A Tale of Two Heroes |
Every so often when confronted with evil, we return to the words of German pastor Martin Niemöller: “First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.” In those lines, “they” meant the Nazis. The penultimate stanza speaks of them coming for the Jews. As we know, they came for all of the Jews. The final line delivers the terrible truth: when they finally came for him, there was no one left to speak.
The story of the victims of the Islamic regime in Iran, however, unfolds somewhat differently. From the regime’s very inception, among many, two primary categories of its targets stand out for the consistency and ruthlessness of their persecution. The first are Iranian women, that is, half of the country they ruled over. The second are the Jewish State and Jews worldwide.
Let us begin speaking about the latter. For decades, many have vainly insisted on a purported distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Recent events have completely shattered that fallacy. Since the military campaign against Tehran’s networks of terror and influence began a few weeks ago, Jews around the world have been targeted regardless of nationality or civilian status. Jewish communities far from Israel have been attacked simply for being Jewish. No honest observer ever needed convincing that hostility toward Zionism inevitably reveals itself as hostility toward Jews, but its denial is no longer defensible.
Yet unlike the silence lamented by Niemöller, Jews have always spoken for the people of Iran as they endured repression, brutality, and cruelty under an Islamic regime and an ideology that many Persians regard as alien and hostile to their own culture and identity. Though the story of Purim accurately depicts a dark chapter in Persian history, Jews and Persians have enjoyed a multimillennial friendship and partnership, from the time of the Cyrus the Great till the fall of the Shah. It is a celebrated fact that Cyrus remains an exceptional figure in the Hebrew Bible, being the only non-Jewish person referred to as a messiah, in the Book of Isaiah.
Speaking of the other group of the Islamic theocracy’s victims, the women’s struggle saw its ultimate expression after the killing of Mahsa Amini in 2022. Her gut-wrenching death at the hands of the regime’s morality police ignited protests that became a national uprising for dignity and freedom. The irony is stark. The regime established its power by targeting women, stripping them of any sense of worth and dignity. Yet it was the Iranian women who became the moral voice of the nation, confronting terror and brutality with heroic valor, extraordinary defiance, and unmatched bravery. The most recent uprising is merely an extension, and a new chapter of the Mahsa revolution.
Outside the region, however, the reaction has been far darker. Western feminism, captured by exotic theories and poisoned by a strain of cultural insularity, has largely turned away. The Persian uprising is a feminist revolt in the truest and most literal sense. Yet it is ignored, dismissed, and at times openly despised by those who claim to champion women’s liberation.
Moreover, Western societies take pride in their obsession with combating and defeating hatred. That aspiration is, indeed, a noble one. Yet a society that tolerates hatred directed at Jewish self-determination while preaching equality and justice reveals something profoundly diseased within itself. A society that selectively opposes hate is not egalitarian. It merely pretends to be.
Since the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948, Israel has endured war, isolation, and constant threats of annihilation. Yet it persists. It thrives. It gives the world cutting-edge science that heals people, knowledge that builds and repairs the world around us, and extraordinary art that nourishes the soul. Even so, whether defending itself, responding to attack, or striking pre-emptively against enemies who openly promise its destruction, the result is always the same: an eruption of hatred, violence, and conspiracy theories directed not only at Israel but at Jews everywhere.
Despite that fundamental injustice, Israel remains what it has always been: a beacon of hope and light. For the world, and for the Persia that shall one day rise again in peace and pride.
This is why the central truth cannot be avoided. Anti-Zionism denies the Jewish people a national liberation movement that the world accepts for countless other nations. It singles out one people, and one people alone, as uniquely undeserving of sovereignty. That is not a political disagreement. It is antisemitism in its purest form.
No one can safely predict how the present conflict with Iran will end. History is shaped by factors beyond anyone’s total control. But hope remains necessary. The nobility of an act is not measured by its outcome, but by its morality. And by that measure, Iranian women and Israel will stand among the heroes of the history books yet to be written.