And just like that, the left loses interest in the Middle East. In 2025, they spoke of little else. They culturally appropriated Arab headwear, poncing about in China-made keffiyehs. They wrapped themselves in the Palestine colours. They frothed day and night about a ‘murderous regime’ – you know who. And yet now, as a Middle Eastern people revolt against their genuinely repressive rulers, they’ve gone schtum.

It is especially electrifying to see Iran’s young women once again raise a collective middle finger to their Islamist oppressors

What is it about revolts in Iran that rankle the activist class? These people love to yap about ‘resistance’ and ‘oppression’. Yet the minute men and women in Iran rise up in resistance against the oppressive theocracy that immiserates and subjugates them, they go coy. Their solidarity evaporates. Their flag-waving ends. They go back to tweeting about TV.

It’s happening again as the latest Iranian uprising enters its seventh day. In cities across Iran, people are protesting the economic mismanagement and clerical tyranny of the Islamist ruling class. It started a week ago, in Tehran, when shopkeepers shuttered their businesses and hit the streets to express their anger about yet........

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