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As millions of people took to the streets to denounce Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, demanding justice and peace, support for Israel emerged from a surprising quarter: Iranian monarchists.
They are supporters of Reza Pahlavi, son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s last shah who was toppled by the Islamic Revolution of 1979. At pro-Israel rallies, they have waved the old Iranian flag and chanted praise of Israel and its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Their confrontations with pro-Palestinian protesters, whom they accuse of being government proxies, reveal their stark divergence from the mainstream Iranian opinion, which has historically supported the Palestinian cause.
Yet, the current Gaza war evokes complex reactions in Iran, as many Iranians avoid being associated with the government’s unpopular foreign and domestic policies that have caused widespread discontent. Regardless, many Iranian civil society activists and dissidents try to balance criticism of their government with solidarity with Palestinians. The monarchists’ alignment with Israel, therefore, raises questions about their motives and how big a portion of the opposition they represent.
Fractured opposition
The Iranian opposition movement comprises various factions, including republicans and monarchists. However, their ideological differences have hindered their unity and led to bitter conflicts and splits among them.
In December, many Iranians celebrated the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Narges Mohammadi, a outstanding ladies’s rights activist and political prisoner in Iran. Her twins, Kiana and Ali, and their father Taghi Rahmani, acquired the prize on her behalf and met with the king and queen of Sweden, who praised her braveness and work.
However a web-based marketing campaign towards Mohammadi and her household started from a number of accounts ostensibly belonging to Iranian monarchists.
They solid doubt on Mohammadi’s legitimacy and credibility whereas insisting that Pahlavi is the one true chief of all Iranians. Their feedback included, “Narges Mohammadi isn’t the consultant of Iranians,” and “Our actual consultant is King Reza Pahlavi.”
They flooded the social media pages of the Swedish royal household and the Nobel Peace Committee with such vitriol that feedback needed to be disabled.
This on-line marketing campaign towards Mohammadi reached new heights in December, when Yasmine Pahlavi, Reza Pahlavi’s spouse, questioned the credibility of Narges Mohammadi on Instagram, questioning how Mohammadi might give an interview with Angelina Jolie from jail, implying that she was not an actual political prisoner, however a puppet of the Islamic republican authorities.
This got here as Mohammadi was getting ready to obtain the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10.
Narges mohammadi is a charlatan, and he or she isn’t our voice
Cease selling this charlatan
Our actual consultant is king reza Pahlavi@PahlaviReza— mromid2222 (@Mrom2222) December 10, 2023
Mohammadi’s husband responded in a collection of tweets outlining the perilous course of by which political prisoners in Iran talk with the surface world – a course of that, satirically, the monarchist motion additionally employs in Iran.
The basis of this hostility lies within the deep political and ideological rifts between the Iranian monarchists and the Iran-based pro-democracy activists like Mohammadi. The monarchists, who regard Reza Pahlavi because the crown prince and the opposition chief, need the Iranian opposition motion to unite below his management. In addition they assist a hardline US method in the direction of Iran, together with elevated intervention and harsh sanctions.
Mohammadi, nonetheless, has a distinct background and imaginative and prescient. She was a part of Iran’s reformist motion, and supported reasonable and reformist candidates like Hassan Rouhani and Mir Hossein Mousavi in previous elections, together with a lot of the Iranian civil society and pro-democracy motion.
She additionally rejected sweeping sanctions that damage Iran’s economic system, telling the Washington Submit in April 2022 that they “weakened Iranians economically greater than they weakened the Iranian regime” and “strengthened the Iranian regime and hardline people and teams within the nation, together with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. This didn’t profit democracy in Iran.”
These divergent views on the character and the way forward for the Iranian opposition have created a chasm between the monarchists and lots of different opposition forces, which has been exacerbated by the net assaults towards Mohammadi.
In opposition to this backdrop, Yasmine Pahlavi’s assault on Narges Mohammadi was one in every of many examples of her hostility in the direction of folks with totally different political beliefs.
She has a historical past of constructing inflammatory statements on social media and expressing a staunch pro-Israel place. She additionally publicly demonstrated her assist for Israel in the course of the Gaza warfare, attending a pro-Israel rally in Washington, DC in November and waving an Israeli flag.
Certainly, because the outbreak of the Gaza warfare, the Iranian monarchist motion has proven sturdy assist for Israel on-line and at pro-Israel rallies in Europe and the USA. Their often-aggressive ways have involved many pro-Palestinian activists, with pro-Pahlavi lobbying teams in Washington, DC, such because the Nationwide Union for Democracy in Iran (NUFDI), searching for to intimidate pro-Palestinians activists who’ve been vital of Iranian-American supporters of Israel, labelling them “supporters of Palestinian terrorist teams”.
Doubtful alliances
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who dominated till 1979, had a cordial however complicated relationship with Israel, attempting to steadiness it with ties to the Arab world. He cooperated with Israel on vitality, safety, and regional stability, whereas additionally at instances voicing assist for the Palestinian trigger and Islamic and non-aligned actions — although he by no means absolutely embraced them and was decisively within the US camp within the Chilly Conflict.
He tried to maximise Iran’s strategic choices and leverage within the area whereas working to place it because the main Gulf state.
NUFDI Assertion on Harassment Marketing campaign In opposition to Iranian-American Ladies pic.twitter.com/lEDtsv8275
— Nationwide Union for Democracy in Iran (@NUFDIran) November 28, 2023
His son, Reza Pahlavi, and his supporters, nonetheless, have been increasingly overly supportive of Israel over time, seeing it as a vital accomplice to their trigger and ignoring the home and regional implications of their stance.
Their pro-Israel stance turned rather more pronounced and vocal after Reza Pahlavi and his spouse visited Israel in April 2023, the place they have been warmly acquired and hosted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel.
Throughout their go to, the couple toured the nation with Gamliel and the self-proclaimed Iranian crown prince prayed on the Western Wall, avoiding the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
His spouse additionally tried to applicable the slogan of a well-liked protest motion in Iran that broke out after the dying of Mahsa Amini, a younger Kurdish-Iranian girl who died in custody after being arrested for allegedly violating the necessary hijab legislation.
Yasmine Pahlavi posted a photograph of a feminine Israeli soldier in East Jerusalem, which is below Israeli occupation, with the phrases “Ladies, Life, Freedom!” – angering supporters of the Amini protests who didn’t need their trigger conflated with Israel’s occupation or therapy of Palestinians.
Pahlavi additionally introduced on the go to Amir Etemadi, his official adviser, and Saeed Ghasseminejad, a staffer on the pro-Israel, right-wing Basis for Protection of Democracies (FDD) suppose tank in Washington, DC.
اگر با “مرگ بر روسیه” که هم در جنبش سبز و هم بعد از خزرفروشی، در اعتراضات سر داده شد، مشکل ندارید اما با “مرگ بر فلسطین” مشکل دارید، دلیلش این است که هنوز حداقل به یکی از دو ویروس چپزدگی/اسلامگرایی مبتلایید. هر دو شعار، نشانهی بلوغ مردمیست که ریشه مشکلاتشان را فهمیدهاند.
— Amir Etemadi | امیرحسین اعتمادی (@amiretemadi) January 31, 2020
Translation: When you don’t have an issue with ‘Dying to Russia’, which was chanted within the protests each within the Inexperienced Motion and after the Khazar sale, however you might have an issue with ‘Dying to Palestine’, the reason being that it’s nonetheless contaminated with not less than one of many two viruses of leftism/Islamism. Each slogans are an indication of the maturity of people that have understood the basis of their issues.
Each are controversial males, identified for anti-Palestine views and hawkish stances on Iran’s political institution, calling for sanctions and army assaults. They’ve even tweeted “Dying to Palestine”.
In Israel, Pahlavi additionally met Mark Dubowitz, head of the FDD, and has since been boosted by pro-Israel media and teams within the US.
Disconnect
Iranian monarchists seem to have little in frequent with the aspirations of the Iranian folks, siding with hawkish and interventionist components in Israel and the US who search to overthrow the Iranian authorities, whatever the human and regional penalties.
This has remoted them inside the Iranian opposition. Many activists inside and outdoors Iran, who’ve risked a lot for his or her trigger and constructed grassroots actions, have rejected the monarchists.
For instance, in November, 9 outstanding Iranian political prisoners launched a letter from behind bars denouncing Israel’s “bloodbath of the folks in Gaza” and calling for solidarity with Palestinians.
Amongst them have been ladies’s rights activist Anisha Asadollahi; author and human rights defender Golrokh Iraee; labour activist Reza Shahabi; and journalist Arash Johari.
They criticised those that, below the banner of the “Girl, Life, Freedom” motion, sought “solely the backing of Israel and the West and, on this warfare, solely serve them”.
“These persons are primarily searching for their share after the destruction of society’s infrastructure attributable to Western army assaults, as if they’ve discovered nothing from the previous twenty years in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“Ladies, life, freedom means ‘supporting human dignity, and opposing discrimination and apartheid in any kind, and counting on this slogan to confront non secular fundamentalism in any kind, whether or not Hamas or Israel,’” the letter continued.
Different Iranian activists have echoed this, akin to Reza Khandan, husband of main dissident lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh. He warned in a CNN interview final Might that Reza Pahlavi and his supporters pose a hazard to the Iranian protest motion, saying they’re “opportunistic” and “disconnected from the Iranian folks”.
Because the Gaza warfare raged on, Mohammadi joined international requires a ceasefire. Her husband, additionally a veteran human rights defender, co-signed a letter denouncing makes an attempt to make use of the disaster as a pretext for warfare towards Iran together with greater than 60 Iranian pro-democracy activists.
The signatories included: Ali Afshari, a former pupil chief and political activist who was arrested for his involvement in protests; Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a former reformist member of parliament who resigned in protest towards authorities crackdowns, and Mehrangiz Kar, a outstanding lawyer, author, and human rights activists who has defended Iranian ladies’s rights activists.
It warned that warfare would devastate Iran and hurt its folks’s wrestle for democracy. It explicitly criticised those that used the phrase “slicing off the snake’s head” to justify bombing Iran, as NUFDI, the Washington, DC-based pro-Pahlavi foyer group has carried out.
My enemy’s enemy isn’t my pal
The monarchists’ seeming unwillingness to compromise with others in Iran’s various and sophisticated society and the totally different opinions and views amongst its folks, inside and outdoors the nation, has not helped its enchantment.
Reza Pahlavi’s motion has confronted widespread rejection, even by protesters in Iran who chanted in the course of the Mahsa Amini protests: “Dying to the oppressor, be it shah or chief (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei).”
Different authorities critics and activists imagine the Iranian monarchists’ assist from Israel and its right-wing allies within the US – evident of their shut ties with pro-Israel lobbies in Washington and their reliance on media assist from Israeli-government-aligned retailers and influencers – isn’t a profit, however baggage. It has uncovered their lack of legitimacy and credibility, and their disregard for the Iranian folks’s democratic aspirations.
As Sadegh Zibakalam, a former Tehran College professor who has been jailed and expelled from academia for criticising the federal government, noticed in regards to the monarchist assaults on Mohammadi in a December 25 Instagram publish: “The monarchists’ theories towards her and their resentment and spite in the direction of her stem from Narges’s ‘mental independence’.
“It’s extra tragic that those that are powerless right now can’t bear to see others and settle for rivals. How can they declare to be the champions of ‘rule of legislation,’ ‘freedom,’ and ‘democracy’ in the event that they seize energy tomorrow?”