Last October, I was talking with friends about the situation. Week after week, it became clear to me: they didn’t care about defending Palestine, or standing with oppressed people, or fighting against colonialism. It was only about fighting Israel, at any cost. I had a conversation with a Palestinian friend about why, as an Iranian, I opposed people like Qassem Soleimani. His argument, while his family was being bombed by the Zionist army, was that Soleimani was fighting Israel. I didn’t have a problem with that fact.
My problem was: what kind of fight is this? And second, what are they doing at home? My answer was simple: “They’re fighting a monster, yes, but they’re monsters too.” After that, we stood side by side in protests, until a group of Greeks and other Westerners showed up. They claimed to support the weapon of resistance, Hamas and other Jihadist and their violence ruined everything. Our friendship didn’t survive that.
Here’s the thing: in the West, they don’t like to separate political movements from one another. They lump us all together, ignoring cultural and political differences to fit their fantasies. This Orientalist way of thinking wants to put everyone into a single box. And anyone who steps outside that box? You’re a traitor. You’re a sellout. They refuse to understand that political Islam has its own agenda and its own political goals. And some of us oppose that!
Political Islam didn’t rise up for Palestine. People like Qassem Soleimani and Yahya Sinwar are not fighting for freedom. They are fighting for Islamic rule, against anything they call “infidels.” Pay attention to the words of Senwar and Soleimani. They simply say that they are ready to die early and meet their God! Their goal was not life and peace! The truth is, for them, the Israel-Palestine conflict was just an excuse to unite their fantasy of the Islamic world. These people came up in a specific time, during a specific generation, and they turned political Islam into this organized mafia monster. And for almost half a century, this monster has been choking out any real fight for freedom, smothering every attempt at progress.
But no, this fight with Israel end when they stop occupation and gives Palestinians their rights. And we support that, but not with the agenda of Islamist! The fact that the warmongering propaganda of fascism in Israel, the pro-West monarchists, and the Mujahideen talk about their desire to target officials of the Islamic regime in Iran, and eagerly wait for the bombing of Iran, only points to the reality that their idea and perspectives are based on something that will never bring peace to our world!
As far as its up to us, In Iran, we go on with a different plan. We organize labor movements. We develop the feminist movement. We bring activists from different sides together and talk about secularism. We talk and work with anti-occupation activists, and we speak out against the far-right and the religious right-wing in Israel just as much as we fight political Islam. We stand with Jewish anti-Zionist movements. We speak against the right-wing across the Middle East. These are all the matters that political Islam and Zionism never allowed to grow in the name of war and security.
We have a duty to fight the monster of political Islam. And we will.
What you think?