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Monday, January 12, 2026

01/12 Links Pt1: 7 October was the biggest mistake Iran ever made; The courage of Iran’s women puts woke Westerners to shame; Trump: 25% tariff on all countries doing business with Iran

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: What the late great Bernard Lewis knew about Khomeini
The late Bernard Lewis—renowned multilingual Orientalist—didn’t agree that Carter or anybody else had an excuse for ignoring Khomeini’s true identity and agenda. In a 2010 interview that I conducted with Lewis while researching my book, To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama and the “Arab Spring,” the professor emeritus of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University described his rebuffed attempt to set the record straight.

“In 1978, there was this figure being discussed, Khomeini, whom I knew nothing about,” he recounted. “So, I did what one normally does in my profession: I went to the university library and looked him up. I discovered that he was the author of Islamic Government [a collection of speeches he delivered in Najaf, Iraq in 1970]. And I thought, ‘Well, this is interesting. It could give me some idea of what the man is about.’”

Lewis took the volume home and read it in one sitting. What it revealed was a philosophy of Islamic statehood, using the harshest possible rhetoric to denounce non-Muslims and calling for the spread of Sharia law across the world.

Deciding that something had to be done to expose the ayatollah and his intentions, Lewis contacted then-New York Times op-ed editor Charlotte Curtis and offered to pen a piece on what subsequently came to be known as “The Little Green Book.”

“No thanks,” she answered. “I don’t think our readers would be interested in the work of some Persian writer.”

Whether her response was due to ignorance of the significance of Khomeini’s waiting in the wings to take over Iran from the Shah, or to a lack of desire on the part of the Times to acknowledge that however authoritarian a ruler the shah might be, he was the epitome of benevolence compared to his proposed successor, wasn’t clear.

Nor did Curtis’s attitude surprise Lewis, whose view of the press was already—justifiably—dim. But it did cause him to recall an exchange he’d had in Pahlavi’s office not long before the revolution.

“Why do they keep attacking me?” the shah burst out, as soon as Lewis entered the room.

“Whom do you mean, Your Majesty?” Lewis asked.

“The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times of London and Le Monde—the four weird sisters dancing around the doom of the West,” Pahlavi said. “Don’t they understand that I am the best friend you have in this part of the world?”

“Your Majesty,” Lewis replied, “you must understand that the editorial policies of these papers are based on Marxist principles.”

“What do you mean?” Pahlavi shot back incredulously, since Communism wasn’t on his list of the West’s faults.

“I’m not referring to Karl, but to Groucho,” Lewis quipped.

When the Shah looked puzzled, Lewis asked him whether he was familiar with Groucho Marx.

“Yes, of course,” he responded, almost insulted by the suggestion that he, a buff of American movies, might not be up on Hollywood.

Lewis explained, “Remember when Groucho Marx said he wouldn’t want to become a member of a club that would have him? Well, our media’s posture—like our foreign policy—is to shun any government that wants our friendship, and to placate and pursue our enemies.”
Brendan O'Neill: 7 October was the biggest mistake Iran ever made
Then there’s the Iranian regime itself. It’s in serious peril, courtesy of the staggeringly brave men and women rising up against it. These warriors for liberty are the brilliant agents of the mullahs’ strife, proving to the world that even the most ruthless regimes can be taken to task by those they oppress. And yet it was the lethal folly of 7 October, the fascistic vanity of it, that paved the way for the regime’s crisis. The mullahs’ obsessive harrying of the Jewish State pushed the Iranian people’s patience to breaking point.

The wastefulness of the regime’s war on the Jews infuriated sections of the Iranian populace. As the rial kept falling in value against the US dollar, causing huge hardship, still the regime spunked billions on its anti-Semitic proxies. It’s estimated to have spent $20 billion on Hezbollah and Hamas since 2012. The cost to Iran – and more importantly to the Iranian people – of launching missile strikes on Israel is extraordinary. For example, the events of 1 October 2024, just one day, when the regime fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel, cost Iran an eye-watering $2.3 billion. That’s six times as much as it cost Israel to repel the missiles.

The 12 Day War between Iran and Israel in June last year inflicted huge costs on Iran. In retaliation for Iran’s strikes, Israel struck critical infrastructure across 27 of Iran’s provinces, including airports, oil and gas depots and, of course, nuclear infrastructure. The cost to Iran ran into the billions. Its firing back at Israel cost billions, too. The 12 Day War put ‘enormous strain [on] Iran’s already battered economy’, as one observer described it. And this was a nation where around 80 per cent of the population were ‘fail[ing] to meet the 2,100-calorie daily requirement’.

The mullahs’ cosmic animus for the Jewish State hit the Iranian people hard. The shopkeepers and students of Iran watched their cash lose its value as the theocrats sent billions to the rich racists who lead Hamas and Hezbollah. Little wonder one of the rallying cries on the streets is ‘Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, my life for Iran!’. In short, no more lavish, spiteful warmongering over there – focus instead on here.

After the 12 Day War, Western leftists said Israel’s strikes against Iran would cause the Iranian people to rally behind the mullahs. The opposite happened. Millions were sickened by the profligate hawkishness of the regime and now openly demand that it forget ‘Gaza and Lebanon’. What an extraordinary situation – the privileged keffiyeh classes of the West long for more strikes on the Jewish State, while Iranian rebels say: ‘Enough.’ Our own Islamo-left instinctively wants the Iranian regime to survive, in the catastrophically foolish belief that it is a counterweight to the West, capitalism and Israel. Iranian protesters want it to die, in the searing, true belief that it is a counterweight to their own freedom, and to reason itself

Some on the faux-left say the ‘Zionist lobby’ is behind the revolt in Iran. It is a testament to their own Orientalist bigotry that they would so cavalierly strip the rebels of agency and reduce them to dupes of the Jews. In truth, where 7 October might have pushed to the fore the question of Iran’s future, it is the Iranian people who will answer that question. And millions are saying: ‘No more Islamism, no more theocracy, no more war in Gaza and Lebanon.’ They want Iran to leave behind the Islamofascist experiment and once again take its place among the great civilisations. All good people do.
Melanie Phillips: Iranian protesters are showing courage in the face of tyranny — but Israel-obsessed liberals don’t seem to care
The reason is that the uprising is not just against the regime but against the repressive tyranny of Islam itself. This is intolerable to Western liberals, because it gets in the way of their fixed narrative that, when Islamists commit mass murder against the innocent, it’s justified resistance against Western-backed imperialism.

Such liberals simply cannot acknowledge the reality of Islamic terrorism and repression.

Their belief that the Israelis and Western imperialism are always the villains, and Muslims are always their victims, is essential to their self-image as morally virtuous people.

It may sound incredible, but Islam has become synonymous with conscience itself among Western progressives.

This is because the Palestinian cause has become their signature motif.

The Palestinians are viewed as the ultimate oppressed people, dispossessed of their rightful inheritance and victims of Israeli “genocide,” “apartheid” and war crimes in Gaza.

Every part of that is a lie. But among liberals, it’s an article of faith.

So they’ve failed to grasp how this cause has been leveraged by the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood bent upon the conquest of the West. This is particularly true of Qatar, which has patiently spread its influence throughout Western universities and even bought up various Western media personalities.

The Palestinian cause has embedded into the Western mind the inversion of truth and lies, victim and aggressor, justice and tyranny, which is a hallmark of the Islamic world and has found such fertile ground in the post-truth, post-moral Western intelligentsia.

So the keffiyeh-clad classes have been cementing Islamic control over Western streets and public space.

In Britain this is far advanced, with the Labour government under Keir Starmer refusing to outlaw genetically damaging Muslim cousin marriage and dragging its heels over dealing with the mainly Muslim rape and grooming gangs.


Seth Mandel: Hamas Supporters and the Murderous Iranian Regime Are On the Same Side
The rank hypocrisy on display from anti-Israel fanatics who are ignoring the plight of Iranian protesters has an easy explanation: It’s not really hypocrisy at all. Pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah agitators are objectively on the side of the mullahs and IRGC thugs who are murdering peaceful Iranian protesters at will.

Ian Bremmer spoke for many yesterday when he said that American “college activists would gain a little credibility if they were demonstrating against the brutal repression in [I]ran.”

Yet it would be, frankly, shocking if they did so. The brave men and women of Iran have been out in the streets making declarations such as: “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, I sacrifice my life for Iran.” This slogan, which is not new among Iranian anti-regime protesters, is a statement of opposition to the funding and support of Hezbollah and Hamas, which are the regime’s own proxies.

And what did the campus Gaza protests look like? Here are a couple of common sights: Hezbollah flags and shirts with Hamas officials’ faces on them.

The campus protesters are aligned with the murderous regime. Why would they advocate for the innocent Iranians who just want freedom? They are in the vanguard of the propaganda apparatus of the Islamic Republic’s goons—the very ones who have been painting the streets with the blood of innocent Iranians.

It’s like asking: Why aren’t the mullahs doing more to oppose the mullahs?

There is another dimension to the dishonesty and moral repugnance of Western academia’s Gaza industry. Iran is the preeminent colonialist, imperial power of the modern Middle East. So where are all the “decolonization” specialists?

The answer is: They don’t exist. Decolonization theory is an academic hallucination. There is no such animal. It’s a fake discipline.
The courage of Iran’s women puts woke Westerners to shame
For many Iranian women, these protests did not begin a fortnight ago. They ignited in September 2022 when Iran’s morality police attacked Mahsa Amini in the back of a police van for showing her hair in public. She fell into a coma and died in hospital three days later. The following year, in October 2023, teenager Armita Geravand was assaulted by morality police for not wearing a headscarf. After a month in a coma, Armita died. Their brutal treatment fuelled the Women, Life, Freedom movement and galvanised women protesting against compulsory dress codes in what were some of the longest-running anti-government protests since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Throughout this recent wave of protest, mass displays of solidarity from the West’s activist class have been notable only by their absence. Greta Thunberg, vocal in criticising Israel, seemingly has nothing to say about the killing of women in Iran. The same is true of Dawn French, Olivia Colman, Nicola Coughlan, Paloma Faith, Juliette Binoche… the list goes on and on. Celebrities queued up to sign petitions, pen open letters, make TikToks and join protests critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza. Students established protest camps on posh university lawns and hundreds of thousands of people marched through Britain’s city centres week after week, purportedly in solidarity with Palestinians. But when it comes to supporting Iranian women? Silence.

Actually, what’s happening in the West is more shameful than mere silence. At the very same time that women in Iran are defying the morality police, burning hijabs and demanding ‘freedom’, Europe’s cultural elite are busy promoting hijabi-chic in advertising campaigns and public-information posters. The garment rejected as oppressive in Iran is being normalised in Europe. Here, the hijab is promoted as striking a blow for ‘diversity’ and a challenge to ‘Islamophobia’.

The silence of the Western virtue-signallers reminds us that not all women are equal. Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 revealed that Jewish women do not count. Forget the #MeToo slogan, ‘Believe All Women’ – Jewish rape victims are to be forever doubted. Now we know that Iranian women do not count either. For Western activists, hatred for Israel and support for Islam are all-consuming.

Let’s leave the faux-feminists to their hypocrisy. Iranian women do not need Western saviours. To date, the iconic image to emerge from the Iranian protests is of a beautiful young woman, hair loose about her shoulders, lighting a cigarette from a burning image of the ayatollah. That is freedom. These women are braver and more principled than keffiyeh-clad Brits can ever imagine.
Footage shows bodies of hundreds of slain Iranian protesters piled up at forensic center - HRANA
The bodies of hundreds of slain Iranian protesters have been piled at the Kahrizak forensic medicine center south of Tehran, US-based Iranian rights group HRANA said on Monday, citing footage received by the organization.

HRANA estimated there were some 250 bodies at the facility, and published a video on X/Twitter that appears to show deceased people, in open body bags, lying in rows.

Additional footage of the Kahrizak forensic medicine center, shared online by CNN, appeared to show many more body bags lining the street outside the facility. Estimates suggest thousands killed during Iran protests

Estimates of the casualties from the protests in Iran suggest that they may have exceeded 2,000, but the true figure is unknown. As of Sunday, HRANA’s data has confirmed the deaths of 544.

According to the rights organization, more than 10,681 others have been imprisoned over the course of the protests.

Medical staff in the Islamic Republic have described hospitals as underequipped and without proper room to handle an enormous influx of wounded and dead as the anti-regime protests continue to rage across the country.

On Sunday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated that he was "shocked" by reports of the Iranian regime's violence and extreme use of force against protesters.

As the demonstrations intensify, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi on Monday said they have entered “a new phase.”

He called on Iranians to intensify their actions within the country, stating that institutions responsible for the Islamic Republic’s regime propaganda should be regarded as “legitimate targets.”
US says diplomacy with Iran the ‘first option’ as toll in protests rises to 648
The death toll in the anti-regime protests that have taken Iran by storm over the past two weeks hit 648, an activist group said Monday evening, as Tehran staged major pro-regime rallies and reportedly reached out to the US to de-escalate tensions amid President Donald Trump’s repeated threats of intervention if large numbers of protesters are killed.

The latest tally was reported Monday by Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR), which said the actual toll could be far higher.

“The international community has a duty to protect civilian protesters against mass killing by the Islamic Republic,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.

IHR said that “according to some estimates, more than 6,000 may have been killed,” but warned that the almost four-day internet blackout imposed by the Iranian authorities makes it “extremely difficult to independently verify these reports.”

According to Israeli defense officials speaking with Axios, Israel’s intelligence agencies estimate that the real death toll has likely passed 1,000.

More than 10,600 people have also been detained over the two weeks of protests, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll.
25% tariff on all countries doing business with Iran, Trump says
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday evening that effective immediately, any country that does business with the Iranian regime will be subject to a 25% tariff “on any and all business being done with the United States of America.”

“This order is final and conclusive,” Trump said.

Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina governor, wrote that it was a “strong move by President Trump.”

“I don’t think the tariff is the end of the U.S. response to Iran’s regime,” stated Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran. “It’s the beginning. The NSC meeting tomorrow is key.”


Call me Back Podcast: If Tehran Falls, What then? - with Karim Sadjadpour
As Iran enters another week of unrest, protests have continued to spread across the country, with demonstrations reported in multiple major cities. The regime has responded by sharply restricting internet and cellular access, making it difficult to assess the full scale of the crackdown as regional tensions rise and President Trump warns that the United States could intervene if protesters are killed.

To discuss what this moment could mean for Iran’s future, Dan was joined by Karim Sadjadpour, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a recurring guest on the podcast. Karim examines whether Iran may be nearing a tipping point, how the regime is attempting to suppress dissent, and what the fall of the Islamic Republic could look like, including the risks and challenges of political transition.


Erin Molan: Iran’s Moment Is HERE — Reza Pahlavi, Trump & the Final Dominoes
Nationwide protests are erupting across all 31 provinces as the Islamic Republic responds with lethal force, mass arrests, and internet shutdowns. Hundreds have reportedly been killed. Thousands more detained. This is the most serious challenge to the regime in generations.

On this episode of The Erin Molan Show, Erin is in Los Angeles as protests unfold on American streets — speaking with Gazelle Sharmahd, Iranian activist and daughter of Jamshid Sharmahd, reporting live from a rally calling on President Donald Trump and the free world to stand with the Iranian people.

Gazelle explains why a single message — the U.S. President speaking directly to Iranians — could change the course of history, accelerate the collapse of the regime, and save lives.

Then national security analyst Casey Babb joins Erin to break down what happens next:
• How close Iran really is to regime collapse
• Why revolutionary moments don’t last forever
• What realistic external pressure could look like
• And why silence in the West has consequences at home

CHAPTERS
00:00 Iran at a tipping point
02:45 Protests surge as regime cracks down
05:10 Gazelle Sharmahd reports from LA protest
08:30 What one Trump message could change
11:40 Is this Iran’s closest moment to freedom?
15:10 Reza Pahlavi and transitional leadership
19:30 Casey Babb: how close is regime collapse?
24:50 What external pressure could look like
31:10 Why silence in the West is dangerous
38:40 Erin’s “why” — the message from inside Iran




Stephen Pollard: Misan Harriman and the moral collapse of progressives over Iran and Israel
It is, you see, about Israel. Certainly, the very last word that could be applied to Hussain and his ilk is progressive. Hussain was elected on a sectarian ticket as a Muslim appealing to other Muslims, but in that he exemplifies the so-called Red-Green alliance of Islamism and left/progressivism, for which the Iranian regime is the lodestar – "Shiite socialism”, as the French newspaper Liberation once called it.

The glue which binds this alliance together is hatred of the West – which also means, of course, hatred of Israel. Everything bad that happens in the world – and yes, to these people the collapse of the Iranian regime is bad – is tied up with Israel.

Which brings us to Misan Harriman. Do have a look at his video. It is, in its way, perfect – as an exemplar of the warping of Western liberalism.

Harriman begins by telling us that he has had “so many messages from my friends from Iran”. Unfortunately, these messages are “really quite alarming”. Because – quelle horreur! – “many of the folks that are DMing me videos and talking points to post have incredibly pro-Zionist leanings from their own social media pages.” How dare they, these Iranian Zio-stooges. Don’t they realise how wrong they are? “The idea that a state that is committing what I've just said” – you really don’t need me to tell what he said about “that entity”, as he calls Israel, so very on progressive brand – “is your Liberator is something that I will never accept to be true or good for the people of Iran.”

Those stupid, foolish Iranians think they know better what is true or good for themselves than the chair of the South Bank Centre. The idiots. How dare they ignore him.

What also shows how wrong: the protests are is that the wrong people support them. One social media account with over 50,000 followers cites “a worrying list of people supporting the Iranian ‘revolution’” including Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, JK Rowling, Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage. “It’s not an area I know much about” - you don’t say! - “but this list gives me cause for suspicion”. As one respondent put it: “You are seriously saying that you have “cause for suspicion” of the bravest liberation struggle seen in decades because JK Rowling supports it?”

That is Western progressivism in a nutshell. Even the idea of freedom from a murderous theocratic tyranny is subservient to who is or is not politically acceptable in the West, and the idea that in the end it’s about the Jews (oops, the Zionists). I’d like to think that one day these people will wake up and realise that there is nothing progressive about supporting a theocratic tyranny. But they – and, I am afraid, the West more generally – are too far gone as they take advantage of Western freedom to spit on the astonishing courage of Iranians desperate for their own.


Khaled Abu Toameh: How to Ensure the Success of Gaza's 'Board of Peace': This Dog Won't Hunt
Trump's "Board of Peace" will reportedly include countries such as Turkey and Qatar. Both countries, like Hamas, are followers of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its motto is: "Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

"Qatar is at the top of funding terrorism worldwide, even more than Iran." — Udi Levy, former head of a Mossad unit dealing with economic warfare against terrorist organizations and countries that sponsor terrorism, Ynet, April 18, 2024.

Many Hamas leaders and activists, who safely sat out the war in the luxurious comfort of Turkey and Qatar, have no interest in seeing Hamas removed from power. Qatar and Turkey, in addition, are hardly likely to participate in any attempt to disarm Hamas or destroy its military and terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.

"Hamas uses Turkey to plan terrorist activities inside Israel, in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, and to raise and launder money in support of its terrorist operations, including the October 7, 2023 attack and massacre." — Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, February 3, 2025.

Documents seized by the Israel Defense Forces during the war revealed extensive cooperation between the Qatari government and Hamas. In one letter, Haniyeh informed another Hamas leader... that the emir of Qatar had agreed to covertly fund the group's armed "resistance" efforts against Israel. "So far, $11 million has been raised by the emir for the [Hamas] leadership."

With members such as Qatar and Turkey, it is difficult to see how Trump's "Board of Peace" will be able to achieve even an impersonation of peace, security, and stability in the Gaza Strip.

Egypt, apparently another member of the Board, recently tried to claim that Trump's plan does not call for Hamas disarmament, but only for collecting and handing over weapons as part of understandings among various Palestinian factions, including Hamas.

The Trump administration should have conditioned the establishment of the Board and reconstruction on Hamas first laying down its weapons and relinquishing control of Gaza.
IDF catches Nablus gunman who wounded soldier
Israeli security forces on Monday arrested a Palestinian terrorist from the Samaria city of Nablus (Shechem) who had opened fire at troops a day earlier, moderately wounding one soldier, the military stated.

Zaid Kharraz, a gunman who belongs to the Hamas terrorist group, was apprehended within 24 hours following a manhunt by IDF soldiers and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) officers, according to the statement.

“The swift locating and apprehension of the terrorist was made possible by intelligence guidance and by using several IDF and Shin Bet means in the area,” the army stated on Monday morning.

Security forces also apprehended additional suspects who helped the terrorist escape, the military said, adding that Kharraz’s accomplices were transferred for further questioning by the Shin Bet.

The terrorist had managed to injure one Israeli soldier who was carrying out a counter-terrorism raid. He was evacuated for medical treatment with moderate wounds and his family was updated, the IDF said on Sunday.
Israeli Air Force kills terrorist who crossed Gaza ceasefire line
The Israeli Air Force on Sunday “struck and eliminated” a Palestinian terrorist who crossed the ceasefire line in southern Gaza, threatening Israeli soldiers stationed there, the military said.

The Israel Defense Forces “identified a terrorist who crossed the Yellow Line and approached the troops, posing an immediate threat to them,” according to the IDF statement. “Following the identification, the IAF struck and eliminated the terrorist in order to remove the threat.​”

The Yellow Line is a demarcation established by the IDF as part of the first phase of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement with Hamas that went into effect in October. Concrete barriers topped with a yellow-painted post mark the area to which the IDF has withdrawn. The line leaves the IDF in control of some 53% of the territory.

On Saturday, the military eliminated three terrorists in three separate incidents in the southern and northern part of the Strip, it said in a statement over the weekend.

In the south, three terrorists were seen crossing the Yellow Line, it said, adding that one of them attempted to steal IDF equipment and escaped.

“Following the identification, the IAF eliminated the terrorist west of the Yellow Line in order to remove the threat,” according to the statement.

In two additional incidents in northern Gaza today, troops identified several terrorists “who crossed the Yellow Line and approached the troops, posing an immediate threat to them,” the army continued, adding that two suspects were eliminated to remove the threat.
Head of Gaza militia claims killing of senior Hamas cop
An anti-Hamas militia claimed responsibility on Monday for killing a senior Hamas police officer in southern Gaza.

Hussam al-Astal, the leader of an anti-Hamas group based in an area under Israeli control east of Khan Younis, claimed responsibility for the killing of Lt. Col. Mahmoud al-Astal in a video he posted on his Facebook page. The last name he shares with the dead man, al-Astal, is common in that part of Gaza.

“We announce today the assassination of the head of investigations in Khan Younis,” the head of the group said in a video message posted to his Facebook page. He threatened to keep targeting Hamas officials and pointed to guns and ammunition that he said are spoils of his militia’s battles.

Pointing to a faint red stain on a semi-automatic rifle, he says, “This is blood of the Hamas dogs and pigs.”

“To those who work with Hamas, your destiny is to be killed. Death is coming to you,” he adds, dressed in a black military-style uniform and clutching an assault rifle.

The video claim came just a few hours after Hamas’s interior ministry announced that the police officer in question had been killed in a drive-by shooting in Mawasi, near Khan Younis, with shots fired from a car occupied by “agents of the Israeli occupation.”

Hamas said that Mahmoud al-Astal, 40, was the Khan Younis police investigations chief. The interior ministry claimed, without providing evidence, that an initial investigation indicated that his killers, who had not been caught, worked for Israel.

“The security apparatus has launched an investigation into the incident and is working to apprehend the perpetrators,” the ministry said.


California Jewish caucus co-chair seeking Pelosi’s seat says ‘genocide’ in Gaza
At 7 a.m. on Sunday, the Atlantic quoted Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator who is running for the seat long held by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), calling questions about whether Israel is guilty of “genocide” in Gaza “purity tests to medieval tropes that defined ‘good Jews’ as those who quietly obeyed the authorities and ‘bad Jews’ as those who were too open about their identity.”

“He has also argued that Israel has a right to defend itself, and a right to exist as a Jewish state, and he does not characterize the bombing of Gaza as a genocide—a description that the San Francisco left insists upon,” Helen Lewis wrote in the magazine.

Some nine-and-a-half hours later, Wiener, who co-chairs the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, stated that “I do believe Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.”

He noted that he has accused Israel of “total destruction,” “catastrophic levels of death” and a “moral stain,” but “I haven’t used the word ‘genocide.’”

“As a Jew, I am deeply aware that the word genocide was created in the wake of the Holocaust, which was the industrial extermination of six million Jews,” he said. “For many Jews, associating the word ‘genocide’ with the Jewish state of Israel is deeply painful and frankly traumatic.”

But “despite that pain and that trauma, we all have eyes, and we see the absolute devastation and catastrophic death toll in Gaza inflicted by the Israeli government, and we all have ears, and we hear the genocidal statements by certain senior members of the Israeli government,” he said. “To me, the Israeli government has tried to destroy Gaza and to push Palestinians out, and that qualifies as ‘genocide.’”

Marco Sermoneta, the Israeli consul general to the Pacific Northwest, stated that he is “disappointed” and “saddened” that Wiener “disgracefully chose to abandon facts and amplify Hamas propaganda to score political points.”

“By doing so, he perpetuates a vile blood libel against Israel, whose citizens were the target of Hamas’s stated genocidal intentions, and emboldens the extremists who endanger Jews in California,” he wrote.


DNC Chair Ken Martin Likens United States to Iran as Islamic Republic Slaughters Hundreds of Protesters
DNC chair Ken Martin on Sunday compared the United States to Iran and accused the Trump administration of "authoritarian behavior," as the Islamic Republic marked one of the bloodiest crackdowns on protesters in the nation's history, slaughtering hundreds.

"From Tehran to my birthplace of Minneapolis, people are rising up against systems that wield violence without accountability," Martin, the former chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, wrote on X. Protests erupted in Minneapolis after increased ICE presence in the city in recent weeks.

"In Iran, brave protestors confront a far-right theocratic regime that crushes dissent and denies basic freedoms. Here at home, tens of thousands are marching after the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good—demanding justice, transparency, and an end to an unchecked federal force that takes lives and tears families apart," Martin said.

Martin’s comments came as Iran escalated its brutal crackdown on protests against the regime over the weekend, slaughtering hundreds of civilian demonstrators and blocking internet access. Reports suggest that the Islamic Republic slaughtered more than 500 protesters over the weekend, with hospitals overwhelmed by the number of people killed and injured. Experts have accused the regime of piling bodies into pickup trucks and dumping them in front of the deceased’s loved ones’ homes to intimidate protesters.

"They are brutally killing people, the numbers are extremely high. But the thing that’s coming as a surprise to many is that Iranians are not relenting," Khosro Isfahani, a senior research analyst with the National Union for Democracy in Iran, said. "They are not giving up, they are staying on the streets. The numbers are growing on the streets and people are fighting back."

Martin sparked controversy in October when he said he opposed political violence but then accused the Trump administration of being a "fascist regime."




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