After the cruel injustices that we have seen perpetrated upon the people of Iran by their dictatorial government, with over 30,000 murdered over just the last few months, the anti-Israel crowd has remained silent and chosen to ignore the events unfolding in the region, inherently siding with the oppressors.

Anti-Israel students at the University of Michigan were silent about the women and girls who have been sexually assaulted by Iranian regime thugs. 

Just like they’ve never uttered a word about all of the Israeli women and girls who were raped and genitally mutilated by Hamas on October 7, 2023, in an invasion tied to Iran.

No, all they want to talk about and fight for is divesting from Israel, which is why the Central Student Government has once again voted on divestment from Israel, for the third time this year. Where is the outcry for the thousands of peaceful Iranian protestors who have been murdered for simply wanting freedom? While Iranians celebrate the efforts underway to destroy the regime and help free the country from an oppressive dictatorship, why are students at the University of Michigan targeting Israel and remaining silent on Iran?

Well, hasn’t it really required a bit of amnesia all along to forget why Israel is fighting to defend itself in the first place, and why the United States has joined? 

Three years ago, Israel was not formally at war with Hamas, even though Hamas’s founding charter pledges to destroy Israel and replace it with a state under Sharia law. Hamas suicide bombers had killed hundreds of Israelis during the intifada terror war. And then, Hamas breached the status quo on October 7, 2023, killing more Jews in a single day than any event since the Holocaust. Now, the United States has dismantled Iran’s nuclear weapons program before a treacherous terror-funding regime could obtain the most destructive weapons ever created, which is an act that we should all be in favor of, as they would have used these weapons against all of us.

When the anti-Israel and anti-America crowds support the Iranian regime that inspired Margaret Atwood’s misogynist dystopia, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” I guess it’s just true to form. They’ve been supporting Iran’s proxy, Hamas, by amplifying its disinformation and echoing its calls for economic warfare against the only democracy in the Middle East. Anti-Zionism turns into antisemitism when you only criticize the actions of the one state that is directly fighting for your safety, risking its own citizens for your future. 

While the Iranian regime rains down missiles upon its Arab neighbors across the Persian Gulf, we have seen a surge in hate crimes targeting Jews, like the men who were beaten and hospitalized in San Jose last week for speaking Hebrew by attackers shouting, “Don’t mess with Iran.” Last month’s terror attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, further demonstrates the proliferation of this hatred targeting pro-Israel Americans and Jews. Seeing people try to justify an attack on a place of worship and school filled with students, because the temple supports a free and safe homeland for the Jewish people, and empathize with the terrorist because members of his family who were confirmed to be in Hezbollah were killed just a few days prior, is truly sickening. My question to anyone against the military operation and in favor of the Iranian regime would be: Do you think the Ayatollah and the IRGC are celebrating these heinous attacks or condemning them? The answer to that simple question should tell you which side to support. 

To all students who have ever considered this a moment in history to stand against Israel instead of against the ruthless anti-freedom dictatorship of Iran that is responsible for the war against it – please, this is your chance to reconsider.

Student activists who want to oppose oppression must begin by confronting the regime responsible for the region’s violence — Iran.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)