue making threats against America and Americans. They actually threatened to assassinate American political leaders and we allow them to get visas and come to the UN and spew more hatred and more garbage at the podium. So this has to stop.” She added that the Iran deal would give them “a lifeline and money” to put toward terror groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and the Houthis in Yemen.

“The murderous Iranian Islamic regime’s horrific abuses of its own citizens’ human rights demonstrates once again that the U.S. must not enter into an Iran deal that provides hundreds of billions of dollars which ends up funding other terrorist ground and legitimizes Iran’s rapid march towards full nuclear capability,” Zionist Organization of America National President Morton A. Klein said in a statement to the Journal. “It’s time for the U.S. to end the sham that negotiations will work, and to assure a credible military option against Iran’s rapid March toward nukes and long-range nuclear missiles which will be used against Israel and the West.”

Iranian Americans for Liberty Executive Director Bryan E. Leib told the Journal  “the time is now for the Biden Administration to stop tweeting about their support for the Iranian people and to take tangible actions to show the Iranian people they support them and not the Khamenei regime … The easiest way to do this is for the Biden Administration to publicly call for an end to their efforts to revive the Obama nuclear deal and to pivot back to maximum sanctions [and] maximum isolation [against the Iranian regime].”

Cooper told the Journal that even Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has condemned the Iranian regime’s crackdown of the protests and that now it’s up to Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to take action. In Cooper’s view, that includes reimposing sanctions against Iran and walking away from the Iran deal negotiations. “I think I saw a news item that Iran was able to sell China $38 billion in oil,” Cooper said. “That’s from one client. If the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany wanted to make a difference, they can do so. Let the regime really feel the pain.”

But he warned that if the protests go the way of the 2009 Green Revolution with then-President Barack Obama “sitting on his hands,” then “it’s not going to end well.” “There will be not hundreds but thousands of casualties. There’ll be tens of thousands of people incarcerated or worse,” Cooper said. “This is a tipping point … it is a very dramatic moment in history. I hope that our nation and the world leads are up to it, because right now the only thing between the ayatollah and the graveyard of history is the failure and refusal of Western democracies to stand up with the people of Iran against this brutal murderous regime.” 

Author Elham Yaghoubian, a human rights activist and Iran expert, told the Israel-based Hebrew newspaper Ma’ariv that “in all previous movements in Iran, the regime tried so hard to divide people by any possible means. This time though, its vicious strategy of “divide and conquer policy” seems to be a complete failure. People in Iran showed – despite their different ethnoreligious backgrounds – that they are together to change this regime. Maybe this is the first time in Iran that all different pro-democracy parties both in Iran and outside are together for one goal. We are hoping that the current U.S administration considers what the Iranian nation wants before going back to the negotiation table with regime leaders.”